The Lucid Air Has Arrived. Is Tesla Worried?

New luxury EV just won the Motor Trend 2022 Car of the Year award and is turning heads in the industry.

Source: Lucid Motors.)

Source: Lucid Motors.)

A California-based startup electric vehicle (EV) maker is turning heads with its new vehicle. No, it’s not Tesla—it’s Lucid, and the carmaker’s Lucid Air has just won Motor Trend’s 2022 Car of the Year.

The award is one of the most prestigious accolades in the automotive industry—and it’s the first time the initial product from a new carmaker has won.

The Lucid Air is an electric five-seat luxury sedan whose price starts at $78,900 and can go up to $170,500 for the top-of-the-line model. It has a 118 kWh lithium-ion battery and a duel electric motor drive that can provides up to 1111 horsepower. It has a top range of 520 miles—a new benchmark for EVs. And you can quickly top up the battery : it takes about 20 minutes to charge 300 miles at a 350 kW charging station. That’s the most for EVs yet, even though it still pales in comparison to an internal combustion engine’s capability. The Air can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds and can hit a top speed of 168 miles per hour.

(Source: Lucid Motors.)

(Source: Lucid Motors.)

“Lucid Motors is driven to make the electric car better, and by doing so, help move the entire industry forward towards accelerated adoption of sustainable mobility. The goal of this relentless approach to developing the world’s most advanced electric vehicle is to benefit all mankind with sustainable, zero emission transportation, and to also attract new customers to the world of EVs,” said Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO of Lucid Motors and former chief vehicle engineer for Tesla.

Smaller Drivetrain, More Room for Passengers

The Lucid air takes a new approach to vehicle design with the company’s Lucid Space Concept. This approach takes full advantage of the reduced size of the drivetrain, which was developed in-house, in order to provide more passenger space. While traditional carmakers can often create electric vehicles based on the already established designs of their existing gas-burning products, Lucid essentially designed its vehicle from scratch.

By developing electric motors that are small but powerful, and designing and packaging the electric powertrain as efficiently as possible, it frees up more room in the vehicle for passenger comfort. It also creates more storage room: the Lucid Air’s frunk is the biggest in its class. This approach forms the basis of the carmaker’s Lucid Electric Advanced Platform, the vehicle architecture that the Lucid Air and future Lucid vehicles will be built on.

(Source: Lucid Motors.)

(Source: Lucid Motors.)

DreamDrive System

It seems you can’t have an electric vehicle without at least the promise of extensive driver assistance these days, and the Lucid Air is no different. The vehicle comes equipped with Lucid’s DreamDrive system.

DreamDrive features up to 32 onboard sensors, a sophisticated driver monitoring system, and onboard ethernet networking. The DreamDrive Pro will have additional computing and sensor hardware.

The system consists of 14 visible-light cameras, five radar units, four surround view cameras, and ultrasonic sensors embedded in the vehicle’s exterior. DreamDrive Pro will also have the first auto LiDAR in North America; this solid-state LiDAR sensor uses laser beams to measure objects’ distance from the vehicle, and will have an ultra-wide field of view to generate high-resolution data for the Lucid Air’s onboard computer.

LiDAR isn’t for everyone, though. Elon Musk, among others, has criticized the technology, stating that it only recreates an image of its surroundings instead of getting a real-time visual representation of them. Tesla claims that a vision-based system with cameras gets the same results as LIDAR, but with the additional security of having pictures of the actual environment that can be more responsive to unpredictable developments on the road. A camera-based system can also be noticeably cheaper than a LiDAR-based one.

The driver assistance software also comes with safety features such as front and rear cross-traffic protection and autonomous emergency braking. And DreamDrive’s Surround View Monitoring provides a 360-degree view of the car to help with parking and maneuvering in tight spaces at low speed.

And new features will be delivered via over-the-air software updates. As with the drivetrain, DreamDrive was developed in-house by an integrated team of hardware and software specialists.

“DreamDrive Pro has been designed to grow in capability, thanks to our ability to deliver software over-the-air and key equipment already in place in the vehicle,” said Eugene Lee, Senior Director of ADAS and Autonomous Driving at Lucid Motors. “Lucid has the ability to develop new functionality for DreamDrive Pro in-house. This can benefit every facet of the DreamDrive Pro experience, from the frequency of updates to the planned rollout of the Highway Pilot system for conditional automated driving on select roadways in the coming years.”

Speaking of future features such as Highway Pilot, Lucid had developed a set of features to enhance occupant safety and driving experience. Highway Assist combines adaptive cruise control and lane centering control to ensure the Lucid Air has enough distance from the vehicle in front of it and the lanes beside it. The Traffic Jam Assist performs a similar function when stuck in traffic, helping keep the vehicle centered in its lane when other vehicles are closer, and operating at speeds between 0 and 40 miles per hour. For vehicles with DreamDrive Pro, other functions for Highway Assist are in development.

The Lucid Air also provides smart assistance when parking. Auto Park identifies both parallel and perpendicular parking spots and manages the parking process autonomously: selecting gears, steering, and moving forward and in reverse, both when entering and exiting the parking space. In addition, when parking on a hill, Auto Park will turn the front wheels towards or away from the curb the way we all learned in our own driver’s ed courses.

(Source: Lucid Motors.)

(Source: Lucid Motors.)

While all these features of the Lucid Air are impressive, the carmaker has also taken steps to make sure they don’t distract the driver. For example, the Highway Assist only activates when the driver is alert and in command of the vehicle. The car uses a sophisticated driver monitoring system to track where the driver’s attention is directed. An infrared driver camera monitors head position, eye gaze and blink rate, while a hands-off detection mechanism alerts the driver when their hands come off the steering wheel. If the driver doesn’t respond to the system’s prompts—which could mean the driver is incapacitated—the system will take over, slow the car to a complete stop, activate the emergency brake and hazard lights and emit a warning beep. The vehicle will also automatically unlock the doors to give emergency crews easier access to the people in the car.

Not surprisingly, all these features are going to require massive amounts of data—and serious processing power to use it. Lucid has responded to this challenge with its proprietary Ethernet Ring, an on-board high-speed data network that links four computer gateways, one at each corner of the Lucid Air. The network allows the computers to communicate with each other at gigabit speeds. Not only does it result in excellent performance but also ensures high redundancy for critical systems: steering, braking, sensor input, power and so on. To reinforce that redundancy, the car also features a dual-rail power architecture which helps make sure power is supplied to the systems that need it, when they need it.

The Lucid Air is an impressive first offering from this new carmaker, turning heads on the street and winning over the critics. Not content to rest on the success of the Lucid Air, the carmaker is already working on its next vehicle, the Gravity SUV.

“With the Lucid Air, we have created a halo car for the entire industry, one which shows the advancements that are possible by pushing the boundaries of EV technology and performance to new levels,” said Rawlinson.

While Tesla might still be the dominant name in EVs, companies like Lucid are making vehicles that should make for some healthy competition in the market—and greater choice for consumers.

Read more about the development of the award-winning Lucid Air at Meet the Creative Women Behind the Lucid Air Luxury Electric Car.