Over the weekend Tesla announced that it was canceling plans for the Model S Plaid+, claiming that the base Plaid was "just so good" that the Plaid+ was superfluous.
However, the "plus" was touted as having over 130 miles more range than the base Plaid: 520+ miles vs. 390 miles. Musk is now claiming that no one needs more than 400 miles of range.
I had suspected ever since Muck announced the Plaid+ specs at Battery Day last year that he had made the 520+ range claim only because Lucid had recently announced that the Air had attained 517 miles of range in FEV testing using EPA protocols, and Musk went off half-cocked in trying to steal Lucid's thunder.
What this really means is that, for now at least, Tesla is abandoning the field in the range wars (and the associated efficiency wars) to Lucid.
This, given that the Mercedes EQS EPA range is likely to come in around 420 miles with a battery pack about the same size as the Air, means that Lucid's promise to enter the market with industry-leading range and efficiency is likely to materialize.
