Lucid

The American company Lucid Motors, along with Faraday Future, is one of the first wave of electric car startups that dreamed of competing with Tesla and creating a “Model S killer”. The history of Lucid Motors began in 2007, when the company was called Atieva and experimented with electric power plants based on the Mercedes-Benz Vito, and the name Lucid was invented before the premiere of the Air sedan prototype, which happened at the end of 2016. Tesla already had a Model X crossover by that time, and critics of the startup said that Lucid Motors should have done the cross immediately, and not chased the already stale Model S. At the time of the premiere, Lucid Motors planned to launch Air into production at its own plant in Kas- Grande, Arizona in 2018.

As is often the case with startups, something went wrong: lack of experience and funding problems forced Lucid Motors to delay the Air sedan's market launch several times. The last such delay occurred due to the COVID-19 coronavirus infection pandemic.

Now the company, after a quarantine lockdown in an emergency mode, is completing the construction of the plant, conducting final tests of the Air prototypes and trying to do everything possible so that later nothing has to be "finished" on client cars, as happened with Volkswagen with its epochal electric hatchback ID.3.

Lucid Motors used to take great pride in the 400-mile range of the top-of-the-line Air, but Tesla recently struck a blow at that pride by unveiling the redesigned Model S Long Range Plus with a range of 402 miles (647 km). Now the Air will be able to grab in front of the Model S except with a panoramic roof that flows into the windshield, separate rear loungers, an audio system with active noise cancellation and 29 loudspeakers and other luxury chips.

I remember that in 2017 Lucid Motors tried to sell itself to Ford, but did not arouse interest from the management of the "blue oval". But Ford has eagerly invested in a startup Rivian, which wants to make electric pickups and SUVs.

A Source: Колеса