Lucid Motors may have a ‘reach anxiety’ killer on hand.
The startup of Newark, California, announced that its upcoming all-electric sedan, the Lucid Air, will have an eye-popping range of 517 miles. That means that when the Air finally goes on sale – a production version is expected to make its debut in September, but customer versions are not planned until early 2021 – Lucid claims it will be “the longest range electric car to date.”
Currently, that title is held by the aptly named Tesla Model S Long Range, which can travel an environmental protection agency-certified distance of 402 miles on a single charge. Most electric cars on the market today have a range that falls between 200-300 miles, while some have less than that. The upcoming harvest of EVs is intended to have a range of 300-400 miles. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that the next generation Tesla Roadster, which is expected to go into production in 2021, will have a range of 620 miles. Tesla has also promised 500 miles for its Semi-trucks, although the 18-wheeler has yet to enter production.
That it would be a huge feather in his cap for Lucid Motors, a startup that first unveiled its prototype back in 2016, to release an EV with more than 500 miles range. Lucid Motors CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson, who led the development of the Model S while working for Elon Musk, said the Air Tesla will surpass in terms of luxury interiors, accelerating from zero to 60mph in 2, 5 seconds, and start at over $ 100,000.
The company said the ‘independent range verification of the Air’ was done by a company called FEV North America, a highway and engineering company based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. FEV works in the design and development of engines, and it provides testing and instrumentation to automakers. The company’s verification process “follows” the EPA’s standard testing procedure, “says Lucid.
Range for electric cars is typically determined independently by the EPA, as is Europe’s Global Harmonized Light Vehicle (WLTP) procedure. WLTP estimates are typically more optimistic than the EPA.
In a statement, Rawlinson called it “a landmark in the history of EV” and thanked the company’s engineering team. ‘I believe our 900-volt architecture, our proven battery packs, miniature motors and power electronics, integrated transmission system, aerodynamics, chassis and thermal systems, software, and general system efficiency have now reached a stage where the collective sets a new standard and delivers a host of the first in the world, ” said Rawlinson.
Lucid had planned to discover the Air at the New York International Auto Show in April, but that event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, the company has released leaks of information about the all-electric sedan as it builds to a virtual absentee event in September. It published photos of its plant under construction in Arizona and published videos of the Air being put through winter tests, as well as the 400-mile journey between San Francisco and Los Angeles made on a single charge. The company also published details about its LIDAR-powered advanced management assistance system, DreamDrive.
The edge got the Air to first experience in prototype form in 2016. Like many other EV startups, Lucid Motors ran out of money almost when it tried to bring the sedan into production, and it took out loans from a hedge fund and a Chinese bus company to remain urgent, as The edge previously reported. The company eventually received a massive $ 1 billion lifeline from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia just a few weeks before the Kingdom had Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered.
“Range fear” is often defined as a strange fear that some customers may have that an electric car may not be able to process all the rides they want to do before the power stops. It is often held as a barrier to widespread adoption EV. More people would buy EVs, the reasoning goes, if they had greater confidence in the charging infrastructure than the range of the car.
As such, there’s a bit of an international arms race going on to see who can make an electric car that can travel the farthest on a single charge. There have been a host of startup makers for a battery breakthrough that will improve the range of their cars while also extending their life span. And all eyes are on Tesla, which plans to host a “battery day” in September to describe its advances in battery technology.
