What's the news?
Move over, Elon Musk - there's a new high-end luxury electric vehicle (EV) maker in town. This elegant-looking machine is the Lucid Air and it promises to deliver some pretty impressive stats that would give a Tesla Model S plenty to think about.
While there are no plans for this creation from a Californian start-up business to come to Europe just yet, the way we've taken to Tesla over here on this side of The Pond might just convince Lucid to export the Air into the Old World eventually.
Lucid, rather ironically given the company name, is a little bit sketchy on the precise details of the drivetrain, but does at least confirm that it has developed a 'smaller, more efficient and more power-dense' integrated motor and transmission drivetrain for the Air. Hold on to your hats, though, because Lucid says the car develops 1,000hp; yes, a thousand horsepower. If you want a frame of reference, the most powerful Tesla generates 515kW, or 691hp... so this 746kW newcomer absolutely obliterates the established Model S. Yikes!
The Californian outfit also claims it has come up with a battery pack that can take the Air 644km on a single charge, while the technology also has a higher resistance to repeated fast charging; this seems to indicate that it won't take many, many hours to re-juice the Lucid once it has exhausted its energy supply.
It's not all about speed, though, as the company says it has engineered the Air to be supremely luxurious. A 29-speaker sound system has an active noise-cancelling function to reduce wind buffeting and tyre roar, so that the cabin remains peaceful, while the car (appropriately) sits on air suspension with active regenerative valve technology, promising to bestow it with both a smooth ride and excellent body control. Four executive chairs, the rear two capable of reclining 55 degrees, further enhance the ambience.
Not only is the Lucid Air possessed of a potent drivetrain and a classy interior, it will also be sold with all the equipment on board to make it fully autonomous. The car won't be able to drive itself from the showroom, but Lucid says that it will be 'delivered autonomous-ready with a comprehensive sensor suite able to scale to complete autonomy through ongoing software upgrades'. Voice control and seamless integration with smartphone apps ensure this is one properly connected car.
Anything else?
While we're normally sceptical of these start-up companies claiming they can do with EVs what has thus far eluded the multibillion-euro-backed major automotive companies - namely, build a stupidly powerful zero-emissions car that has as much range on a single charge as a conventional petrol or diesel-propelled vehicle will travel on a single tank of fossil fuel - the very success of the Tesla Model S suggests that this Lucid dream of a 1,000hp self-driving EV might not be pure fantasy. We'll be keeping a close eye on this one as it moves closer to market launch, then.