So Peter, is Lucid building the next 400 billion dollar company right now?
Wouldn’t that be wonderful.
American Automotive company Lucid Motors unveiled the first prototype of the Lucid Air in 2016.
Claimed to be the most efficient luxury car in the world with a range of 517 mi (832 km), the elegant
and futuristic Lucid is an intriguing entrant to the hotly contested electric vehicle market.
A proprietary patent powerhouse,
Lucid’s technology is on the leading edge of performance for electrified vehicles.
Despite the ethereal name, Lucid has moved a lot of money, atoms, and current in the real world.
The business has received over 1 billion dollars of funding.
Lucid is building a 380,000 unit per year production facility in Casa Grande, Arizona.
And the car is powered by a 113 kwh battery pack with a 900 volt architecture.
The electric motor, inverter, transmission, and differential are all housed in one miniaturized
electric drive unit that weighs just 163 pounds and packs over 650 horsepower.
The cars I’ve seen are solid, but what makes Lucid ready for a seat at the top table?
Now 10 years ago I was chief engineer on Tesla model S I was VP of engineering at
Tesla and i was responsible for the vehicle which we know as Model S.
I really applaud what tesla's done it's fantastic it's a profound benefit for mankind.
But what i passionately believe is that this is a technology race. Tesla is in its pre-ascendant
position because it's recognized that electrification is a technology race,
and i just think that a lot of the incumbent automakers don't really understand that.
Despite Starship sized EV market caps,
Lucid’s engineering organization stays focused on the technology.
Lucid understands their first production car needs to be a technical tour de force.
The luxury sedan claims to be 40% more efficient than any other electric car on the road. In fact
the Lucid Air travels 17% further than a Tesla model S long range for the same size battery pack.
Detractors think the stats are just too good to be true for a nascent car company.
Let’s take a look at the innovative technology
Lucid Motors is putting in their cars and form our own conclusions.
Efficiency is the holy grail for electric vehicles, and the North Star for Lucid Motors.
Lucid is primarily focused on achieving more range for the same size battery.
Lucid’s benchmark is miles per kilowatt hour, and the Lucid air achieves roughly
4.6 miles of travel for every kilowatt hour of energy stored in its battery.
By comparison the 2020 Tesla Model S long range only achieves about 4 miles per kilowatt hour.
The Lucid Air’s 113 kwh battery pack contains industry standard lithium ion cells,
but Lucid has integrated advanced cooling systems,
and a proprietary cell architecture which reduces internal pack impedance.
Lucid is not new to the battery game,
Originally founded under the Name Atieva in 2007, the company designed, manufactured,
and supplied batteries and powertrains for other EV’s before they launched the Air. They actually
did the battery packs for all the cars in the Formula E racing series for several years.
It’s true to say that the battery pack that we have here in lucid air is the close
DNA cousin of that racing battery pack. The end cooling, the turbulated
cooling plates, the way that the honeycomb the 60 degree honeycomb of the cells is ultra compact
with the end cooling, the electrical connection system heavily patented by us which we've
innovated through that formula directly applies to the car
and i'm particularly pleased that we've got a super low resistance to the battery pack.
Peter says the Ultimate test of a battery pack is fast charging. Using a 900 volt charger with
peak charging rates over 300kw, the Lucid Air is capable of charging at up to 20 miles per minute,
or 300 miles of charge in just 20 min. Lucid’s multifunctional two way boost
charger the Wunderbox, is uniquely capable of vehicle to grid, or vehicle to vehicle charging,
essentially letting you use your car as a giant home backup battery.
Peter is not a fan of dumb range as he calls it, increasing range by scaling up with larger,
heavier batteries. For the 17% efficiency lead they have over Tesla, Lucid attributes 15%
to drivetrain improvements, and 2% to aerodynamic optimizations. Lucid’s
electric drive unit is one of the automakers most significant innovations. There’s one very
weird fact that explains why, and it sounds so crazy that you might not believe it…
This is our motor, inverter, transmission, and differential unit complete this is a drive unit,
and this unit weighs just 74 kilos it literally can fit inside an aircraft flight bag. And it is
two and a half times smaller than the closest competitor for its
for its power output. This unit literally can go depending upon specification to 670 horsepower,
and yet it only weighs 74 kilos it achieves over 40 horsepower per liter. And we can use one,
two, or three of these combined in lucid air platform. It can have just rear-wheel drive,
you can have a four-wheel drive with two motors, or you can combine a third to have a tri-motor.
We've built a prototype tri-motor which has shattering performance
already we've achieved a 9 second point 2 4, 9.24 run in the standing quarter mile.
I've driven it myself around achieving about 9.3, and I achieved an exit speed of 158 MPH in the
standing quarter with our tri-motor. This is hyper car level of performance. One of the key enablers
is our thermal control and the breakthrough we've made particularly to keeping the temperature under
control, particularly in those copper windings that you see there through slots in the stator.
When you run an electric motor, heat builds up. As the copper windings in the stator get hot,
they generate more resistance and electricity can’t flow as easily,
reducing efficiency. Motor cooling is a key engineering challenge in building an efficient EV.
Lucid approached cooling by running computer models of the electromagnetic fields inside
their motor and identifying zones that could be optimized.
They then used a computerized coil-winding system with a continuous wave pattern
that enables more consistent and predicable motor performance.
The Lucid air uses permanent magnet synchronous motors that
can spin at up to 20,000 RPM on both the front and rear of the vehicle.
It was a meaningful engineering decision to go with with the permanent magnet motors,
over using induction motors, which rely on electrical current to magnetize the rotor.
There’s a concept related to permanent magnet motors know as cogging torque.
Cogging torque refers to the interaction between the permanent magnets of the rotor,
and stator slots. The magnetic field generated by permanent magnets can’t be turned off.
So the magnets constantly exert torque that slows down the motor, especially at low speeds.
In an induction motor, the magnetic field is generated electrically. When you turn the
current off, the electromagnets don’t exert any magnetic field, and the motor can spin freely.
Lucid has made innovations to their PMMS motor design that significantly reduces cogging torque,
maximizing power output and reducing electrical losses.
Lucid’s proprietary inverter utilizes a silicon carbide MOSFET chip to further maximize
efficiency in real world driving conditions. The Lucid Air could be the first car proven to
beat Tesla’s powertrain efficiency, but Lucid doesn’t see Tesla as a direct competitor,
and you might be surprised who they view as the real competition…
The Lucid Air is a luxury car, and Peter sees traditional German stalwarts like
the Mercedes S-Class to be the real competition.
98% of the global luxury market is stilI comprised of Internal combustion Engine vehicles,
but are the weathly class ready for something electrified in the high end category?
…controversial, but I
think it takes it takes a while for this styling to grow on people it's like it's
rather strange to start with because it doesn't look like a traditional car with a human face
you know if a comparison is that
the traditional car is almost inspired by human eyes you see the face of the car and you see a
single lens for each headlamp like the human eyes. These are really like insect eyes you know like a
fly's eyes are made out of hundreds and hundreds of micro lenses that's what a fly sees with.
Lucid is reinventing luxury design proportions by placing electrification
at the forefront of their design thesis, not as an afterthought.
With compact electric motors, there’s no need for a long sweeping hood, massive air intake,
or a big shiny grill. Cargo cult relics of 125 years of luxury heat engine design tradition.
Lucid’s VP of design Derek Jenkins says that the future of luxury is streamlined, minimalist, and
will follow true form to function principles. He believes that the design language of the new era
of electrification is still in its infancy, and an aesthetic revolution is currently taking place.
If you come around the side of the car you see the proportion of the lucid air is pretty unique
we have a very short hood really long cabin and a very short rear and that's possible because
of the electric drivetrain we've been able to make the cabin for the passengers much larger
than a vehicle normally in this size so we end up with a car that's in the mid size category
on the outside but in the full size category on the inside and so that's a big benefit.
Space won by compact powertrain components allow the Lucid Air to exist as a medium sized car,
with a full size car interior, SUV levels of storage, and hypercar performance.
The vehicles smaller frontal area, and highly efficient vortex front air intakes create
a streamlined aerodynamic signature, with a drag coefficient of just .21.
Lucid is focused on achieving more distance for less battery. This will
make future vehicles more affordable, because the battery is the most expensive part of car.
But the Air is not a stripped down sports car, it feature high end design
elements for an aesthetically pleasing first class driving experience…
You'll also notice that we have a full glass canopy this will be the largest glass canopy of
any vehicle on the market next year and it's one single piece of glass from the windshield wipers
all the way to the center line and then we pick up a second piece of glass around the rear. The
simple design theme carries all the way through the back of the car one of my favorite features
is this cut line that comes off the cabin and cuts right through the back of the car and creates this
clamshell rear opening it's a super cool feature makes the back of the car super clean no shut
lines through the rear with just one continuous tail light all the way across the back of the car.
Lucid takes a first principles approach to interior design as well,
rethinking the cabin for the driver experience. One thing that's really important about our
interior is our displays we early on we studied kind of how we wanted to have the display layout
and we opted not to go with the large central display but with something that
was more curved and contoured and optimized really for the driver experience. This screen
is a 34 inch lcd screen and its primary function is to to focus information towards the driver
and you'll notice it's fully contoured in this direction and this direction.
Thoughtful user experience design on top of a high performance EV.
But just how does high that digital speedometer go?
The Laguna Seca raceway in California has emerged
as the ultimate proving ground to test the performance of electric vehicles.
With 2.2 miles of hairpin turns and unrestrained straightways, The famed track provides perfect
real world conditions to test EV attributes such as speed, acceleration, braking, and handling.
In 2020 unofficial track reports started coming in that a Tri-Motor Lucid air had
bested Tesla’s track record by over 2 seconds, with a lap time of 1 minute and 33 seconds.
We heard Tesla took the lead again, but this healthy competition in the EV world is exciting
to see and no doubt driving the industry forward. With electric car manufacturers
competing for bragging rights with souped up race versions of their production cars,
innovations learned on the track can translate into real world performance enhancements, and the
impressive displays build respect and notoriety for the electric vehicle market as a whole.
In July 2017, a modified performance version of the Air hit a confirmed top speed of
235 MPH 378 km/h on the high-speed track at the Transportation Research Center in Ohio.
Lucid is not just trying to build luxury hypercars for millionaires. The goal is for
the optimizations made in high performance EV powertrain design to trickle down to lower cost
mass market vehicles. Lucid hopes to eventually produce the sought after $25,000 electric car.
Lucid has just finished 80 prototype vehicles,
and has a production target of 8-9000 vehicles by Spring 2021.
They will accomplish this with a state of the art $700 million dollar,
6.1 million square foot EV factory in Casa Grande Arizona, which is outfitted to produce
30,000 vehicles a year, with an eventual capacity target of 400,000 vehicles per year.
The Lucid Air will be available in 4 initial models,The Air Pure, $69,000,
The Air Touring model from $87,500, the Air Grand Touring from $131,500,
and the limited Air Dream Edition, available in spring 2021 for a starting price of $161,500.
Whether Lucid is truly a worthy challenger to Tesla will come down to how well they deliver
their final production car to market, on time, as promised, and with all the bells and whistles.
The only answer i can have is wait till next spring
keep the skepticism keep throwing the stones i've got i've got a strong chin I welcome it because
there's a lot of bad actors out there the only way we can prove we
are real is get this in production next spring and in customers hands and show
and that's what i'm I can't get to next spring soon enough to have that opportunity to show.
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