American EV maker Lucid Motors in July this yr has acknowledged its goal of manufacturing rivals to the Tesla Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y, together with right-hand-drive variations of these fashions, and now its CEO Peter Rawlinson has advised Autocar that the corporate’s upcoming will probably be priced from round US$50,000 (RM231,650) to drastically enhance its gross sales volumes.

“We now have to go along with quantity, as a result of that’s what we’re about,” the CEO advised Autocar, saying that the upscale Air and Gravity EVs had been launched first as a result of prices concerned in organising a brand new automobile firm.

Particulars of the upcoming, higher-volume fashions stay but to be confirmed, nonetheless Rawlinson steered that their arrival to market can be earlier than anticipated. Being high-volume fashions meant to rival the aforementioned Teslas, the Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y, these mid-sized fashions are to be smaller than the Air sedan and Gravity SUV.

“I’ve formally acknowledged mid- to late-decade, and that has been fully misquoted as the tip of the last decade, [as in] 2030. What I imply is ‘not 2025’. It’s just a few years away, nevertheless it’s shut. It takes three and a half years to do a automobile, and we’ve began; and that wasn’t yesterday,” he stated.

The model’s upcoming mid-sized mannequin line “goes to be overtly a Tesla competitor” within the high-volume household automobile market in opposition to the Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y, Rawlinson stated.

Lucid can compete “as a result of we’ve bought probably the most superior know-how, which implies we are able to go farther with much less battery, and the battery is probably the most high-cost merchandise of an electrical automobile,” and by making a automobile in a position to obtain a goal battery vary with much less battery capability, that automobile might be made cheaper, he stated.

Responding to a query if Lucid would construct vehicles with the megacasting methodology as utilized by Tesla, which minimises the variety of particular person elements in a automobile to scale back value and manufacturing instances, Rawlinson stated he “would do something that I see as technically useful.”

Manufacturing of right-hand-drive variations – which opens the door to coming into markets reminiscent of Malaysia – is prone to be in 2025, which is the model’s goal date for coming into the UK market.

“We’ve bought to do [the Air in right-hand-drive]. To try this might be going to take us 18 months and we’re completely slammed, as a result of I’ve bought all my primary engineering workforce doing all of the design and improvement for Gravity. So, realistically, it’s two years away,” Rawlinson stated of the businesses RHD product plans.

GALLERY: Lucid Gravity

GALLERY: Lucid Air Sapphire

GALLERY: 2021 Lucid Air

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