#LucidMotors

The Lucid Air is one of the most impressive and expensive EVs on sale today. Its range and acceleration are the stuff of legend, but its price tag means that only the most privileged buyers can get behind the wheel. However, while it’s still quite pricey, the car just got significantly more affordable, and the automaker is offering credits for charging equipment.

Though it has earned near-universal praise for its debut sedan, the Air, Lucid is having trouble finding traction with the ultra-expensive EV. Earlier this week, the automaker announced a restructuring effort that involves almost a fifth of its workforce. After a disappointing 2023 production forecast, Lucid is looking to cut costs as uncertain economic times are ahead.

It's possible to spend a quarter-million dollars on a new Lucid Air Sapphire Edition, and even the “normal” Grand Touring trim starts at $154,000. Since almost nobody can afford an EV that costs five times the median income in this country, Lucid decided to come up with an “affordable” version of the Air. Called the Pure, the new entry-level trim starts at a still-expensive $87,400 before options, taxes, and destination. Lucid will introduce the car at an online event on November 15, prior to the Los Angeles auto show.

Lucid Group Inc. has been subpoenaed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which is on the prowl for any documentation relating to its merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Known colloquially as “blank-check firms,” these organizations literally exist to be combined with existing companies as a way to pump the stock and spur investments.

But they’ve gotten a lot of negative attention following a glut of EV startups garnering impressively high valuations based on little more than a business proposal. Those seeking an example need look no further than Nikola Corp, which was outed as having grossly overpromised on its technological capabilities and production acumen after raking it in on the stock market. As a result, financial regulators have become increasingly skeptical of SPACs and want to make sure everything going on with Lucid is above board.

Production of the 2022 Lucid Air started this week, adding another automaker to the North American roster. The manufacturer held an event on September 28th, inviting Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, relevant executives, big-time investors, select media outlets, and customers who dropped $170,000 to purchase the limited Dream Edition of the electric vehicle.

While often framed as a Tesla ripoff, Lucid Motors has been setting its sights so high that it hardly feels like a fair assessment. Because the Air is offering one of the most impressive all-electric spec sheets in the industry right now and should probably worry the competition.

Minus an unpleasant amount of virtue signaling, the Lucid Air debut was pretty good. But this is technically a commercial so what else could we have possibly expected? Lucid is an electric vehicle brand so it’s required by law to succumb to the growing list of EV clichés. Building this car the way Lucid does won’t just be better for the environment, “it will be better for all mankind.” We need to rally together because the world is ending. This startup is changing by building an extravagant automobile — that was the gist of the presentation anyway.

“We’re a California company,” explained the car’s interior designer. The Golden State was apparently so important that the interior color palates are based entirely on the way the sun plays off California’s various regions at different times of the day. They even held the event on the state’s birthday and made sure to mention it.

You get the idea. It started out a complete drag. And yet the car itself was quite interesting and the technical portions of the presentation excelled at explaining why someone might actually want this car over literally everything else that’s on the market right now.

On Wednesday, Lucid Motors announced plans to open 20 retail locations and service centers across North America by the end of 2021. They’ll be called “Lucid Studios,” helping the company herald in what it considers “new standards for sustainable transportation” via the sale of luxury vehicles.

You know as well as we do that this type of language is customary among EV startups trying to sell you on the concept of shopping your way into a healthier environment. Yet the strategy appears to be working. Electric vehicle firms seem to enjoy nothing but victory on this continent right now — even if they seem to be dying off in places like China — and are poised to make big moves over the next few years.

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.

First came the renderings, then the concept car, then the money, then the factory, then the braintrust. Now, Lucid Motors has a supplier to power it all.

On Monday the Silicon Valley electric vehicle startup, which hopes to shake up the premium EV market with its plush and powerful Air sedan, announced a partnership with a trustworthy battery maker.

A substantial car with a name that implies nothingness will soon have a home.

Lucid Motors, which positioned its vastly powerful Air sedan near the front doors of the 2017 New York International Auto Show, has broken ground on an assembly plant in Casa Grande, Arizona. With suppliers lined up and braintrust in place, all Lucid lacked was a plant — and, for a considerable time, the cash to pull it all off.

Thank the Saudis for riding to the rescue with a check.

The Saudi Arabian investment fund Tesla CEO Elon Musk hoped to tap has instead showered all over Silicon Valley startup Lucid Motors. On Monday, the California automaker announced a $1 billion deal with Saudi Arabia, with the investment going towards the final stages of development, and production, of the Air — an upscale electric five-door expected to come to market in 2020.

The cash should cover the construction of an Arizona production facility the fledgling automaker couldn’t afford to build. Suffice it to say, the domestic, independent car scene just became a little more interesting.

It’s not a done deal just yet, but a high-tech Tesla rival, headquartered just a few miles away from Elon Musk’s Palo Alto, California base of operations, might receive the Saudi funding the Tesla CEO so desperately craves.

According to sources who spoke to Reuters, PIF, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, is ready to pour $1 billion into Newark, California-based Lucid Motors. The two entities have reportedly drawn up a term sheet for the deal, which would see the the Saudis become a majority owner of the private automaker.

What does Lucid have to offer the Saudis in return for the investment? A large, technologically advanced automobile.

It’s the dream of every startup to bring forth an exciting idea and then allow itself to be purchased by a much larger and less imaginative company to ensure the concept never reaches fruition. Lucid Motors, one of the few automotive startups attempting to temper hype with reasonable expectations, is approaching that dream as rumors of its attempt to sell itself to a larger automaker begin to proliferate.

While most of the talk surrounding the potential sale of the company is just that, Lucid has been desperately seeking funding for the production of its electric car in Arizona. Unnamed inside sources claim the company reached out to Ford Motor Company and even held preliminary takeover talks.

Lucid Motors’ production EV turned out to be a much more reasonable entry than anyone expected. The media buzz was that LM’s Air would be a super-sedan offering up to 1,000 horsepower and a 400 mile range — a real Tesla killer. With a 1,000 horses and instantaneous torque, it would actually shame just about everything else on the road, regardless of how it was powered. However, as is so often the case with EV startups, the reality is significantly more nuanced than the hype.

That doesn’t mean Lucid can’t be a massive thorn in Tesla’s side, though. Looking over the freshly released details of the Air reveals a highly competitive base model (on paper) and, since this is the base model, there remains room for that ludicrously powerful and extravagantly priced car we were promised.

In the interim, consumers will just have to be satisfied with a much more affordable unit, but it still outdoes the base model Tesla in terms of power, range, and price.

One of the first things you notice in the silence of an electric car is how prevalent wind and tire noise can be without an internal combustion engine to breakup the aural monotony. While no one has ever slipped into madness due to an overabundance of road noise, rubber grinding against concrete at seventy-five miles an hour isn’t the most pleasant sound in the world, either.

Lucid Motors promised that its upcoming Air EV would possess an audio system equipped with active noise cancellation to ensure that its interior remains a silent space. However, we are only just now discovering how seriously they took that promise.