See how EV rivals are and are not the same

Porsche, Audi, General Motors and other established automakers are trying to take on Tesla with flashy new electric vehicles, but a rookie’s first real competition may come from Lucid Motors, a company run by a former Tesla Model S chief engineer.

Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson is following his ex-boss Elon Musk’s handbook when it comes to production, some technology, dealerships and services. But it is tracing a different path in electric vehicle charging stations, automated steering systems and advertising.

Here’s how Lucid, which announced plans last week to go public through a SPAC deal, and Tesla compare:

Unlike some newer electric vehicle companies, Lucid plans to manufacture all of its vehicles in-house, as Tesla does today.

Rawlinson believes that “vertical manufacturing integration is the way to go,” he said in an interview. The comments echoed observations in a Lucid investor conference call last week.

“The simple fact is that manufacturing, ensuring that the quality of our product is correct, is very precious, very critical, an activity to entrust to third parties,” he told investors. “We have to control our own destiny.”

Lucid is building a brand new car plant in Arizona, which costs billions of dollars. When Tesla started its own vehicle assembly, it took over the NUMMI factory that was once the home of General Motors and Toyota Motor in California.

Lucid struck a deal with LG Chem to supply battery cells, the most expensive part of any electric vehicle, for its standard batteries for the Air. The company said it would announce additional suppliers in the future.

Tesla already has agreements with Panasonic, Samsung, LG and CATL to supply cells for its batteries and energy storage products, including the Powerwall.

Lucid said it plans to manufacture energy storage products, both domestic batteries and large-scale devices. But Lucid will not have the distraction and capital charges of running a solar business, as Tesla has been doing since the acquisition of SolarCity in the fall of 2016.

Tesla’s history with battery supply partners could be a short-term advantage for Tesla.

Through its long-standing partnership with Panasonic, Tesla has locked in undisclosed price terms, as well as investments by the Japanese battery manufacturer. Together, they own and operate a huge battery plant outside of Reno, Nevada.

Tesla makes batteries for its vehicles on one side of the plant, while Panasonic produces cells for them on the other side. However, Tesla told investors in September that it started producing its own cells at a pilot plant in Fremont, California, as well.

Lucid expects to produce more than 500,000 vehicles a year by 2030. Musk, who is known for declaring ambitious plans but not meeting self-imposed deadlines, said Tesla will “likely” produce 20 million electric vehicles a year before 2030.

Last year, Tesla produced 509,737 electric vehicles, with timid deliveries of half a million, even amid a global slowdown in car sales due to the Covid pandemic.

Rawlinson expects Lucid Air to be the catalyst for a line of future all-electric vehicles, including an SUV starting production in early 2023 and more affordable vehicles in the future.

To start, Lucid plans to sell a sophisticated version of its Lucid Air sedan, the Dream edition, for $ 169,000.

In comparison, Tesla sells its Model S sedan for $ 79,990 for the base model and $ 139,990 for the more advanced version of Plaid + (without adding Tesla’s $ 10,000 premium software update).

In 2022, Lucid is expected to offer a version of the Air starting at $ 77,400, which would compete directly with several Tesla models. The price excludes federal tax credits of up to $ 7,500 that are available to Lucid customers, but not to Tesla buyers today.

It is not clear at this point how low the price of Lucid could fall after its first two vehicles were launched on the market.

Rawlinson said the company’s next planned vehicle platform will be the basis for cheaper models in the $ 40,000 to $ 45,000 range. But he is not sure if the company will offer a vehicle for about $ 25,000, which Musk said Tesla plans to do.

“On the longest timescale, do we really make a $ 25,000 car like what Tesla is planning to do with its Model 2?” Rawlinson said. “My opinion is that, as a company, I think we are probably seven or eight years away from being able to contemplate something like that. It is a big undertaking.”

Rawlinson claims that Lucid has the industry-leading battery technology for its vehicles. Its main measure is the efficiency of Lucid batteries in miles per kilowatt hour driven.

Lucid says its vehicles are capable of more than 4.5 miles per kilowatt-hour, while the company says Tesla’s S Long Range model is greater than 4.

Lucid has no plans to build and operate its own charging network as Tesla did with its Superchargers, according to Rawlinson. “Do we want to have the capital load of a fast-charging network? No, we can use it with ease. That’s where we can save money,” he said.

Instead of building its own vehicle charging infrastructure, Lucid has partnered with Volkswagen-owned Electrify America, which expects to have a total of 800 charging stations with around 3,500 chargers by the end of this year.

Tesla currently operates more than 20,000 Superchargers globally, according to its website.

Lucid, like Tesla, says it will offer customers charging devices at home.

When it comes to developing driverless vehicle technology, Elon Musk is known as dealing with, or reaching and detecting light sensors, “a silly mission”. The sensors work using pulsed lasers to create something like a live 3D map of a vehicle’s surroundings that can be read by on-board computer systems.

Many autonomous systems engineers believe that coping is critical to making cars truly driverless. Instead of coping, Tesla’s driver assistance systems and long-awaited self-steering features feature a number of other cameras and sensors on board, including radar. Rawlinson believes that the choice is a mistake.

“Do we think that coping should be part of the set of sensors for (autonomous vehicles)? Yes, we do,” said Rawlinson.

Lucid said the Air sedan, which was postponed this spring to the second half of this year, will use LIDAR in its set of sensors for advanced driver assistance systems. The company expects the technology to set “a new benchmark” for the industry.

Tesla sells a premium, advanced, automated steering system for its vehicles for $ 10,000 today, with plans to launch a subscription option as well. Although it is marketed as “Full Self Driving”, the system’s features do not allow a truly driverless, hands-free and unsupervised trip.

Instead, the FSD enables features in addition to Tesla’s standard Autopilot package. This includes smart navigation, automatic lane change and smart invocation. With Smart Summon, a driver can call his car from a parking spot using his cell phone as a remote control.

Tesla vehicles lack a robust driver monitoring system, which can detect whether a driver is using their systems responsibly.

Meanwhile, Lucid has promised to include a driver monitoring system in its vehicles that will ensure that drivers use their advanced and automated steering systems as prescribed, keeping an eye on the road and around them, ready to drive manually at any time. .

Tesla has become one of the most well-known automotive brands in the world without the use of traditional advertising. Instead, it generated enthusiasm and attention through spectacular events, non-traditional social media involvement, Tesla online forums and owners’ clubs, and Elon Musk’s almost constant involvement with fans and shareholders. Musk gained about 50 million followers on Twitter, for example.

Lucid, on the other hand, ran a national television campaign from December 25 through the end of January for Air to raise awareness about the company and the vehicle. Rawlinson said that such a campaign was not necessarily a part of Lucid’s plans until the coronavirus pandemic last year forced the company to cancel several events.

“I thought, well, damn it, we would have it because we couldn’t get the message across,” said Rawlinson. “So, we made a little foray into it, and I think it was quite positive. So I don’t exclude that just because Tesla doesn’t do it.”

Lucid also adopts Tesla’s direct-to-consumer sales and service models, rather than selling through traditional franchise dealerships.

Lucid already has six stores open in California and Florida. It plans to operate 20 retail locations and service centers in North America by the end of this year, in addition to selling its vehicles online. Tesla has about 160 retail locations in the United States, according to its website.