Lucid “Dream” comes true: First deliveries of Tesla competitor now days away
The Lucid “Dream” comes true, with American EV startup Lucid at last just days away from its first vehicle deliveries, with a number of its $225K Lucid Air Dream Editions to be handed over to customers this Saturday, local time.
The company is producing a total 520 Dream Editions, and the fact they’re finally ready is a big deal, with Lucid inviting its first customers to its Californian HQ for a drive day event hosted by the firm’s big brass.
Lucid vehicles are produced at an Arizona production facility, and post the Dream Editions, the factory will tool up for the rest of the Air range, stating with the Grand Touring, before the cheaper Touring and Pure variants come online next year. So far, Lucid reports more than 13,000 reservations for the car have been made.
And that is just the beginning, with company CEO Peter Rawlinson (the chief engineer of the Tesla Model S) promising that the “mass-produceable” nature of Lucid’s technology will see it filter down to other smaller, cheaper models – including a likely rival to the Tesla Model 3 and Volkswagen ID.3.
“The luxury and comfort, incredible performance, unrivalled range – it’s out of this world,” he says. “And we’ll be able to cascade this technology down through different price ranges.”
At the centre of the Lucid’s sales pitch is its truly impressive range, with the brand’s top brass promising its US customers that long road trips (from NYC to Washington DC, or Silicon Valley to LA) are achievable in the Air, with Rawlinson confirming the brand had developed in-house battery technology that is 15 per cent more efficient than its closest rival.
The Air’s biggest battery pack is a 113kWh unit, and employs the same 2170-format cylindrical cells as the Tesla Model 3 and Y, sourced from LG Chem. But the range is more impressive because of what Lucid says is class-leading efficiency.
“If there’s one key metric for the prowess of an EV company, surely it would range,” Rawlinson says. “And I’m delighted that the Lucid Air has been independently validated at achieving over 500 miles in range.
“But anyone can go and stuff a huge battery in an electric car and get a huge range. That’s dumb range. What we want to do is create smart range. We’ve done it with a significantly smaller battery pack, and are over 15 percent net more efficient than our nearest competitor.
“I like to think of is as goodbye range anxiety, and hello range confidence.”
Lucid is claiming another breakthrough in the thermal technology of its vehicles, promising the Lucid Air will “take 300kW of fast charge, over 900 volts, no-one else has that. It’s groundbreaking.”
The Air will also accrue almost 500km in range in just 20 minutes when plugged into a DC fast charger.
