Lucid’s $50,000 Tesla Challenger Under Development, CEO Suggests

The CEO said its next EV, after Gravity, will compete in the high-volume, family car market.

Lucid Air

Suvrat Kothari

By: Suvrat Kothari

Dec 24, 2023 at 10:05am ET

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If you tell me right now that California-headquartered Lucid plans to become a mass-market electric vehicle manufacturer, I’d urge skepticism. So far, Lucid’s story has been quite the opposite.

The Air electric sedan has a starting price upwards of $80,000 before tax credits and the Air Sapphire—yes that Bugatti Chiron shaming rocketship—has an MSRP of a whopping $249,000. The upcoming Gravity SUV won’t be cheap, either. But CEO Peter Rawlinson has indicated that Lucid’s aspirations extend beyond the two EVs seen so far.

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The Lucid EVs look stunning, but they're disturbingly expensive.

Lucid's Air electric sedan is opulent, gorgeous, and aimed at deep-pocketed individuals. But the California start-up now wants to venture into the mass-market territory with its next model line-up.

Getting a new car company up and running is a daunting task, even if you have some serious investor support like Lucid does. Typically, startups lean on high-profit margin luxury EVs to make a mark before diving into more affordable, mass-market cars to widen their appeal.

“The mid-sized [EV] is going to be overtly a Tesla competitor—Model 3, Model Y. This is the first time I’ve ever said it: we’re going to compete in that market—high-volume family car,” Rawlinson told U.K.-based Autocar.

He added that the next model line-up would slot in the $50,000 space, which is closer to the current inventory prices of the Tesla Model Y. The Model 3, on the other hand, can sell at well under $30,000 when federal and state-level tax credits are applied.

One of the few things Tesla struggled early on with the Model 3 and Model Y line-up was quality blemishes. Minor fit and finish inconsistencies and panel gaps have been widely reported. Lucid could learn from Tesla’s experience and bring tighter quality control for its upcoming models to stand apart right from the get-go.