teslasuperfan
Member
I stayed on the sidelines, but no one stepped up to point out the obvious differences. It has already been mentioned that Tesla has a track record of building and selling EVs in significant volume.
What hasn't been mentioned is that Tesla already has the factory for both the car and the batteries. Tesla has already been building Model 3 beta/release candidates using their assembly line and is on track to release the car this year.
On the other hand, Lucid just selected their site for the $700 million factory late November last year, and as of February have not started factory construction yet, although they say they plan to this year (a quick google didn't find a factory construction announcement so I presume work has not started yet).
How Casa Grande secured the Lucid Motors manufacturing facility | AZ Big Media
In terms of funding, I haven't followed them closely, but from an interview with their CTO in February:
"Once Lucid's Series D funding round closes in the second quarter, Rawlinson says a portion of that money will go toward jump-starting the company's factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, and moving the Air to beta-stage development."
We took a 1,000-horsepower electric luxury sedan for a spin on the streets of Silicon Valley
So they don't have the money already yet to start the factory nor for beta development until the second quarter.
On the other hand, Tesla just closed a funding round so they have the money already to get Model 3 to production.
I completely agree with you but it is also not correct to call Lucid vapoware when they have several alpha and show cars running around.