It’s nearly as if 2024’s setting as much as be a come-to-Jesus second for EVs, as producers ask what degree of progress is really sustainable for an electrified future. Overspending on growth for returns that aren’t taking place as quick as anticipated is leaving producers with a dilemma: Can we press ahead, or slow-roll present plans? GM, Ford, and extra are all scaling again their EV plans within the face of softer-than-expected (however rising) demand. Only in the near past, Elon Musk was candid with shareholders that he doesn’t anticipate Tesla to have the ability to maintain the identical degree of progress it noticed in 2023.
One firm is adamant that it has the chutzpah to go the space: Lucid. Final week, throughout a candid dialog with Lucid Motors CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson at its Arizona manufacturing facility, Rawlinson was very optimistic about Lucid’s place within the face of the remainder of the trade. As different producers soften and cut back, it’s full steam forward at Lucid Motors, even after a yr the place the model underdelivered.
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Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson sees a brilliant future
Lucid Motors missed its manufacturing and gross sales targets for 2023, and its inventory worth confronted related headwinds. Nevertheless, Lucid’s CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson insists {that a} plant enlargement, forthcoming new merchandise, smarter communications technique, and different behind-the-scenes investments are issues which have set Lucid up for a stronger future.
“I feel it’s a bizarre time, I feel that macroeconomics and high-interest charges are actually, actually affecting luxurious automobile gross sales,” mentioned Rawlinson, admitting that Lucid’s missed targets disappoint everybody, together with himself. However Rawlinson asks us to reframe Lucid’s numbers. Within the US, the Lucid Air outsold vehicles just like the BMW i7 (which was, admittedly, in its first yr on sale) and is about one to 2 thousand models behind vehicles just like the Mercedes-Benz EQS and Porsche Taycan. Though its 6,001 gross sales for 2023 had been beneath its expectations, year-over-year, the Air has elevated by 37%. Rawlinson notes that in the identical time interval, Tesla Mannequin S gross sales declined. Likewise, he admitted {that a} simplified lineup and extra aggressive worth construction for the 2024 mannequin yr might assist the Air’s gross sales.
Rawlinson claims that its manufacturing facility enlargement and different long-term investments will repay in 2024.
“There’s undue doom and gloom about electrical vehicles; electrical automobiles are the longer term. There are lots of subpar EVs on the market, and I consider that it is a tech race, and we’re in for the lengthy haul,” mentioned Rawlinson. Rawlinson says that there’s lots of future-proofing and funding related to sustainable mobility and electrical vehicles that transcend simply Lucid’s monetary statements. The Gravity and Midsize launches are additionally massive opportunties for the model, with Rawlinson suggesting they will put the model forward of the pack.
Different OEMs are rethinking the EV revolution, maybe waffling again towards ICE and hybrid choices. Lucid, although, is constructed to make EVs, and it may now make lots of them. The corporate’s expanded manufacturing facility can produce the Air and Gravity on the identical line, which ought to assist fulfill demand in new markets like China and Western Europe.
“Chinese language market vehicles must have their VINs stamped on the passenger flooring, if the stamping isn’t explicitly clear, the vehicles will probably be rejected at import,” plant director Steven Inglis mentioned as we toured the Arizona facility, highlighting simply one of many challenges the plant confronted because it equipped for foreign-market manufacturing.
Maybe these are charitable reads on Lucid’s considerably lackluster 2023, from leaders who view the corporate’s success as an crucial. From their hopeful feedback, the sky is the restrict for Lucid. Nevertheless, some analysts stay extra conservative within the face of market realities. “The Air and Gravity are very neat EVs, however they’re priced out of attain for many new automobile customers, “ Ed Kim, president of auto market evaluation agency AutoPacific, advised InsideEVs by way of electronic mail.
Like Rawlinson, Kim doesn’t see the relative softening of still-growing EV demand as a loss of life knell for electrical vehicles solely, as some anti-EV pundits recommend. Moderately, it’s a symptom of badly deliberate product lineups, by way of an overemphasis on high-end luxurious merchandise, an issue that Lucid is part of.
“The softening within the fee of adoption is a mirrored image of different elements, akin to too many EV nameplates clustered at luxurious worth factors (even for non-lux EV nameplates) and a ensuing lack of reasonably priced EV fashions which can be wanted to maintain the speed of adoption going,” wrote Kim. “AutoPacific’s personal knowledge from the Future Attribute Demand Examine (FADS) present that worth is without doubt one of the high causes that EV rejectors cite as a purpose for not going electrical. When those self same persons are requested what worth level they’ll think about an EV, the information present that demand rises sharply beneath $35,000. As reasonably priced and interesting new reasonably priced EVs enter the market within the coming years, we anticipate the speed of EV adoption to soar,” he continued.
The Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV’s roughly $30,000 worth resonated so exhausting with shoppers that they continued to set gross sales data regardless of GM saying its loss of life, prompting executives inside the firm to make a means for the automobile to return. The Tesla Mannequin Y is the best-selling automobile on this planet for a purpose. It’s very near the $35,000 worth ceiling with the federal tax credit score and might slip beneath it with state-level incentives. Granted, Lucid’s midsize automobile with a focused beginning worth of $50,000 is above that $35,000 candy spot, however it’s actually a hell of much more reasonably priced than the simply six-figure vary of the Air sedan and forthcoming Gravity crossover. “If Lucid’s future midsize merchandise incorporate most of what makes the Air and Gravity so fascinating, Lucid has a terrific alternative to develop and develop to the mainstream with sturdy enchantment,” wrote Kim.
Lucid’s mainstream aspirations might appear unusual contemplating its hyper-lux roots. This transfer downmarket might interpreted by some as a sales-starved model pivoting to spice up its flagging numbers, on the expense of brand name picture. The announcement actually raised eyebrows.
Rawlinson sees it in another way. In a relative sense, he says that Lucid has all the time had reasonably priced merchandise. True, the Air sedan’s not low cost, however when in comparison with its direct massive sedan EV rivals, the Air solidly undercuts the EQE and EQS. “I feel we have to do a greater job in comms,” mentioned Rawlinson. If it needs to achieve promoting cheaper fashions, Lucid has to verify shoppers know that it is not sticking to the ultra-luxury house.
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Will that be sufficient to get Lucid from sluggish trot to full dash? The trail appears treacherous, however the Lucid workforce’s able to put up a battle.