This spring, the $169,000 Lucid Air is coming and Peter Rawlinson says it will be the planet's fastest, longest-range electric vehicle.
Peter Rawlinson's Lucid Air has many goals. One is that it should be hailed as the best electric vehicle in the world. A decade ago, he designed Tesla's Model S.
Certainly, the 'Dream' edition of the Air seems to wow. It tops the S with an industry-leading 517 miles per charge, quicker recharging, and in just over 2 seconds the ability to go from 0 mph to 60 mph. This spring, the first Air customers will take delivery.
But Rawlinson's dreams go far beyond offering a $169,000 luxury car to rich drivers.
His bigger purpose is to leverage the 1,080 horsepower propulsion technology to power cheaper electric vehicles—which he says are by far the most powerful in the world. In just five years, Rawlinson wants to be selling hundreds of thousands of mid-$40,000 electric cars and helping big automakers sell $25,000 mass-market EVs–the very same objective his old boss, Elon Musk, is chasing.
Rawlinson wants to build his cars on his very first oil-rich automotive factory in Saudi Arabia, which has two-thirds owned by its sovereign wealth fund.
“There’s a really big misunderstanding about our business model,” says the Welsh engineer, 63. “This is not about making an expensive car for wealthy people. That’s not why I’m here. That’s not what drives me. … I want us to be making a million cars a year. The ambition of Lucid is to have a profound effect. We are not a minority play.”
The current U.S. president has also signed initiatives pushing the federal government to substitute energy with fossil-fuel vehicles.
The major businesses jumped on board. General Motors has already undertaken to manufacture only electric vehicles by 2035 and Ford and Volkswagen both aim to switch away from fossil fuels vigorously.
California, the main U.S. market for EVs and home to Lucid and Tesla, is ground-zero for the increase and may become America’s “Norway” for battery-powered cars. “At more than 50% EV penetration, Norway is 15 years ahead of the rest of the world,” Jonas said. “Watch for California to move in this direction rather quickly, influencing a significant number of other U.S. states that are in a position to take matters into their own hands in terms of de-carbonization of the fleet.”
Lucid is starting out at a calculated rate for now. This year, Rawlinson plans to manufacture at least 6,000 Airs at a new plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, potentially producing revenue of $900 million. In 2022, as Air versions priced at $77,000 arrive, volume could top 25,000 units. With the launch of an electric crossover, tentatively called Gravity, in 2023, followed by even cheaper and smaller versions to compete with Tesla's top-selling Model 3, further growth is expected.
With a $1.3 billion investment in 2018 from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which, according to Pitchbook, priced the firm at $15 billion, the private Newark, California-based company is currently paying for Air's growth and development. That is on top of the $150 million previously raised by the company.
But it's expensive to make cars and Rawlinson knows he needs to find even more cash and is seeking to publicly list shares, probably through a SPAC. Though he’d previously considered SPAC a “dirty word,” that’s changed. “That was the financier’s view, that was Wall Street’s view of SPACs, not so long ago. I think I would say what a difference a year makes,” he says, without confirming a specific plan.
“If you’re a sprinter what is your best time for the 100 meters? That’s your metric. Usain Bolt, it’s a 9.69,” Rawlinson says. “You can almost do [the same] for an electric car company, and that is your EPA efficiency.”
He came to Tesla in 2009 when it was emerging from garage startup status and was promoted to Vice President and Chief Engineer of Model S in 2010.. “I put my heart and soul into that.”
Musk is famously hard to work for, but Rawlinson has mostly positive memories of his Tesla days. “We got on like a house on fire for most of the time I was there–not at the very end.”
“We both obsessed about reaching for the stars with technology and engineering–and it just can’t be good enough,” he recalls. Rawlinson is following Musk’s playbook when it comes to cracking the auto market: Start with ultra-luxe and then drive aggressively down market.
He left Tesla in 2012, but was ready to get back to work a year later. He joined the Silicon Valley startup Atieva as a CTO in 2013 as it moved from a battery supplier to an EV manufacturer.
It was renamed Lucid Motors at the end of 2016, ahead of the debut of the Air prototype, but struggled to raise funds until the Saudi investment. Rawlinson, who became the CEO of Lucid in 2019, won't say how much of the company he owns.
Lucid and Tesla are not the only beneficiaries of the growing demand for electric cars. Amazon-backed Rivian is starting to deliver electric pickups and SUVs this year. Famed car designer Henrik Fisker is prepared to begin selling the Ocean, with a stylish $37,499 electric crossover in 2022.9 electric crossover in 2022.
Apple is eternally rumored to be eying the space. Dozens more EVs are coming from General Motors, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Nissan and other major car manufacturers, starting this year with Ford's high-powered Mustang Mach-E.
Gartner analyst Mike Ramsey thinks that Lucid's plan to move down to more affordable ultra-premium cars is the right approach. “What’s been proven is in this technology the way that you get in is that you aim at the high market, then build a loyal customer base, use the cache, the brand awareness, and then spread and go further.”
Musk and Rawlison share a passion for EV technology, but they can't be any different from how they run their companies. Tesla has become the world's most valuable automaker, briefly turning Musk into the richest person in the world on the basis of his large stake in it, despite selling less than 500,000 vehicles in 2020. Musk has become the world's leading technology icon, with more than 42 million people on Twitter. And for good or bad, he rules as Tesla's absolute leader and brand symbol.
Lucid’s CEO, who doesn’t have a Twitter account, has a different approach. “I’m not an autocrat. Lucid is a team effort,” he says. “That is a big difference. The other thing is that I don’t expect someone who buys a Lucid to know my name. I don’t expect them to know who Peter Rawlinson is.”
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Compiled by :
Rahul Shrestha
