This is how EVs are and are not rivals

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

Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson follows his former boss Elon Musk’s playing card when it comes to production, technology, concession and service. But he plans a different path in terms of charging stations for electric vehicles, automatic driving systems and advertising.

Here’s how Lucid, who last week announced plans to go public with a SPAC deal, and Tesla compare themselves to each other:

Unlike some newer electric vehicle companies, Lucid intends to manufacture all of its vehicles indoors, as Tesla does today.

Rawlinson believes that “vertical integration of production is the way forward,” he said in an interview. The comments echoed remarks about a lucid investor call last week.

“The simple fact is that production, ensuring the quality of our product is fair, is too precious, too critical, an activity to be entrusted to a third party,” he told investors. “We have to control our own destiny.”

Lucid is building a new billion-dollar “greenfield” car factory in Arizona. When Tesla started its own set of vehicles, it took over the NUMMI factory, which was once home to General Motors and Toyota Motor in California.

Lucid has an agreement with LG Chem to supply battery cells, the most expensive part of any electric vehicle, for its standard battery packs for Air. The company said it will announce additional suppliers in the future.

Tesla already has deals with Panasonic, Samsung, LG and CATL to supply cells for both its battery packs and energy storage products, including Powerwall.

Lucid said it intends to manufacture energy storage products, both household batteries and large-scale devices. But Lucid will not have the distraction and capital burdens of running a solar business, as Tesla has done since acquiring SolarCity in the fall of 2016.

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

Through its long-term partnership with Panasonic, Tesla has blocked undisclosed pricing conditions as well as investments from the Japanese battery maker. Together, they own and operate a massive battery factory outside of Reno, Nevada.

Tesla manufactures battery packs for its vehicles on one side of the factory, while Panasonic produces cells for them on the other. However, Tesla told investors in September that it began 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, known for stating ambitious plans but missing self-imposed deadlines, said Tesla will “probably” produce 20 million electric vehicles per year. year before 2030.

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

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

For starters, Lucid plans to sell a flagship version of its Lucid Air sedan, the Dream Edition, for $ 169,000.

By comparison, Tesla is selling its Model S sedan for $ 79,990 for the base model and $ 139,990 for the state-of-the-art Plaid + version (not adding the $ 10,000 Tesla premium software update).

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

It is unclear at this time how low the price for Lucid could be after the first two vehicles are launched.

Rawlinson said the company’s next planned vehicle platform will be the basis for the less expensive $ 40,000- $ 45,000 models. But it’s not certain the company will ever offer a vehicle for about $ 25,000, which Musk said Tesla intends to do.

“In the long run and more complete, are we actually making a $ 25,000 car, as Tesla intends to do with its Model 2?” Said Rawlinson. “My opinion is, as a company, I think we’re probably seven or eight years away from being able to contemplate something like that. This is a huge undertaking.”

Rawlinson claims that Lucid has state-of-the-art battery technology in its vehicles. Its main measure is the efficiency of Lucid’s batteries with kilometers per kilowatt-hour driven.

Lucid says its vehicles are capable of exceeding 4.5 miles per kilowatt hour, while the company says the Tesla Model S Long Range is larger than 4.

Lucid does not intend to build and operate its own charging network, as Tesla did with its Superchargers, according to Rawlinson. “Do we want to have the capital burden of a fast charging network? No, we can go easy on that. 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 800 total charging stations with about 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 provide customers with charging devices at home.

When it comes to the development of driverless vehicle technology, Elon Musk famously called lidar, or distance and light detection sensors, “stupid control.” The sensors work using pulsed lasers to create something like a live 3D map of the vehicle’s surroundings that can be read by on-board computer systems.

Many autonomous system engineers believe that lidar is essential to make cars truly driverless. Instead of the lidar, Tesla’s driver assistance systems and long-awaited self-driving functions rely on a number of other on-board cameras and sensors, including radar. Rawlinson thinks the choice is a mistake.

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

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

Tesla today sells an advanced, automated premium driving system for its vehicles for $ 10,000, with the intention of launching a subscription option. Although marketed as “Complete Driving in Itself”, the features of the system do not allow for truly driverless, hands-free and unattended driving.

Instead, the FSD allows functionality beyond Tesla’s standard autopilot package. These include smart navigation, automatic lane change and smart calling. With Smart Summon, the driver can call his car from a parking lot using his mobile phone as a remote control.

Tesla vehicles lack a robust driver monitoring system that can detect if a driver is using their systems responsibly.

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

Tesla has become one of the most popular car brands in the world without the use of traditional advertising. Instead, it generated hype and attention through brilliant events, non-traditional involvement in social media, Tesla online forums and owner clubs, and almost constant involvement of Elon Musk himself with fans and shareholders. Musk has cultivated about 50 million on Twitter, for example.

Instead, Lucid organized a national television campaign from December 25 to the end of January to raise awareness of the company and the vehicle. Rawlinson said such a campaign was not necessarily part of Lucid’s plans until last year’s coronavirus pandemic forced the company to cancel several events.

“I thought, damn it, we’re going to have to do this because we couldn’t get the message out,” Rawlinson said. “So I had a little foray into that, and I think it was pretty positive. So I don’t rule that out just because Tesla doesn’t.”

Lucid also embraces Tesla’s customer service and direct sales models instead of selling through traditional franchise dealerships.

Lucid already has six commercial locations open in California and Florida. It plans to operate 20 retail outlets 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.