I can only assume that with so little factual info available there is little to actually discuss.
This is what I find so interesting . . . and frustrating. I, too, get the impression that Lucid is putting out very little information about its car. Yet I think there is more out there than we realize.
I also have a reservation for a Rivian R1S. I've mentioned elsewhere that the Rivian forum is hopping, with several hundred members and thousands of posts. A few weeks ago a friend who also follows EVs told me that was because Lucid was not putting out as much information as Rivian. So I sat down and listed what information has been released by both manufacturers (as opposed to speculation by press and posters). It turned out that Lucid has released at least as much information about the Air as Rivian has released about the R1S and R1T.
Below is what can so far be divined about the Air. You may find you already know all this and don't want to slog through the list. If you do, however, I'd appreciate your adding anything to the list of which I'm not aware.
Batteries & Propulsion:
- Plans for a 130-kWh battery pack have been dropped. Due to efficiencies obtained in further powertrain development, the desired 400+ miles of range can be attained with a 110-kWh battery pack.
- Lucid is sourcing cylindrical 21700 batteries for the "standard" versions of the Air from LG Chem. Lucid had an earlier agreement to source batteries from Samsung. It's not clear whether Samsung is still in line to supply the batteries for the upper-end Air. In either case, Lucid claims they co-developed a propriety chemistry with the battery suppliers that will tolerate fast charging with less degradation. They are mum on what that chemistry is, but LG Chem is just now releasing the newest generation of NCM811 batteries.
- The induction motors in the alpha cars have been switched to permanent magnet motors front and rear. Lucid is able to use these motors on both axles -- as opposed to Tesla, which uses them only on the front axle -- because they have developed a means to substantially reduce cogging torque that can make an idle or low-rpm motor shudder.
- Lucid is going to run at "over" 900 volts, nearing the practical safety limit of 1,000 volts in a passenger vehicle. This will reduce the current flow, and thus the heat, and thus the cooling requirements in the entire power system.
- Lucid's motors develop 600 hp. The Air platform can take up to three of these motors, but the initial cars will use two motors (one for each axle), producing a total of about 1,000 hp. (The output is less than 1,200 hp due to limits on the battery pack's output.)
- Lucid originally said it was going to use a cycloidal transmission. Rawlinson now says it will be an epicyclic transmission.
- Lucid's inverters will use state-of-the-art MOSFET chips, yielding industry-leading inverter efficiencies with greater heat tolerance.
- The inverter-motor-transmission assembly for each axle weighs 160 pounds. This will be the most volumetrically- and weight-dense power output in the industry.
- The inverter electronics and the transmission gearing have been selected to obtain higher efficiencies at highway speeds than at the speed averages around which EPA testing is built. While this may yield a lower EPA range rating than might otherwise be obtained, it means the car will come closer to attaining that range in real-world highway driving than other EVs.
- The Air will achieve an efficiency of at least 4 miles/kWh. This will be the highest efficiency of an EV of its size and weight. (For reference, Tesla's most efficient EV is the Model 3, which posts 4.1 miles/kWh, but is a smaller and lighter car.)
Autonomous Driving:
- Lucid will have all the hardware for Level 5 full autonomous driving. At start of production, the Air will be delivered with autopilot capability somewhere between Level 2 and 3. Over-the-air updates will advance the levels as software development and regulatory approvals allow.
- Lucid is sourcing its autonomous driving technology from Mobileye. Unlike Tesla, which uses only optical cameras, the Mobileye approach runs two systems in parallel. The primary system is exclusively camera based with 8 cameras. The secondary system uses radar and lidar sensors whose inputs are constantly compared to the camera inputs to fill in data gaps or help analyze conflicting inputs. Mobileye is moving from its "EyeQ4" chip to its much more powerful "EyeQ5" chip around the time that the Air goes into production. It's not clear which chip will be in the early production models.
- Lucid's autonomous driving program is run by Eugene Lee, a PhD who ran Cadillac's well-regarded SuperCruise program.
Exterior/Interior Features:
- The Air has a drag coefficient of 0.21, the lowest figure of any full-size sedan. The car will have two small radiators instead of the usual one large radiator for battery and powertrain cooling, both fed by small patented vortex-generating air inputs which were key to reducing the drag coefficient.
- The executive rear seating option is aimed at the Asian chauffeur-driven market and will not be available in the early production runs for the U.S. market.
- The Dream Edition will have a glass canopy roof. Although electrochromic dimming was in the early design plans, there has been no confirmation about whether dimming will make it to production.
- The car will have 19" and 21" wheels available. At least the 21" wheel has an aerodynamic design.
- The 10 pivoting LED headlights on each side of the alpha cars have been replaced with 6 larger, fixed LEDs on each side of the production version with a less linear size progression (
i,e., looks a little clunkier).
- There have been photographs of two version of the front trunk of the Air. The later version has slightly larger wheel/strut tower covers, reducing the sizable front trunk just marginally. There will be under-floor storage in the rear trunk.
- The rear floor well configuration of the Air is unclear. Early photos showed recessed floor wells in the executive seating version (which was the reason it was not planned for the largest 130-kWh battery pack) and a flat rear floor board in the bench seat version, as the recessed wells were filled with additional battery modules. However, something might have changed with the plans now to use a 110-kWh pack as the largest. In the shadowy video Lucid teased of the production version, you can just make out a carpet cutaway over what appears to be a bump in the middle of the rear floorboard. This might mean that the bench seat version will now have deeper footwells for the outboard passengers.
Time to Market:
- The first Design Studio (with an alpha car on display) was opened in Newark, CA in February 2020. After a dressy preview of a final production car to reservation holders in late February, it was closed due to Covid-19 and has not reopened. Seven more design studios planned for this year, including ones in West Palm Beach and Miami, will not open until near the end of the year -- assuming the virus resurgence does not cause additional delays.
- The only "production" version of the car that has been built so far is the one car that was destined for the New York Auto Show. Neither press nor public have had access to it since February.
- The new factory in Case Grande, AZ will start producing final production cars in August. These cars are for manufacturing quality control assessments and will not be sold. The first cars destined for customers will probably enter production in December or January.
