Lucid was founded in 2007 under the name Atieva and originally focused on building electric vehicle batteries and powertrains for other vehicle manufacturers. Some of Lucid's 500 employees previously worked at other car companies such as Mazda and Tesla, including Peter Rawlinson, the former VP of Engineering at Tesla, and Derek Jenkins, the former Head of Design at Mazda's North America. The company has seen investments from Tsing Capital, Mitsui, Venrock, JAFCO, and others, providing an estimated $131 million by 2016. Venrock, Mitsui, and JAFCO are still current investors in the company. The company rebranded to Lucid Motors in October 2016 and officially announced its intent to develop an all-electric, high-performance luxury vehicle. On November 29, 2016, state and company officials announced the planned construction of Lucid's $700 million manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, which was projected to employ up to 2,000 workers by the mid-2020s, initially building 20,000 cars and expanding up to 130,000 cars per year. The factory is designed for a maximum capacity of 380,000 car per year. On September 17, 2018, Lucid Motors announced that they were in talks with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia for a funding valued at over $1 billion. The investment was completed in April 2019 and will fund the final engineering and testing of the Lucid Air model, the first-phase construction of its manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, the commercial production of the Lucid Air, and its worldwide retail strategy beginning in North America. Construction began in late 2019.
Cars
Lucid mainly developed battery technology in its early years, but began development of its first car in 2014.
Development prototype
The company initially used a Mercedes Metris van, named “Edna”, to develop the powertrain.
Lucid Air
The Lucid Air fully electric car model was unveiled in December 2016 and was designed with a 400 hp front motor and a 600 hp rear motor for a combined horsepower of 1,000 hp. Lucid has agreed with Mobileye to use their EyeQ4 chips and 8 cameras for driver assist features, and will make the car “autonomous ready”. This 4-door sedan is able to reach a software-limited top speed of 217 mph; but, in July 2017, running on the high-speed track at the Transportation Research Center in Ohio, a special version of the car has hit 235 mph. Lucid plans to start production in 2020, with the Air to be unveiled on Sept. 9, 2020. On June 30, 2020, Lucid Motors announced that its "electric car will be the world's most aerodynamically efficient luxury car when it goes into production later this year." The company "achieved a new benchmark in aerodynamic efficiency for its luxury electric car...with tests recently completed at Windshear's advanced rolling-road wind tunnel, the automaker verified a coefficient of drag of 0.21."
Batteries
Lucid's car uses the 2170 standard for its lithium-ion battery cells, and supply agreements have been signed with both Samsung SDI and LG Chem. Lucid has designed, developed, manufactured and supplied battery packs for all race teams in the 2018-19 Formula E season, and will continue to do so for the 2019-20 season, in collaboration with McLaren Applied Technologies and Sony. The Formula E specification calls for a battery weight of 250 kg, 54 kWh energy, and peak power of up to 250 kW.
Charging
Lucid Motors partnered with Electrify America to use their nationwide charging network as an option for recharging Lucid's electric vehicles on the road. The stations will charge batteries at up to 350 kW.
