Lucid Motors Finds Out Building An Electric Car Takes Lots Of Money

Lucid Motors is finding out the hard way that building a new electric car cost a lot of money. Short of funds, it has approached Ford about buying the company, but Ford has rebuffed Lucid’s advances, saying it has bigger fish to fry than owning the rights to the only electric car on the horizon that appears able to compete head to head with the Tesla Model S. Is this just another example of the “Not Invented Here” syndrome that has afflicted American car makers since the Coolidge administration?

Some may remember that Tesla — the mighty empire that threatens to topple old school companies left and right — once had a similar moment of angst. That’s when Elon thought of approaching Apple with an offer to buy the company. Things have improved a bit for Tesla since then.

Lucid is turning heads this week with a new video that shows its sedan, the Lucid Air, touching 235 miles per hour on a test track. That makes it one of the fastest production cars on the face of the planet. It has signed a deal for a $700,000,000 factory south of Phoenix, Arizona but has yet to begin construction.

Lucid’s chief technology, officer Peter Rawlinson, who guided the Tesla Model S to production, says, “We don’t have the money in place. That’s why we need to secure Series D. It would be irresponsible to start moving earth or start anything until we have a financial runway to execute that professionally and with absolute integrity.”

Bloomberg reports, “Electric carmaker Lucid Motors Inc. is raising a new round of financing and is also considering an outright sale after holding early-stage takeover talks with Ford Motor Co., according to people familiar with the situation. The Menlo Park, California, based firm has hired Morgan Stanley to help raise more money to pay for further development of its vehicle and a new manufacturing plant in Arizona.”

Industry sources say Lucid reached out to Ford to explore a takeover deal. Lucid reportedly talked to some high-level execs at Ford, but the deal was turned down. Maybe another time, Ford management allegedly said.

Of course, why would Ford, which has nothing resembling a compelling electric car in its portfolio and won’t for a decade or two, be interested in a car that has been fully developed and is ready for production now? Don’t be ridiculous! Not invented here, you know.

Losing Lucid would be a shame for several reasons. For one thing, Elon Musk has been begging other manufacturers to build compelling electric cars for several years now. The Lucid Air appears to be just such a “compelling” competitor.

For a second thing, if Lucid fails, that will give traditional automakers cover for their dastardly plot to appear to be building compelling electric cars while pointing out to anyone who will listen, “See? We told you. Nobody wants electric cars.”

Save a prayer for Lucid.

Source: Inside EVs

Lucid Air High Speed Testing Tops Out At 217 MPH

There is a critical difference between theory and reality. Computer simulations are fine development tools, but there is no substitute for taking a product out in the real world to see what it can do. Lucid recently installed a roll cage in one of its Lucid Air sedans, took it to the 7.5 mile long Transportation Research Center oval track in Michigan, and stomped on the go pedal — hard. When the music stopped, the Lucid Air had recorded a top speed of 217 mph and get this — the car was electronically limited to keep it from going faster. Wow!

On its website, Lucid says the test “was successful in demonstrating the capabilities of the car and in finding areas for improvement that could not be properly evaluated in static bench tests. Real world tests are an important part of the engineering process, allowing the team to correlate computer simulation models with real-world performance. The collected data will now be used to finesse thermal and aero computer simulations and to make further performance improvements that will be tested later this year at higher speeds.”

Lucid says such high speeds are expected from the car’s competitors, which is probably a nod toward certain German companies who build luxury sedans that routinely dominate the Autobahn. “The Lucid Air will compete with the best vehicles in the biggest markets around the world. In at least one of these markets, there is an expectation of high-speed cruising that we intend to satisfy.”

Lucid also says being capable of speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour is not contrary to its green values. “High-speed capability does not compromise our mission to develop a highly efficient vehicle. On the contrary, the focus on maximizing range provides the high power and aerodynamic efficiency that enables higher speeds.” The Lucid Air is expected to achieve an EPA rating of 100 MPGe (similar to the Tesla Model S 100D). Supercars with equivalent top speed performance fare much worse in terms of efficiency. The Ferrari LaFerrari, for instance, is rated at a measly 14 MPGe.

Might there be a marketing strategy at work here? Elon Musk and Tesla have gotten millions of dollars worth of free publicity by making cars that are super quick to 60 mph. But there are cars that are quick and then there are cars that are fast. No Tesla ever made can approach 200 miles per hour. Some people might be attracted to an electric car that is not only quick but also awesomely fast.

They say that successful selling involves the transfer of emotion. Don’t know about you, but that overhead shot of the Lucid Air at speed is pretty damned exciting and makes me think Lucid may actually have a chance at being successful. If so, expect Elon Musk and Tesla to jump head first into the electric car top speed sweepstakes before long.

Source: Autoblog

Launch Edition Of All-Electric Lucid Air Will Cost ~$165,000

The launch edition of the all-electric Lucid Air luxury sedan will cost around $165,000, according to recent reports — quite a premium over the expected ~$100,000 cost of a standard edition of the model.

As a reminder, there will apparently be only 255 of these Launch Edition Lucid Airs manufactured, so probably a good part of what you’re paying for is simply exclusivity.

Other than exclusivity, what will Launch Edition buyers be getting for the ~$65,000 difference? “Distinguishing features” and a well optioned template, apparently. It’s not too clear what that means, but I would guess more luxury and high-tech elements and features.

Launch Edition buyers will of course also be the first to get their cars, sometime in 2019 reportedly, whereas buyers of the regular edition will have to wait a bit longer. In addition to the overall price difference, though, this also comes at the expense of a much higher deposit ($25,500 as compared to $2,500). Somehow, I doubt that those numbers mean much to the sorts of people who spend $150,000 on a car, though.

As a couple of quick endnotes here (for those who missed our earlier coverage): Lucid Motors is now working to build a $700 million manufacturing plant in Arizona, one that is expected to begin production in 2018, and the company has established a supply partnership with Samsung SDIrelating to battery components.

Detroit Electric Gets Nearly $2 Billion In New Investment Money

Once upon a time, there was company that wanted to rip the engine out if a Lotus sports car, stuff it full of batteries and an electric motor, and jump into the deep end of the electric car pool. You can be forgiven if your first thought is, “Tesla Motors.” In this case, though, we are talking about Detroit Electric, a company whose electric car dreams began back in 2008. Frankly, other than announcing the SP-1 Lotus based sports car two years ago, nothing much has happened with the company. Until now.

Detroit Electric just announced a joint venture worth $1.8 billion with Far East Smarter Energy Group, a Chinese electrical and battery company. It says it has plans for two new electric car models in the next two years. The new joint venture company will spend $370 million to ramp up Detroit Electric’s European operations over the next four years. Part of that expansion includes updating and adding to the current facility located in Leamington Spa, England.

The first priority is to get the long delayed SP:01 into production, something they hope to accomplish before the end of this year. Simultaneously, a new R&D and testing facility will get underway. An electric SUV is planned for 2018 with a third vehicle due to come to market in 2020. Detroit Electric hopes to be selling 100,000 cars a year by then.

The plan sounds overly aggressive for a company that has languished by the side of the electric car highway for nearly a decade with nothing to show for its efforts. Elon Musk found out the hard way that thinking about building an automobile is easy; actually producing one is hard. The competition is ramping up. The mainstream manufactures may view electric cars as ugly step-children — something to be tolerated rather than embraced — but Detroit Electric will soon have lots of company.

Faraday Future, Lucid, and NIO all have electric SUVs coming. Tesla is already working on an SUV version of the Model 3. The German car companies all have electric SUVs on their drawing boards. Nonetheless, never underestimate the power of nearly $2 billion. Someone clearly thinks Detroit Electric has a bright future. “We’ll see,” said the Zen Master.

Source: Autoblog

Lucid Air On Display At Private Parties In LA This Weekend

What’s the party everyone wants go to? The one that not everyone is invited to! We all want what we can’t have. Lucid Motors is using that principle to build excitement for two private parties in the Los Angeles area this weekend. The first will be on Saturday at a well known museum in the city where guests will be able to test drive a Lucid Air sedan themselves and chat up muckety mucks from the factory, including members of the design team. The second will take place on Sunday up the coast at a private estate in trendy Newport Beach.

Compared to Faraday Future, another putative Tesla electric car rival, Lucid — formerly known as Atieva — has been keeping a low profile since it was founded in 2007. It has no factory, although one is supposedly going to be built outside of Phoenix, Arizona in the near future. One of its cars was spotted recently driving in San Francisco and the company said last week it is now accepting refundable deposits for the car. The deposits come in two flavors. The plain vanilla option costs $2,500. The Tutti Frutti choice is $25,500 dollars to reserve a “Launch Edition.” Lucid says only 255 of those cars will be built. There goes that “not everyone can have one” vibe again.

The car itself has a certain Wow! factor about it. It features three electric motors — one for the front wheels and two in the rear — with advanced computer controls that allow “torque vectoring.” (See video below.) That’s a fancy way of saying that torque can be fed instantaneously to whichever wheels need it most, something even the mighty Teslas cannot claim to do. All told, the three motors have 1,000 horsepower on tap and a 130 kWh battery has enough capacity to propel the car down the road 400 miles before it needs recharging.

Lucid claims its luxury sedan can scoot to 60 mph in 2. 4 seconds. That may be what prompted Tesla to develop its new Easter egg for the Model S P100D with Ludicrous Mode. That car does the 60 mile per hour dash in 2.34 seconds. Motor Trend just tested one that did it in 2.275 seconds using a NHRA style one foot rollout format. There used to be a time when 0 – 60 times were given in whole numbers. Not today. When you are laying out 150 large or more for a car, hundredths of a second give the owner bragging rights. If bragging is important to you, be prepared to open up your wallet — wide.

The Lucid Air is small on the outside, big on the inside. Chief technology officer Peter Rawlinson, who played a large role in getting the Tesla Model S into production, says that new battery packaging techniques allow the car to have the same interior room as its larger rivals. He promises that riding in the car will be like being in “an executive jet,” Having never ridden in one of those, I will have to take his word for it. Pricing for the car has not been announced but it won’t be the electric car for mainstream drivers we have all been hoping for.

Will the Lucid Air ever see production? That’s the question everyone would like an answer to.

Source: Teslarati

Lucid Air With 400 Mile Range Revealed In California

Months after Lucid Motors began teasing its first production car, the Lucid Air was revealed for all the world to see at an event in San Francisco on December 14. Like the Tesla Model S it hopes to compete with, the Lucid Air is a fully featured sedan built from the ground up to be an electric car. It reportedly has a 100 kWh battery and a range of more than 300 miles. An optional 135 kWh battery will be good for 400 miles of driving, according to the company.

Lucid chief engineer Peter Rawlinson, who was personally involved in designing the Model S when he worked at Tesla, says the car has 1,000 horsepower from two electric motors and will accelerate to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds. He also claims that the interior will have generous room for passengers, particularly in the rear, and will feel like “an executive jet.” Prices have not been released, but expect the Lucid Air to be priced similarly to the Model S.

The Lucid Air is said to be ready for autonomous driving thanks to a suite of sensors consisting of long and short range radar units, cameras, and Lidar. Many of its features can be operated via smartphone apps and the company says it will well suited to ride hailing or ride sharing use, although why the owner of a $100,000+ automobile would be anxious to immediately fill it with strangers and operate it like a private taxi remains unclear.

Lucid says it will begin producing cars in 2018 at a new factory it intends to build in Casa Grande, Arizona. Since the factory deal was just announced earlier this month, it seems foolishly optimistic to think a brand new factory is going to be constructed and start churning out cars in under 2 years time, but time will tell.

Lucid Motors claims the Air will be a sports car, a commuter car, a connected car, and a ride hailing car. In other words, it will be all things to all people. Perhaps, but as we reported recently, it is significantly smaller on the outside than the cars it expects to compete against, particularly the Tesla Model S, Mercedes S Class, Audi A8, and BMW 7 Series. People buy on emotion. Are people willing to plunk down $100,000 or more going to get emotional about a car that looks small compared to all the other cars in the lot at the country club? “We’ll see,” said the Zen master.

Source: CNET, Endgadget   Photo credit: Lucid Motors

Lucid (nee Atieva) to build luxury electric cars in Arizona factory

Teaser for Lucid electric car

Lucid Motors has become the latest startup automaker proposing to build electric cars in the U.S.

The company—formerly known as Atieva—says it plans to break ground next year on a new factory in Casa Grande, Arizona.

Lucid will begin production of its first electric car by 2018, it said in a statement, and expects to employ more than 2,000 people at the factory by 2022.

The ambitious timeline can't help but bring to mind another new automaker—Faraday Future.

Faraday too said it plans to put an electric car into production within two years, and earlier this year it broke ground on its own factory in North Las Vegas, Nevada.

While Faraday still apparently plans to unveil its first production model at CES in January, work on the factory has stopped, seemingly due to unpaid bills.

Teaser for Lucid electric car

Faraday received a generous package of incentives from the state of Nevada to locate its factory there, but Lucid so far hasn't discussed any incentives offered by Arizona.

It said the site-selection process began over a year ago, and that more than 60 potential sites in 13 states were considered.

Casa Grande was chosen for its "pro-business mindset," available workforce, nearby academic institutions, the company's release said, as well as its proximity to Lucid's Silicon Valley headquarters and suppliers.

The factory is to be overseen by Lucid director of manufacturing Brian Barron, an 18-year veteran of BMW.

The electric car to be built there is expected to be a fast luxury sedan that competes with the Tesla Model S, which has been in production since 2012 and is regularly updated.

Thought to be called Atvus, the Lucid car will reportedly be a mid-size luxury sedan close to the BMW 5-Series in size.

Teaser for Lucid electric car

It is expected to use a dual-motor powertrain, supposedly producing as much as 900 horsepower.

Lucid has demonstrated this powertrain hardware in "Edna," a Mercedes-Benz Metris van converted into a test vehicle.

In videos that circulated over the summer, Edna dispatches a Model S, a Ferrari California T, and other high-end performance cars in drag races.

In an interview last month, Lucid CTO Peter Rawlinson mentioned a top speed of more than 200 mph, a range of at least 300 miles—and possibly as high as 400 miles in some versions.

Teaser for Lucid electric car

Lucid (then Atieva) was founded in 2007 by a former Tesla vice president and the founder of a networking company.

It started out developing monitoring and control software for battery packs used in electric vehicles to be produced by other companies.

Insiders suggest, however, that the company's founders always had a long-term goal of building its own vehicles.

Atieva eventually decided to build its own electric cars, and secured investments for that purpose from Chinese automaker BAIC (Beijing Automotive Industry Corp.).

It then received additional funds from Jia Yueting, billionaire and founder of Chinese tech giant LeEco.

Jia is also one of the main backers of the troubled Faraday Future.

That Was Then, This Is Now. Atieva Changes Name To Lucid Motors

How quickly things change in the car business. Just last week, the people at RECODE revealed a sketch discovered during a public records search of what may be the upcoming Atieva Atvus sedan. Over the past 7 days, Atieva has changed its name to Lucid Motors and released teaser photos of a vehicle that may or may not be the Atvus. The name on the steering world could say LUCID, but you would need to check with an ophthalmologist to be sure.

Details are few. The company says the sedan will have an 87 kWh battery, 900 horsepower, and a 0 to 60 time of under 3 seconds. Its website extols the car’s  “long range driving and exhilarating acceleration.” Earlier this year, Atieva posted videos of Mercedes cargo van supposedly reinvigorated with the production drivetrain dusting off a Tesla Model S and a Ferrari in a drag race. Of course, that was before Tesla unleashed its all conquering P100D with Ludicrous — the world’s fastest production electric car.

(Yes, we know the Rimac Concept One is a tick faster, but with only two in existence, that hardly qualifies as a “production car, does it?)

Ownership of the company, whether it is called Atieva or Lucid, is murky. Apparently, its principal investor is Jia Yueting, the Chinese billionaire who is also the force behind LeEco, a Chinese electric car start-up that says it will offer the LeSEE electric sedan in the Chinese market soon. A concept version of that car has been making the show circuit since last April and was on display in San Franciscorecently.

Lucid has reportedly received funding from Japan’s Mitsui as well as China’s Beijing Auto. The company is planning to build a factory that will make 20,000 vehicles during its first year of production and work its way up to 130,000 vehicles a year. Lucid is headed by chief technology officer Peter Rawlinson, the former Tesla vice president who was key in developing the Model S electric sedan. The Menlo Park, California based company also includes vice president of design Derek Jenkins who previously worked with Mazda.

Lucid says it will unveil a production prototype of the sedan before the end of 2016 and plans to start production in 2018. Since it doesn’t even have a factory yet, that claim is hard to believe.

Here are two more photos from Lucid. One looks suspiciously like the grille of a Chevy Camaro from a few years back and the other resembles the back window of a Studebaker Avanti. Derek Jenkins may have been a whiz kid at Mazda, but the Atvus, if that it is really what it’s called, looks decidedly dated and more than a little bland.

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Source: AutoBlog