- The first-ever crossover from the Saudi-backed luxury EV manufacturer Lucid Motors is right around the corner, following up on its ultraefficient Air sedan with a class-leading five miles per kilowatt-hour. The upcoming launch comes amid news the company met its full-year target to build 9,000 units of the Air amid a challenging EV market.
Lucid Motors’ moment of truth is finally upon it. Ever since the luxury electric-vehicle manufacturer backed by the Saudi monarchy went public in 2021, it has been building up to its make-or-break sport utility vehicle.
Now the nine-year-old startup has delivered on its promise to start production of the full-size Gravity SUV in its Arizona factory before the end of 2024, with a commercial launch likely in the coming weeks.
The higher-spec Grand Touring version, retailing around $95,000, features a range of up to 450 miles on one charge, well above anything the current crop of competition—Tesla included—has to offer.
“We have achieved this with an impressively small battery pack compared to competitors. This is critical to preserving Earth’s precious resources,” CEO Peter Rawlinson said in a statement on Monday.
Apart from its ultrafast charging times, Lucid is particularly known for its highly efficient drivetrain. Its first and only model, the Air sedan, can squeeze up to 420 miles of range out of one charge, or five miles for each kilowatt-hour of capacity, in its base version 84-kWh battery pack.
Not only does that reduce both the cost of materials and ecological footprint, it also has a beneficial effect on the vehicle’s weight (and therefore handling), as well as its packaging.
Lucid estimates the Gravity’s pack, comprising Panasonic’s latest 2170 cylindrical cells, is up to 40% smaller than those found in rival models. That means the Gravity can offer 120 cubic feet of storage versus the 88 cubic feet found in a Tesla Model X, a major purchasing consideration for practically minded SUV buyers.
Challenging market conditions
The Gravity celebrated a soft launch last week with the first-ever series-produced versions of the higher-spec Grand Touring model going to select number of employees, friends, and family members.
It’s the second positive headline to come from the carmaker in two days, as it lived up to its financial guidance of building 9,000 vehicles during 2024. It even delivered more than 10,241 vehicles during the period.
While this is well short of the growth it promised when selling shares to investors in the heady days of 2021, the EV market has proved far more challenging than initially believed. Simply surviving the current industry shakeout has been the name of the game for most EV startups. Lucid’s market cap has subsequently plunged to around $10 billion from a record $90 billion three years ago.
The next task facing Lucid is filling the distribution pipeline with Gravity models for the over 50 sales showrooms for test drives.
“Once we have produced those vehicles, we’ll start delivering to a broader group of customers. This is just the beginning,” Rawlinson wrote in a post on LinkedIn last week, promising a “remarkable 2025” for the company.
Everything could be riding on the Gravity SUV. Should it struggle to find enough buyers, Lucid may have a hard time securing the funding needed to finance development of its midsize models so crucial to helping scale the business. These smaller vehicles are slated for production in late 2026.
Shares in Lucid Motors initially received a boost on Tuesday before trending lower in line with the overall market on the back of economic data that dashed hopes for another quick Federal Reserve rate cut.