The former chief engineer in charge of development of the Tesla Model S sedan, Peter Rawlinson, has now taken over as CEO of the EV startup Lucid Motors as the former CEO has retired.
Rawlinson was already at Lucid
Rawlinson left Tesla in 2013 and joined Lucid Motors as the chief technology officer. He will retain that post. The announcement said in part: "Since joining Lucid in 2013, Rawlinson has held the position of Chief Technology Officer, being responsible for all design and engineering activities, including Lucid’s first car, the all-electric Lucid Air luxury sedan."
Robertson said: “It is an honor to be appointed CEO of Lucid at such an exciting time for the company and the industry. While the convergence of new technologies is reshaping the automobile, the full potential has yet to be realized, inhibiting the pace at which sustainable mobility and energy are adopted. Lucid has the product vision, the core in-house technology, and the depth of talent to realize this potential. Working collaboratively, our outstanding team will create landmark future products, commencing with Lucid Air in 2020.”
The co-founder and CEO Sam Weng founded the company back in 2007 as "Atieva" and was focused on developing and making batteries for electric vehicles. It began to change its focus on electric cars in 2016 and underwent a name change as well to Lucid Motors. It still uses the name Atieva for some of the battery technology.
Saudi Arabian wealth fund is investing in Lucid
In September of 2018 the company announced that Saudi Arabia's wealth fund would invest more than $1 billion into Lucid.
The announcement came a month before the murder by some Saudis associated with the government of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist. In late October Lucid attended the Saudi Arabia hosted "Davos in the Desert" even though a number firms bowed out after the murder.
The Lucid Air
The EV Lucid is producing is called the Air. It is a luxury all-electric EV. The company promises it will have the long range of 400 miles on a charge. It will be able to accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour in jut 2.5 seconds.It will have a huge 1,000 horsepower. It will be very costly with the first units costing over $100,000. The company is hoping to make about 50 Lucid Airs by the end of next year. Rawlinson claims a fleet of test cars are to be built later this year.
Eventually Lucid plans to release cheaper version and it is also developing an all-electric SUV.
Production of Air is behind schedule
Originally, it was announced that the Air would go into production in 2018. It was to build a $700 million factory in Arizona but had problems lining up funding to build it. The Saudi Arabian investment helped the company overcome its problems. The company had two agreements in 2017 where it used it intellectual property as collateral for loans to help deal with its cash crunch. The company now plans to break ground on its Arizona plant within the next two months. Rawlinson said that during its "fallow period" the company was still able to make significant advances in technology especially with respect to the Air's electric motor.
The car is capable of incredible speeds as shown on the appended video. More information on Lucid Motors can be found at Wikipedia.
Previously published in Digital Journal
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