Lucid Motors: Here's Why Tesla Should Fear Lucid Air

[Music] so peter is lucid building the next 400 billion dollar company right now wouldn't that be wonderful american automotive company lucid motors unveiled the first prototype of the lucid air in 2016 claimed to be the most efficient luxury car in the world with a range of 517 miles the elegant and futuristic lucid is an intriguing entrant to the hotly contested electric vehicle market a proprietary patent powerhouse lucid's technology is on the leading edge of performance for electrified vehicles despite the ethereal name lucid has moved a lot of money atoms and current in the real world the business has received over 1 billion dollars of funding lucid is building a 380 000 unit per year production facility in casa grande arizona and the car is powered by a 113 kilowatt hour battery pack with a 900 volt architecture the electric motor inverter transmission and differential are all housed in one miniaturized electric drive unit that weighs just 163 pounds and packs over 650 horsepower the cars i've seen are solid but what makes lucid ready for a seat at the top table 10 years ago i was chief engineer on tesla model s i was vp of engineering at tesla and i was responsible for the vehicle which we know as model s i really applaud what tesla's done it's fantastic it's a profound benefit for mankind but what i passionately believe is that this is a technology race tesla is in its pre-ascendant position because it's recognized that electrification is a technology race and i just think that a lot of the incumbent automakers don't really understand that despite starship size dv market caps lucid's engineering organization stays focused on the technology lucid understands their first production car needs to be a technical tour to force the luxury sedan claims to be 40 more efficient than any other electric car on the road in fact the lucid air travels 17 further than a tesla model s long range for the same size battery pack detractors think the stats are just too good to be true for a nascent car company let's take a look at the innovative technology lucid motors is putting into their cars and form our own conclusions efficiency is the holy grail for electric vehicles and the north star for lucid motors lucid is primarily focused on achieving more range for the same size battery lucid's benchmark is miles per kilowatt hour and the lucid air achieves roughly 4.6 miles of travel for every kilowatt hour of energy stored in its battery by comparison the 2020 tesla model s long range only achieves about four miles per kilowatt hour the lucid air's 113 kilowatt hour battery pack contains industry standard lithium ion cells but lucid has integrated advanced cooling systems and a proprietary cell architecture which reduces internal pack impedance lucid is not new to the battery game originally founded under the name ativa in 2007 the company designed manufactured and supplied batteries and powertrains for other evs before they launched the air they actually did the battery packs for all the cars in the formula e racing series for several years it's true to say that the battery pack that we have here in lucid air is the close dna cousin of that racing battery pack the end cooling the turbulated cooling plates the way that the honeycomb the 60 degree honeycomb of the cells is ultra compact with the end cooling the electrical connection system heavily patented by us which we've innovated through that formula directly applies to the car and i'm particularly pleased that we've got a super low resistance to the battery pack peter says the ultimate test of a battery pack is fast charging using a 900 volt charger with peak charging rates over 300 kilowatts the lucid air is capable of charging at up to 20 miles per minute or 300 miles of charge in just 20 minutes lucid's multifunctional two-way boost charger the wonderbox is uniquely capable of vehicle to grid or vehicle to vehicle charging essentially letting you use your car as a giant home backup battery peter is not a fan of dumb range as he calls it increasing range by scaling up with larger heavier batteries for the 17 efficiency lead they have over tesla lucid attributes 15 to drivetrain improvements and 2 percent to aerodynamic optimizations lucid's electric drive unit is one of the automaker's most significant innovations there's one very weird fact that explains why and it sounds so crazy you might not believe it this is our motor inverter transmission and differential unit complete this is a drive unit and this unit weighs just 74 kilos it literally can fit inside an aircraft flight bag and it is two and a half times smaller than the closest competitor for its for its power output this unit literally can go depending upon specification to 670 horsepower and yet it only weighs 74 kilos it achieves over 40 horsepower per liter and we can use one two or three of these combined in lucid air platform i can have just rear wheel drive you can have a four wheel drive with two motors or you can combine a third to have a tri-motor we've built a prototype tri-motor which has shattering performance already we've achieved a 9 second 0.24 924 run in the standing quarter [Applause] mile i've driven it myself around achieving about 9.3 and i achieved an exit speed of 158 miles an hour in the standing quarter with our tri-motor this is hyper car level of performance one of the key enablers is our thermal control and the breakthrough we've made particularly to keeping the the temperature under control particularly in those copper windings that you see there through slots in the stator when you run an electric motor heat builds up as the copper windings in the stator get hot they generate more resistance and electricity can't flow as easily reducing efficiency motor cooling is a key engineering challenge in building an efficient ev lucid approached cooling by running computer models of the electromagnetic fields inside their motor and identifying zones that could be optimized they then used a computerized coil winding system with a continuous wave pattern that enables more consistent and predictable motor performance the lucid air uses permanent magnet synchronous motors that can spin up to 20 000 rpm on both the front and rear of the vehicle it was a meaningful engineering decision to go with the permanent magnet motors over using induction motors which rely on electrical current to magnetize the rotor there's a concept related to permanent magnet motors known as cogging torque cogging torque refers to the interaction between the permanent magnets of the rotor and stator slots the magnetic field generated by permanent magnets can't be turned off so the magnets constantly exert torque that slows down the motor especially at low speeds in an induction motor the magnetic field is generated electrically when you turn the current off the electromagnets don't exert any magnetic field and the motor can spin freely lucid has made innovations to their pmms motor design that significantly reduces cogging torque maximizing power output and reducing electrical losses lucid's proprietary inverter utilizes a silicon carbide mosfet chip to further maximize efficiency in real-world driving conditions the lucid air could be the first car proven to beat tesla's powertrain efficiency but lucid doesn't see tesla as a direct competitor and you might be surprised who they view as the real competition the lucid air is a luxury car and peter sees traditional german stalwarts like the mercedes s-class to be the real competition 98 of the global luxury market is still comprised of internal combustion engine vehicles but are the wealthy class ready for something electrified in the high-end category i think it takes it takes a while to this styling to grow on people it's like it's rather strange to start with because it doesn't look like a traditional car with a human face a comparison is that the traditional cloud is almost inspired by human eyes you see the face of the car and you see a single lens for each headlamp like the human eyes these are really like insect eyes you know like a fly's eyes are made out of uh hundreds and hundreds of micro lenses that's what a fly sees with lucid is reinventing luxury design proportions by placing electrification at the forefront of their design thesis not as an afterthought with compact electric motors there's no need for a long sweeping hood massive air intake or a big shiny grille cargo cult relics of 125 years of luxury heat engine design tradition lucid's vp of design derek jenkins says that the future of luxury is streamlined minimalist and will follow true form to function principles he believes that the design language of the new era of electrification is still in its infancy and an aesthetic revolution is currently taking place if you come around the side of the car you see the proportion of the lucid air is pretty unique we have a very short hood really long cabin and a very short rear and that's possible because of the electric drivetrain we've been able to make the cabin for the passengers much larger than a vehicle normally in this size so we end up with a car that's in the mid size category on the outside but in the full size category on the inside and so that's a big benefit space one by compact powertrain components allow the lucid air to exist as a medium-sized car with a full-size car interior suv levels of storage and hyper-car performance the vehicle's smaller frontal area and highly efficient vortex front air intakes create a streamlined aerodynamic signature with a drag coefficient of just .21 lucid is focused on achieving more distance for less battery this will make future vehicles more affordable because the battery is the most expensive part of the car but the air is not a stripped down sports car it features high-end design elements for an aesthetically pleasing first class driving experience you'll also notice that we have a full glass canopy this will be the largest glass canopy of any vehicle on the market next year and it's one single piece of glass from the windshield wipers all the way to the center line and then we pick up a second piece of glass around the rear the simple design theme carries all the way through the back of the car one of my favorite features is this cut line that comes off the cabin and cuts right through the back of the car and creates this clamshell rear opening it's a super cool feature makes the back of the car super clean no shut lines through the rear but just one continuous tail light all the way across the back of the car lucid takes a first principal's approach to interior design as well rethinking the cabin for the driver experience one thing that's really important about our interior is our displays um we early on we studied kind of how we wanted to have the display layout and we opted not to go with the large central display but with something that was more curved and contoured and optimized really for the driver experience this screen is a 34 inch lcd screen and its primary function is to to focus information towards the driver and you'll notice it's fully contoured in this direction and this direction thoughtful user experience design on top of a high performance ev but just how high does that digital speedometer go the laguna sega raceway in california has emerged as the ultimate proving ground to test the performance of electric vehicles with 2.2 miles of hairpin turns and unrestrained straightaways the famed track provides perfect real-world conditions to test ev attributes such as speed acceleration braking and handling in 2020 unofficial track reports started coming in that a tri-motor lucid air had bested tesla's track record by over two seconds with a lap time of one minute and 33 seconds we heard tesla took the lead again but this healthy competition in the ev world is exciting to see and no doubt driving the industry forward with electric car manufacturers competing for bragging rights with souped-up race versions of their production cars innovations learned on the track can translate into real world performance enhancements and the impressive displays build respect and notoriety for the electric vehicle market as a whole in july 2017 a modified performance version of the air hit a confirmed top speed of 235 miles per hour on the high speed track at the transportation research center in ohio lucid is not just trying to build luxury hyper cars for millionaires the goal is for the optimizations made in high performance ev powertrain design to trickle down to lower cost mass market vehicles lucid hopes to eventually produce the sought after 25 000 electric car lucid has just finished 80 prototype vehicles and has a production target of 8 to 9 000 vehicles by spring two thousand twenty one they will accomplish this with a state-of-the-art seven hundred million dollar six point one million square foot ev factory in casa grande arizona which is outfitted to produce thirty thousand vehicles a year with an eventual capacity target of four hundred thousand vehicles per year the lucid air will be available in four initial models the air pure for sixty nine thousand the air touring model from eighty seven thousand five hundred dollars the air grand touring from one hundred thirty one thousand five hundred and the limited air dream edition available in spring 2021 for a starting price of one hundred sixty one thousand five hundred dollars whether lucid is truly a worthy challenger to tesla will come down to how well they deliver their final production car to market on time as promised and with all the bells and whistles the only answer i can have is wait till next spring keep the skepticism keep throwing the stones i've got i've got a strong chin i welcome it because there's a lot of bad actors out there the only way we can prove we are real is get this in production next spring and in customers hands and show and that's what i'm i i can't get to next spring soon enough to have that opportunity to show we showcase cutting edge sustainable technology if you believe in an electric future please subscribe to our channel and if you enjoyed our exploration into lucid motors please like the video you may be interested in watching one of these videos next thanks for watching and let the volts be with you [Music]

Channel: Electric Future

Views: 2,389,037

Keywords: lucid motors, lucid air 2020, lucid air, lucid motors air, lucid motors stock, permanent magnet motor, induction motory, lucid motors vs tesla, lucid motors reveal, lucid motors interior, lucid motors car, lucid motors review, lucid air review, tesla, peter rawlinson, elon musk, lucid vs tesla, electric vehicles, tesla model s, lucid air top speed, lucid air battery

Id: xsBhrmj4i-M

Length: 14min 37sec (877 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 13 2020