A top executive at luxury electric-vehicle maker Lucid Motors said in a recent interview that his company is “lights ahead” of Tesla on technology.
Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson said: Fox Business In it, he said that Tesla was once a technology leader, but then “Lucid took over that position.” The feature included a test drive of the Lucid Air and an interview with anchor Liz Claman.
The conversation touched on a variety of topics, including Lucid’s upcoming Gravity SUV, the company’s stock market struggles and its factories in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Towards the end of the roughly seven-and-a-half-minute video, Claman asked Rawlinson where Lucid stood compared to EV leaders Tesla and BYD, to which Rawlinson responded by touting the company’s technology.
“Well, if you look back 10 to 15 years ago, I think Tesla was the technology leader,” Rawlinson said. “Now I think there’s been some disruption and Lucid has taken over. I think we’re several years ahead of Tesla in terms of our core technology.”
“Earlier this week we announced that we have reached a breakthrough level of capability and are on the verge of hitting the magic number of five miles per kilowatt-hour. No one has come close yet. This is a technology race and it’s not over yet, but there is no doubt that we are taking a leadership position.”
Rawlinson has touted Lucid’s battery technology in the past, noting that the company’s range and charging speeds are better than those of Tesla’s vehicles, and in 2021 called Tesla’s 4680 battery cell breakthrough an “illusion.”
Asked about details about the launch of the Gravity SUV, Rawlinson said the vehicle will be a better product than the Tesla Model X, mainly because it’s built on a purpose-built premium platform.
Rawlinson also said in a recent interview with the BBC that he thinks Tesla is “distracted,” and he and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have traded some criticism over the years. Musk has frequently suggested Lucid is heading for bankruptcy, most recently after the company’s first-quarter earnings report, in which it reported a net loss of $684.7 million.
In January, Lucid began expanding its AMP-1 factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, in preparation for production of the upcoming Gravity. In the interview, Rawlinson also emphasized that Gravity production will begin later this year, but declined to say when exactly.
You can watch the full version Fox Business Below is an interview with Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson.
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