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Are your ready for Air?
It’s been a long time coming, but funding and an actual assembly plant have a way of making things happen. And such is the case at Lucid Motors, which plans to reveal its production Air sedan on September 9th.
Pricing and specs will be in tow when Lucid stages its digital debut, fulfilling a promise made to eco-conscious car buyers back in early 2017.
A car for the masses it is not, but the Air does have other things going for it. Mainly, an attractive body, a range of battery capacities, and output topping out at 1,000 horsepower. Lucid claims a fleet of prototypes remains on the road for beta testing purposes, while construction continues apace at its Case Grande, Arizona assembly plant.
Headquartered in — where else? — Silicon Valley, Lucid Motors aims to provide Americans with zero-emission luxury. Let other automakers handle the lower end of things.
The Air first greeted the public at the 2017 New York International Auto Show, with the company promising a base, rear-drive, single-motor Air with 240 miles of range and 400 horsepower for a price of $60,000. A 1,000-horsepower, 400-mile AWD version caps the vehicle’s range. Since then, it’s been a long slog.
Things really got underway after Lucid secured $1 billion in funding from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. That cash allowed Lucid to move forward with plant assembly in Arizona; earlier this year, the automaker announced a partnership with battery maker LG Chem. While production was slated to get underway by the end of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic may have pushed that timeline back. Lucid isn’t saying.
In announcing the Sept. 9 debut, Lucid said its “productivity has continued undiminished.”
“We have, in fact, welcomed over 160 new Lucid team members in the last 90 days alone,” the automaker said. “And we are in the midst of a phased return to our Silicon Valley headquarters in accordance with local and state guidelines, along with our own strict protocols designed to protect the health and safety of all Lucid employees.”
[Images: Lucid Motors]
Watch out, Elon, an EV that looks like a Buick is coming to eat your lunch
Just curious, I’m far from a Tesla apologizer, but why is every up-and-coming EV maker coming to eat Tesla’s lunch? What precludes any of these Chinese startups from any of the pitfalls (Musk’s theatrics aside) Tesla has stumbled through over the years? To date, not a single EV has been sold from any of them, be it Lucid, Lync, etc. The name escapes me, but the other EV start up that raised several billion even had a facility in progress in Nevada, too. It’ll be 5-10 years before any of these companies matter to Tesla, given Tesla hasn’t shot itself in the foot one too many times and one of these other companies can actually get off the ground.
I’m not necessarily going after you specifically, but the “b and b” tend to either be all-for or all-against Tesla. I fall somewhere in the middle, so I’m just curious.
It’s fun getting big grants and funding from far away Prince’s! You can spend it like crazy, take big salaries and bonuses then declare BK as you run out of other people money. (Re; check WeWork and SoftBanks other losers).
It’s even more believable if you throw up a Buick with your logo on it!
It’s fun getting big grants and funding from far away Prince’s! You can spend it like crazy, take big salaries and bonuses then declare BK as you run out of other people money. (Re; check WeWork and SoftBanks other losers).
It’s even more believable if you throw up a picture of a Buick with your logo on it!
They’ve produced some impressive videos of high speed track tests with the Air:
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aRbhWk99Xk”
Beautiful car, inside and out – but a long way to go toward viability. I wish them well.
Peak EV is not in the past, and not in the present, it’s in the future – gonna see some amazing stuff.
These things are rare for a good reason. They were underpowered to the point they couldn’t get out of their own way. I can’t see a connection to the RX-7. It had a rotary engine while the 626 had an inline four.
Are they gonna copy production hell, logistics hell, paint shop hell, delivery hell, warranty hell, and rusty quarter panel hell too?
They’ll probably go through those hells plus a few more like charging infrastructure hell. But, hopefully they won’t take up residence in quality hell like Tesla seems to have done. Tesla needs to get a grip on the assembly and paint issues.
Given how hard it is to get a new car company off the ground, I guess they’ll suffer through some stuff.
But I suspect Rivian is in for more pain than most, with very high expectations from Ford, Amazon, investors, and individual customers, while having never built a single vehicle.
BTW, here is the filing for the Tesla Austin Plant:
https://assets.comptroller.texas.gov/ch313/1496/1496-del-colorado-app.pdf
It’s close to the airport. Just northeast of it.
Good find, and that looks like a done deal.
They’re not fooling around.
So it is mostly people from Mazda and Tesla. What China has to do with that? Their HQ is like 20 miles from my home in Newark, CA. I wish I could work there.
I am convinced that all current car designers grew up playing with Hot Wheels cars! Every new design seems to have outrageously sized wheels and tires stuffed under a chopped top looking body that doesn’t seem to fit them!
It’s a nice looking thing, and I’m sure it will be lovely to drive. But the market has moved on. Tesla hardly bothers trying to sell the Model S anymore. To put it in Mercedes-Benz terms, you can only sell so many cars to the S-class crowd. Way, way more buyers in the E and C class crowds.