Motor Trends Gets to Look into Lucid's Crystal Ball

[xponents]

This will be dimmable.

Will the upper section be dimmable separately from the rest of the lights (footwell, etc) or will there only be one "brightness zone?"

 

[borski]

Electrek got a look too.

Some of the targeted competitors are the upcoming Macan EV and Kia EV5 and we were told the new EVs will function similarly to model like the Hyundai Santa Fe, Rivian R2, and Ford Bronco. Lucid’s Senior Vice President of Design and Brand, Derek Jenkins walked us around the covered vehicles and even lifted up a corner of the sheet at the crossover’s rear to give us a peak at the clay. It’s definitely a work in progress, but it looks sleek and unique… although its design is sure to change several more times before its targeted arrival in 2026.

One exciting design aspect that Jenkins preached was this idea of “inclusivity,” particularly in the cabin of the mid-seize models. He mentioned integrating music, video, and phone use as immersive experiences unlike anything the public has ever seen, all of which can be controlled from anywhere in the vehicle – adding a sort of group experience to driving… although many of these incoming features will likely only be available while parked.

Jenkins also shared that the smartphone will play a critical role in the mid-size experience, whatever that means. He said that Lucid is not trying to beat or replace the phone but that there is potential in that technology and its experience that the automaker feels can do better with a car.

 

[ikonn]

Another article on Lucid came up today, this one from "Autoweek". It continues to amaze me just how much inaccurate crap is put out about Lucid.

Here is a passage from the "Autoweek" article, which demonstrates either that basic arithmetic is beyond their grasp, that they have no editorial oversight (or even basic proofreading), or that they're outright willing to lie to make a point:

"In the first quarter of this year, it [Lucid] lists 1748 cars produced and 1967 delivered globally. Deliveries were up nearly 40% year over year, the carmaker says, and up more than 13% quarter over quarter. The competition is doing better, at least Tesla is. In that same first quarter of 2024, Tesla sold 168,500 vehicles, and 6000 of those were the Lucid Air’s main competitor, the Model S. That's ten times more Models S than Lucids Air."

Uh, exactly how is 6000 Model S's sold ten times more than 1967 Lucid Airs?

The article goes on to give the Q1 delivery numbers for . . .

Mercedes EQE Sedan - 1023
Mercedes EQS Sedan - 817
Audi e-Tron GT - 776
Porsche Taycan - 1247

Assuming those numbers are correct, "Autoweek" opines that the competition is "not doing much better". No, in point of fact, they're not doing better at all.

https://www.autoweek.com/news/a60517248/2024-lucid-air-model-range-drive-review/

To be fair to Autoweek the article referred to 600 cars for Lucid and 6000 cars for Model S, that’s how they got 10x. Now where they got that data is not well referenced, so there’s that….

 

[ikonn]

https://www.motortrend.com/features/lucid-motors-design-studio-tour-future-vehicles-air-gravity/

Mid sized will be the golden ticket people. But first they need Gravity to launch well this year otherwise stock price pressure will probably kill a 2026 mid size launch.

 

[hmp10]

To be fair to Autoweek the article referred to 600 cars for Lucid and 6000 cars for Model S, that’s how they got 10x. Now where they got that data is not well referenced, so there’s that….

View attachment 20107

This is interesting. When I open the link I put up in Post #3 on this thread, the article is no longer the one "Autoweek" originally posted. They have heavily edited that original article. The quotes and figures in my post were literally cut and pasted from the original article into my post.

The original article read that Lucid Air numbers were "1748 cars produced and 1967 delivered globally". It also went on to say that the competition was "not doing much better", posting numbers for Mercedes, Audi, and Porsche that were below Lucid delivery figures. (The numbers for those makers in the current article have remained unchanged in the edited article.) The article now says "the competition is doing better", based on the 600 number they are now using for Lucid.

Nowhere, though, does "Autoweek" indicate that the article has been edited or corrected from an earlier version.

There's something fishy going on here. "Automotive News" is behind a paywall, but I found this article from April 9. The headline read:

Then, in the fadeout before the paywall, you see the same figures that were in the original version of the "Autoweek" article:

I've looked further, and no one else is reporting sales figures of 600 Airs for Q1 2024. Cox Automotive, MSN, Teslarati, InsideEVs, et al. are all reporting the 1,967 number Lucid released.

It looks to me that "Autoweek" tried to cover their error of saying Model S sold at 10 times the rate of the Air by lowering the Lucid sales number to a dead even number of exactly 600 cars. Doesn't that exactness of 6,000, 600, and 10x seem a little odd. Somebody's just pulling numbers out of their asses to make a point they want to make, data be damned.

 

[hmp10]

I've followed the automotive industry most of my life and used to subscribe to the hard copy of "Autoweek" because it followed the business side of the industry more closely than the more driver-oriented monthly publications to which I also subscribed.

Sadly, it appears to have followed the trajectory of so much of the press in their transition to the digital age -- a race to get things up faster than anyone else, even at the expense of accuracy; reducing or even eliminating editing and proof-reading; giving more free-lance authors access to the platform without the rigors of the selection/hiring process and the responsibility for their output.

However, Mark Vaughn, the author of this article, appears to be a long-standing employee of "Autoweek". So I don't know why he would have authored two such utterly different versions of the same article using numbers that are such a murkily-sourced and indecipherable mess.