Lucid wants to produce RHD EVs to rival Tesla Model 3, Model Y; to license tech for more affordable EVs
Electric car maker Lucid aims to produce rivals to the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, including right-hand-drive versions of those models, said Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson as reported by Auto Express.
These two models set to rival Tesla’s offerings are to come after the Lucid Gravity SUV, which is scheduled to debut in the second half of next year, thus making Lucid’s competitors to the Model 3 and Model Y the second half of what will be a four-model Lucid line-up.
“After [the] Gravity we’re going to do Model 3 and Model Y competitors. We think [they will be priced] around US$50,000 (RM225,150), [or] something like that. It’s too early to say, but that’s the vision,” Rawlinson told Auto Express.
Lucid is eager to expand its reach to right-hand-drive markets, “but it’s a matter of engineering priorities. We are slammed; we’ve got to get the Sapphire out this year. The Sapphire is the high-performance, tri-motor version of the Air, and we’ve got to get the Gravity out next year,” Rawlinson continued.
Right-hand drive versions of its vehicles may have to be outsourced to an external engineering company to carry out the right-hand-drive model projects for Lucid, even if Rawlinson sounds reluctant to do so.
“It breaks my heart, [but] maybe we can outsource [the] right-hand drive project to an engineering company to do it for us. The potential market in the UK is probably bigger than even Germany in terms of a latent desire to go EV,” the CEO said.
Beyond its current models, Lucid plans to license its technology to create a multiplier effect in the electric vehicle market. “There are only so many cars Lucid could make, but suddenly it’s like 20 times more,” said Rawlinson. “It’s like software licensing; you just flash out your software and your hardware doesn’t work without a software flash from us, and you have to pay us ‘X’ amount per car for that flash,” the CEO added.
Closer to the present, Lucid and Aston Martin signed a deal in which the British luxury brand paid the American EV firm US$232 million in shares and cash in exchange for EV powertrain components, and thus will be used to form the basis of future Aston Martin electric hypercars, sports cars, GTs and SUVs, the first of which will launch in 2025.
The biggest impact that could be made on the mass-market EV will be with smaller battery packs, says Rawlinson, whose vision is to achieve an efficiency rate of six miles (9.6 km) per kWh. “The electric car of the future only needs 250 miles (400 km) [of range];we don’t need 500-mile (800 km)-capable cars in the future, 10 years from now,” said Rawlinson.
“If we could get six miles (9.6 km) per kilowatt-hour and you only need 150 miles (240 km) of range, that’s a 25 kilowatt-hour pack. That’s a $4,000 (RM18,036) pack particularly with a bit of industrialising scale and battery manufacture. That’s what we need to make a $25,000 (RM112,725) car and that’s what the environment and the world needs urgently to get masses into electric cars,” he continued.
“Now is Lucid going to make that? No. It’s a horrible thing to be making. But could we be the ‘intel inside’ for that car? The enabler? Absolutely. And that’s where we could get the multiplier effect,” Rawlinson said.
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