I am sure that the price to Lucid from the supplier(s) for the 21" forged wheel is considerably higher than for the 19" flow formed wheels. It was probably for marketing purposes that Lucid chose to offer either wheel at the same base price for the car. It's the same approach they took in not charging extra for Zenith Red which, with its tinted clear coat and second application of untinted clear coat is certainly more expensive to produce. Most car manufacturers charge extra for such paint options.
Given the notoriety of Porsche and Mercedes pricing strategies where they start with a moderately high base price and then demand huge upcharges for a slew of things such as rearview cameras, different interior and exterior colors, lighted door sill logos, etc., I think Lucid wanted to carve out a different pricing approach in the luxury space.
However, when customers want things beyond the finished car, such as an extra set of wheels, it seems Lucid will follow the usual industry practice of pricing them according to size and manufacturing method. I think it would be a difficult precedent for them to unwind if, at the outset of aftermarket sales, they sold more expensive wheels at the price of less expensive wheels because of the wheels the customer originally chose. Car manufacturers make a good bit of their profit on aftermarket parts sales, and those parts are priced accordingly. I'm pretty sure Lucid has factored a similar strategy into their earnings projections.
Many years ago one of the car magazines calculated what it would cost to build a car using parts purchased at the counter of a Parts Department. I don't remember the specific figures, but it was on the order of a 4-5 fold increase in the price of the car. Also many years ago when I worked at GE Motors & Industrial Systems, Ford charged $140 at the parts counter for a window lift motor we sold them for $11.
I think Borski was astute in his strategy in inquiring about extra wheels at the time of optioning his car.
