Lucid Motors

By James Herne

In 2007, Bernard Tse, Sam Weng, and Sheaupyng Lin founded Atieva, an EV battery company. In 2013, Atieva hired Peter Rawlinson as their CTO. Rawlinson wasn’t just the Chief Engineer for Tesla Model S until 2012, but in the nineties he was also a Chief Engineer at Lotus, a company known for lightweight sports cars. Atieva was rebranded to Lucid Motors before the unveiling of the Lucid Air prototype in the end of 2016.

In 2019, Rawlinson became also the CEO of Lucid. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund became the majority shareholder.

Lucid is a startup and Rawlinson said there was a period when he worked 110 hours a week. That was a bit too much – he considers 100 hours a week as doable.

Lucid is putting in extra effort to make their cars as efficient as possible, so, that a Lucid Air could cover a longer distance without adding batteries. Their aim was to get the efficiency to 5 miles (8 km) per kWh and they achieved it in 2024. Lucid Air is considered the most efficient EV in the world. Even Formula E 2nd generation cars (2019-2021) had Lucid battery modules inside their McLaren-engineered battery pack.

The top of the line Lucid Air version is called “Sapphire”. It has 1234 hp. By the way, they advertise such number because “1234” is memorable – the actual peak power is even higher!

The cheapest version of Lucid Air is called “Pure”. Interestingly, it shares the core philosophy with the “Sapphire”. Rawlinson says that “Pure” and “Sapphire” are pure driving machines. These are the only versions, which don’t have the heavy glass roof. While the “Sapphire” has enormous power, the “Pure”-version is the lightest and has rear-wheel-drive. This gives the car a more precise steering, something that is dear to an engineer who worked at Lotus when the Lotus Elise was created. Actually, when I drove the Lotus Elise for the first time, I remember thinking “Is this the new Porsche for me?”

Check out the Everything Electric Show interview with engineer Peter Rawlinson: