Lucid Motors, Inc., one of the growing number of American electric vehicle (EV) makers challenging market leader Tesla Inc., still intends to begin mass-producing its first luxury electric car by 2020.
The company was founded as Atieva in 2007 by Bernard Tse and Sam Weng.
Lucid Motors revealed its first EV -- Lucid Air -- the "Lucid Air" in December 2016 and at this vehicle's reveal said the car will be available two years later. It also revealed the specs of Lucid Air, the first of a series of captivating luxury electric vehicles it plans to produce.
Lucid Air is a 4-door luxury sedan (much like the Tesla Model 3) capable of hitting a software limited top speed of 350 km/h (217 mph). Its powertrain consists of a 400 hp front motor and a 600 hp rear motor for a combined horsepower of 900 hp to 1,000 hp. Lucid Air will be equipped with eight cameras for driver assist.
Lucid Air's battery pack will be the 2170 lithium-ion battery cells from Samsung SDI.
In January 2019, Lucid Motors received a $1 billion investment from the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, to ensure the commercial launch of Lucid Air. It said the Saudi Arabian investment is a major milestone on the path to mass-producing Lucid Air.
The huge investment will give Lucid Motors the necessary funding to commercially launch Lucid Air. Lucid will also use Saudi funding to complete engineering development and testing of the Lucid Air and build its $700 million factories in Casa Grande, Arizona.
And to run this mammoth factory, Lucid Motors this week hired Peter Hochholdinger as its new vice president of manufacturing. Hochholdinger was the former vice president of production of Tesla, Inc.
Analysts said Lucid Motors will benefit from the huge bank of technical knowledge amassed by Hochholdinger in the production of Lucid Air. Hochholdinger has almost 30 years of experience in automotive manufacturing.
"We are delighted to welcome Peter to the Lucid team," said Lucid CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson. "Peter's extensive experience and proven leadership in premium-vehicle manufacturing will prove invaluable as we continue our progress towards the launch of Lucid Air and future models."
Hochholdinger said he joins Lucid at an exciting time in the company's history.
"I look forward to working with the world-class team to deliver Lucid's incredible luxury electric vehicles in production," he said.
