Lucid Air, Tesla Competitor Coming 2018, Spotted in San Francisco
Lucid Motors has been cruising around the Bay Area, trying out the sleek Lucid Air on streets close by to its Menlo Park headquarters. The luxury electric car maker’s first vehicle is expected to enter production in late 2018. The footage, uploaded to YouTube on Sunday, gives little away about the car’s expected luxury features, but shows the company is serious about getting its product ready in time.
Tesla has grown into a household name since the Roadster first hit the streets in 2008, but there’s plenty of reason to think Lucid could give Tesla a run for its money. The company’s chief technology officer, Peter Rawlinson, knows what made Tesla special: he was the former lead engineer on the Tesla Model S. The company seems to also be following a similar strategy to Tesla, which sold the Roadster as a high-price, low-volume vehicle to build up the company to move onto more mass production products. Although Lucid’s initial cars will be priced at around $100,000, Lucid states future models will be available for around $65,000.
Interestingly, the car in this latest video seems to have the same license plate, 88785, as the one in a video released by The Verge last month. In California, license plates stay with the vehicle except in the cases of special interest plates. When demonstrated in last month’s video, the prototype had a, er, slightly less attractive color scheme:
Lucid has been releasing more details about its car as the launch approaches. In a blog post on Wednesday, engineering manager Greg Goetchius explained how the car will use noise-canceling technology to drown out external noises and provide a more premium experience. Acting like a giant pair of Bose headphones, the car will produce a noise signal through its speakers designed to cancel out the sound waves from the outside world.
Performance-wise, the car is expected to reach 400 miles on a single charge with 1,000 horsepower. The car is capable of accelerating from 0-60 mph in just 2.5 seconds. That rivals the Tesla Model S P100D, which can achieve 0-60 in 2.389 seconds when switched into performance-enhancing Ludicrous Mode.
Watch the Lucid Air in action here:
