Tesla has laid the groundwork for other electric cart start-ups and one hot on Musk’s heels is Lucid Motors which has just teased its 2018 Lucid Air EV.
CAR COMPANIES ARE becoming looser about sharing teaser videos of their camouflaged pre-production cars – to beat the spy snappers and build some hype. Land Rover has been doing an especially good job at this. Now Lucid has followed suit and released a teaser video of the 2018 Lucid Air EV getting sideways in the snow.
Who said electric cars couldn’t be fun?! In case you didn’t know, Lucid is run by Peter Rawlinson who’s an ex-Tesla employee who worked on the development of the Model S. Lucid is just a new name for Atieva which produced lithiom-ion batteries and drivetrains.
The Lucid Air EV will get from 0-96km/h in just 2.5 seconds. And the company is now taking refundable deposits of around US$2500, with pricing set to be above $100,000 for well-optioned variants, and deliveries will begin in late 2018. Future vehicles, Lucid says, will list from $65,000.
Read Paul Horrell’s review of the Tesla Model X 90D HERE
There’s a press kit for the Lucid Air but it’s a bit wishy-washy on detail, although we do know the Lucid Air will ride on active air suspension, that the rear seats will recline up to 55-degrees and that it will offer the “interior space of a full-size luxury vehicle in a mid-size footprint”. Lucid also claims its cars will be delivered “autonomous ready”.
So, why the ice drive? According to David Lickfold, Lucid’s steering and chassis engineering manager, it was an opportunity to put the computer modelling to the test in the real world.
“The Lucid team recently took our alpha development prototypes to northern Minnesota for winter testing, as the region provides the perfect environment for honing many vehicle attributes. Temperatures as low as -18F (-28C) are tough on just about every element of a vehicle. This extreme environment allows us to build upon extensive simulations and climate chamber development, and to perform grueling real-world cold-driving testing and validation of our powertrain, battery, thermal, body, and chassis systems,” Lickfold wrote on the company’s website.
“Much of our time in Minnesota was focused on braking systems and vehicle dynamics. Low friction surfaces, such as deep and packed snow, polished ice, and split left-versus-right friction, challenge both the car and the driver, allowing us to develop anti-lock braking, traction control, and stability-control systems to ensure comfortable, stable progress through the worst conditions seen on the road.”
