Blog Lucid Motors to Debut Luxury EV Priced $169K

Lucid Motors will plans to offer four versions of its all-electric luxury sedan ranging in price from under $80,000 up to $169,000, according to reports.

Bloomberg says a high-end variant of the Air called the Dream will cost $169,000, a Grand Touring variant will be priced in the low $130,000s after federal tax credits, and a Touring model will be priced at $100,000.

TechCrunch reported that Lucid will release a cheaper base model priced under $80,000.

Lucid Motors has promised that its performance and technology will be competitive with Tesla. In terms of range, the Air has an estimated U.S. EPA range of 517 miles compared to about 400 miles for the Tesla Model S. Lucid has also touted impressive acceleration, traveling the quarter-mile in just 9.9-seconds. 

The production version of the Lucid Air is scheduled to debut at 4 p.m. PT today via livestream.  

 

[Brando]

900 volt charging
service
sales (internet direct, right?)
test drives
design (looks) seems a winner
factory

Can they pull it off ?? we shall see.

seems a lot of bragging - I'm not so sure of.

 

[Mr X]

Elon must be dying to reveal Plaid S specs after this lol but gotta wait till battery day


Good for Lucid. Small high end niche market they are aimed at with their car but it's a start. I hope this gets more gas guzzlers off the road.

 

[tonybelding]

I’m more confident that Lucid can make the best EVs than I am they can compete with Tesla the looming conglomerate.

Tesla will be fine. I’m a bit more interested in what this means for the Cadillac Celestiq and the Mercedes EQS. Will they be hopelessly uncompetitive before they even start production?

 

[tonybelding]

Headlines from Google News…

• CNBC: Electric vehicle start-up Lucid unveils Air sedan to take on Tesla
• Tesla rival Lucid Motors unveils 'Air' electric sedan with 500-mile range
• Roadshow: 2021 Lucid Air takes on Tesla with 517-mile range
• TopSpeed: 2021 Lucid Air - Tesla's Biggest Rival Priced Under $80000
• USA TODAY: Lucid Motors reveals Lucid Air luxury electric car with 517-mile range aimed at Tesla

And with tongue in cheek, The Fast Lane Car gave us a clickbait video titled: The 2021 Lucid Air Is Going To Kick Tesla's Butt — No, You're Wrong! Just to show how seriously they take this production, they included a large banner at the top of the title screen reading: TESLA KILLER?

 

[BlindPass]

Tesla will be fine. I’m a bit more interested in what this means for the Cadillac Celestiq and the Mercedes EQS. Will they be hopelessly uncompetitive before they even start production?

Of course they’ll be fine. The question was whether Lucid will be. I think so, at least as an EV company.


I don’t think it means too much in the near-term for the Cadillac Celestiq and the Mercedes EQS. EVs from legacy manufacturers are still effectively R&D and regulatory units until the EV market expands. And they’ll be priced significantly lower than the 2021 Lucid products.

 

[scubastevo80]

I watched the reveal yesterday and am happy to see another electric car company pushing the limits of electrification. That said, I thought the presenters were over the top in terms of stating they're the best at everything, but I guess that's akin to luxury car reveals. I'm most excited about the interior and V2G capabilities, and less about their ability to deliver a $50k car to compete with the model 3. Certainly looking forward to seeing actual cars on the road and independent tests being performed.

 

[airborne spoon]

Cool car but how's the charging network? If you have to charge off those electrify america things or something its gonna suck to take a trip because those are few and far between.
One of the main selling points for me with Tesla besides the speed and power was the supercharging network, they have chargers everywhere and i am never concerned with where i am gonna get some power and i drove across the USA 3 days after i bought my car and charging was a non-issue.

 

[ohmman]

Cool car but how's the charging network? If you have to charge off those electrify america things or something its gonna suck to take a trip because those are few and far between.
One of the main selling points for me with Tesla besides the speed and power was the supercharging network, they have chargers everywhere and i am never concerned with where i am gonna get some power and i drove across the USA 3 days after i bought my car and charging was a non-issue.

The CCS network isn't that bad, especially out west. Check out Plugshare. For many places I go, they actually have more locations than the Supercharger network, but fewer stalls at each location. And of course, they'll be shared by multiple manufacturers, so we'll see how congestion and scaling goes. But it's not as bad as it's made out to be.

 

[uujjj2]

I took the Tesla factory tour way back in 2015, when an average Tesla cost over $100k. The tour guide really emphasized that Tesla is not a luxury company. Tesla is all about the mass market, and building luxury cars is just a temporary thing to get the company going. Once the mass market products really get going, luxury cars would be just a side business for Tesla.

Whether Tesla 2030 is like Ford, which has all but abandoned the luxury segment, or like VW, which still has a pretty big luxury business, remains to be seen.

Lucid claims to be a luxury Tesla. I can imagine in 2030 where Tesla is like a VW, shipping 10M cars a year with 80% of that volume being mass market products, and Lucid is like a BMW, shipping 1M cars that are all premium and above.

 

[SSonnentag]

The CCS network isn't that bad, especially out west. Check out Plugshare. For many places I go, they actually have more locations than the Supercharger network, but fewer stalls at each location. And of course, they'll be shared by multiple manufacturers, so we'll see how congestion and scaling goes. But it's not as bad as it's made out to be.

From my experience attempting to use CCS in CA and AZ, roughly 1/2 of the stations are non-functional. There are many sites with only 2 stations and often both are down.

 

[ohmman]

From my experience attempting to use CCS in CA and AZ, roughly 1/2 of the stations are non-functional. There are many sites with only 2 stations and often both are down.

@MXLRplus has posted more success than you've had, so network stability is definitely an important thing for them to work on. I have used a bunch of their CHAdeMO stations in my road trips through the West and Canada and have had good success as well.

 

[SSonnentag]

I hope the charging infrastructure continues to grow to the point that EVs aren't stranded when a site is down. Hopefully the reliability of sites will improve over time as well. I can't think of too many times with my ICE vehicle (when I had one) that I failed to get gas at one location and had to go in search of another. The few times it did happen were due to credit card reader issues or just a busy site. Occasional a pump is out of order, but not an entire station.

 

[SSonnentag]

Standardized connectors would be nice too. Can you imagine gas stations utilizing 3-4 different nozzles, only one type of which fits in your fill spout?

 

[BlindPass]

I hope the charging infrastructure continues to grow to the point that EVs aren't stranded when a site is down. Hopefully the reliability of sites will improve over time as well. I can't think of too many times with my ICE vehicle (when I had one) that I failed to get gas at one location and had to go in search of another. The few times it did happen were due to credit card reader issues or just a busy site. Occasional a pump is out of order, but not an entire station.

I’ve hoped for utilities to get into the charging space, both DC and home, particularly those within wholesale power market organizations. The transmission, distribution, power price gradients and arbitrage is their domain. They also have the regulatory environment to set and apply the analogous “gas tax”. They should exploit the externalities of “controlling” storage, but I know innovative isn’t exactly in their DNA.

Instead EV/energy storage manufacturers have rightfully taken it on so they can sell cars now. As a Tesla bull, I see this representing an existential threat to utilities once V2G is mainstream, but I guess they can always fall back on regulators for protection and bailouts.

 

[SSonnentag]

I’ve hoped for utilities to get into the charging space, both DC and home, particularly those within wholesale power market organizations. The transmission, distribution, power price gradients and arbitrage is their domain. They also have the regulatory environment to set and apply the analogous “gas tax”. They should exploit the externalities of “controlling” storage, but I know innovative isn’t exactly in their DNA.

Instead EV/energy storage manufacturers have rightfully taken it on so they can sell cars now. As a Tesla bull, I see this representing an existential threat to utilities once V2G is mainstream, but I guess they can always fall back on regulators for protection and bailouts.

Good point. I wonder if the utility regulations, of which I hear there are many, would allow them to roll out their own EV charging infrastructure. It certainly would make sense for them to do it as they own the infrastructure and could do it cheaper than third parties can. Interesting thought.

 

[BlindPass]

Good point. I wonder if the utility regulations, of which I hear there are many, would allow them to roll out their own EV charging infrastructure. It certainly would make sense for them to do it as they own the infrastructure and could do it cheaper than third parties can. Interesting thought.

Yes, so many regulations. Good question, perhaps a middleman is needed. But From my understanding, the grid operators could benefit from the aggregated storage control of EVs would represent (assuming V2G).

Tesla is so far ahead- they have interest in blockchain/FinTech and they already have the Big Data/IoT capabilities. Maybe they’ll just be their own utility selling power and load to the utilities. EVs to Tesla should be what search engines are to Google/alphabet.

Lucid has a long ways to go in the overall ecosystem, but I think they’ll make great EV.

 

[Magellan55]

I hope this gets more gas guzzlers off the road.

My guess is most of their initial customers will be current Tesla owners looking for something different since the S hasn't changed much. I don't see much here to sway ICE owners that haven't been swayed by Tesla already (or even some of the other EV's now like Taycan, eTron, i-Pace, etc). The interior is nicer, but still too radical for traditional buyers.

 

[SSonnentag]

Is V2G useful currently or do the utility companies have to "allow" them to be connected through whatever process they eventually dream up? Wondering if it would be simply treated, permitted and inspected for compliance as any other battery/generator system is currently.\

I like the V2G idea, but I'm not completely sold on its usefulness as it would only work if I happened to be home (thinking mainly about power outages). My V2G capability does my refrigerators and freezers no good if my car is parked at work when the grid goes down.

For example, during August 2020, our home power was out for 7 hours during 3 events. I wasn't home during any of them, but the Powerwalls kept everything running without even letting a clock start blinking.

 

[theothertom]

Cool car but how's the charging network? If you have to charge off those electrify america things or something its gonna suck to take a trip because those are few and far between.
One of the main selling points for me with Tesla besides the speed and power was the supercharging network, they have chargers everywhere and i am never concerned with where i am gonna get some power and i drove across the USA 3 days after i bought my car and charging was a non-issue.

Electrify America chargers are not few and far between. Just look at Plugshare. BUT, Tesla's network is more reliable and easier to use.

 

[TigerNinety]

My guess is most of their initial customers will be current Tesla owners looking for something different since the S hasn't changed much. I don't see much here to sway ICE owners that haven't been swayed by Tesla already (or even some of the other EV's now like Taycan, eTron, i-Pace, etc). The interior is nicer, but still too radical for traditional buyers.

I think this is a great point, but I think it points more to Tesla's opportunity rather than Tesla's vulnerability. Tesla has monetized so many of the costs of the car, and the "luxury" element of the Model S has been neglected for a long time.

But I feel like it's the low-hanging fruit of the Model S equation. It would be incredibly easy for Tesla to offer a "luxury" edition of the Model S with (even more) premium interior materials, replacing even more plastic surfaces with leather or other premium materials, upgrading other interior components, for a LOT less than the delta to the cost of the Lucid.

Sure, there's a battery and charging component to this. But it's been at least four years since Tesla upgraded the interior of the Model S in a meaningful way, so the company is overdue. (And, again, setting aside any performance or charging or autopilot or similar issues.)