Key Takeaways
- Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson is confident in dominating EV market with game-changing technology.
- Lucid plans to expand beyond luxury market by licensing its tech to other automakers and introducing smaller EVs.
- Rawlinson says Lucid is ready to outperform even Chinese EVs with tiny battery packs.
At last week’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, CarBuzz spoke with Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson on a wide variety of subjects, including future EVs and pricing, SUVs and pickups, why Lucid feels ready to dominate the electric market, and how rivals don’t match up. He also talked about how Horacio Pagani respects the company and owns a Lucid Air Dream Edition with a unique color scheme, which is noteworthy in light of our recent discussion with Horacio’s son, Christopher, who said Pagani has not abandoned the idea of an electric hypercar. Lucid, naturally, remains focused on making electric mobility better and better despite already claiming an efficiency record this week: an EPA rating of 146 MPGe, thanks to the consumption of just 5 miles per kilowatt-hour of energy from its 84 kWh battery pack. This is thanks, in part, to an advanced heat pump that increases cooling and thus efficiency, allowing Lucid to reduce the size of the 2024 Air Pure’s battery pack from 88 kWh. As we all know, whatever we drive, weight is the enemy of efficiency, engagement, and speed.
Lucid Motors
Lucid Motors was founded in California in 2007 as a manufacturer and developer of battery technology, with several former Tesla engineers and executives joining the company since then. Development of its first car began in 2014, with the Air revealed as a luxury electric vehicle in December 2016. It has since revealed its first SUV, the Gravity, but work continues on battery development, which Aston Martin is set to take advantage of in the future.
- Founded
- 2007
- Founder
- Bernard Tse & Sheaupyng Lin
- Headquarters
- Newark, California
- Owned By
- Publicly Traded
- Current CEO
- Peter Rawlinson
Is Lucid Afraid Of Rivian and Volkswagen’s Combined Might?
You may have seen the recent news that Volkswagen and Rivian will partner on EVs, with the latter (formerly partly owned by Ford) teasing five new electric vehicles, including three “affordable mass-market” cars. We drew Rawlinson’s attention to this development, asking how Lucid would respond to Rivian’s newfound support. His response showed absolutely no fear. “You could say, ‘How is Rivian gonna respond?’ Because Gravity is gonna be the best SUV out there, and no one will be able to compete with it. To me, product is king. Bring it on […], but I’ve driven R1S, and I’ve driven the Gravity. I’m not worried,” chuckled Rawlinson. On a similar tangent, we asked the CEO if Lucid would explore lower-priced markets that more people can afford to shop in.
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“Absolutely! […] If you only come away with one thing from this meeting with me today, do not think of Lucid as a niche luxury car company. We’re gonna be huge. I want us to sell a million units a year and have a much bigger impact than that.”
– Peter Rawlinson, Lucid CEO
Asked to elaborate on how Lucid aims to affect more than just its own sales, Rawlinson said the company is “trying to go lower than $50,000 by licensing technology to other automakers.” Other automakers may already be developing their own EV technologies, but none of them can boast the record-breaking efficiency figures of the Lucid Air Pure. That said, Lucid does have plans for its own $50k car – more on that later.
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Rawlinson stressed that Lucid technology is “an enabler” for the company to produce more efficient and, therefore, more affordable cars, proudly noting, “We got more range than anyone else with just an 88 kWh pack [now an 84 kWh pack for 2025], which is smaller, lighter, and much less costly than the competition. And that’s why we can offer [the Lucid Air Pure] cheaper than Tesla.” He added that Lucid is “trying to advance the state of the electric car, to take it to another level.” This is why expensive EVs like the mind-bending Air Sapphire came first. Lucid does not have a battery factory in which to industrialize production, so it had to address technology first. More efficient tech equals fewer batteries, resulting in less weight and lower costs.
“For a family car [that is electric], over 40% of the cost of building that car is the cost of the battery. The gasoline engine might cost $2,000 to make; the electric battery pack can cost $20,000. So, when others are looking at gigacastings, which might make $130 difference, […] I’m going for the jugular: the battery pack cost.”
A Heavy Car Cannot Be The Ultimate Driving Machine
In discussing the importance of efficiency, Rawlinson appeared to throw shade at cars like the BMW i5 M60. “How many batteries do you need in the first place?” asked the CEO, adding, “If you look at, for example, a recent new entry, a German car. 230 miles [of] range – requires an 84 kWh battery pack. We can get to 5 miles/kWh […], so we could get 230 miles of range with a 46 kWh battery pack. And that [German] car is no longer the ultimate driving machine because it’s got the weight of that battery.” For the record, his figures are slightly off; the i5 M60 offers 240 miles of range from an 81.2 kWh battery pack. Nevertheless, it weighs 5,247 lbs, and Rawlinson feels that this results in several inherent compromises: “It’s not just the cost of the battery, it’s the weight, and it’s also the space and the legroom.” The CEO didn’t only take aim at BMW, but Porsche too.
“People say Sapphire is expensive. Well, a Porsche Taycan Turbo S has not a hope in hell of [keeping up] with a Sapphire, and if you specify a Turbo S to even close to the Sapphire’s spec, it costs $265,000. It is more expensive than the Sapphire, [with] much lower performance and massively less light. Half the range, less performance.”
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Lucid has made a huge breakthrough by achieving record-breaking MPGe figures, and its motor technology is worth bragging about, too, but more must be done. Current measures of EV efficiency are massively flawed, and Rawlinson wants the new metric to be a battery’s cost per kilowatt-hour divided by how many miles of range that provides. With this, we can get a more accurate idea of an EV’s environmental impact and find ways to do more with less raw material. Rawlinson concedes that we need faster charging and more mature infrastructure to negate the need for enormous batteries and range figures. Lucid already has the world’s most efficient EV and the highest range, and just a year ago, Lucid held the crown for the fastest-charging EV, too. Clearly, the need for 500-mile-plus range estimates won’t exist forever, and when that happens, Lucid can introduce cars with tiny batteries.
“Everyone’s freaking out about the Chinese [EV manufacturers]. We’ll have smaller batteries than the Chinese.”
Still No Pickup Truck?
Rawlinson reaffirmed plans to introduce a mid-size EV in late 2026, with this targeting a base price of $48,000-$50,000. Once this arrives, the Lucid range will be complete, catering to a wide variety of buyers: from $48,000 for a Tesla Model Y rival – potentially called Lucid Earth – to a quarter million dollars for the halo Air Sapphire. By that time, infrastructure, battery, and charging factors should be less of a concern than today. So what about a pickup truck? Lucid once considered this avenue, but Rawlinson says the boxy shape of a pickup makes it impossible to affordably produce at scale without dismal driving range. “No, we can’t yet. If battery technology […] advances in the next few years, it might make a pickup viable. And that [advancement] has to be in cost and weight.” In summary, Lucid’s boss seems very comfortable with the way his company is progressing, and if all goes according to plan, Lucid could someday be a major player with sales figures to rival Volkswagen and Toyota. It’s got the know-how and the style – now it just needs the volume.
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