Nice article Bit I guess R & T has to have a rebuttal for MotorTrend calling the Lucid Air the car of the year. I still stand by my claim in SW's thread that Lucid won't make it.

 

The numbers are completely not in your favor, so I'm not sure what you are basing that on. Lack of cash? Nope. Pre-orders? Nope. Bad reviews? Nope. Maybe you have some information we don't

 

and no one was expecting Tesla to make it based on the roadster.

that's a dozen years ago. you're basically saying lucid can 'just' be a Tesla all over again. I'd say the circumstances are VASTLY different now. the ENTIRE industry is now aligned against them.

this is the classic 3 stages of a market (Buffett) - there's innovators (Tesla, Rivian), immitators (Lucid, everyone else), and idiots (Stellantis ).

Tesla from the get go was focused on MASS MARKET type products (3, Y and soon 2 and others), with the roadster, S, X as innovative stepping stones. those falcon doors might have been a giant PITA but they gave Tesla MOUNTAINS of 'cool' cred points.

yup. even apple almost went bankrupt too.

yup, saudis have very deep pockets but they could also grow bored at some point and decide to play in some other market.

 

This is a totally subjective comment, but I think it is a downright ugly car.

 

Although today we are not as dependent on the Saudis for crude oil as we once were, probably the easiest way to alienate them is if we convert our entire auto industry to BEVs (or even long-range hybrids). And, as you say, they have LOTS of investment $$$$$.

Alhough clearly eccentric, Musk is still a lot like Lee Iacocca in that he is a classic smooth-talker, tries to portray an image of invincibility, and is able to attract investment $$$$ like bees to honey.

 

One of the reasons the Saudi's are trying to diversify their money outside of oil is because they finally understand that the well is drying. EV's are not their only investment

 

Wait, what? Is the entire industry aligned against Rivian? Nio? Polestar?
Tesla started with niche, then high end parlayed into mainstream and soon affordable why can't Lucid do this?

 

Except that the size of that pie is about to explode.

 

because catching lightning in a bottle once is hard enough. twice, and this second time while having many competing entitles shooting at you, is a lot harder.

hey I wish lucid well. I hope they succeed! and I'm not saying they're certain to fail.

 

Lucid is competition to other auto makers it goes both ways I'm puzzled why you think it's Lucid against everyone else. Also how was the entire industry not against Tesla when they first started selling cars? That was far more difficult since there was little trust in EVs, far less charging infrastructure, higher battery costs and a whole host of challenges.
I've said before I think their long term chance of surviving is about 50%.

 

I agree with this assessment

 

I think 50% is reasonable...

 

Right and guess who is ready to meet the demand?! TESLA.

Lucid - even if they got 1 million orders today - would not be able to handle that type of production capacity for the next 10years.

I think its hilarious that people think building cars and selling them worldwide is like selling clothes.

 

Stellantis has 50% chance.
Lucid is 10% if they get lucky.

Besides Tesla - what new automaker has had success in any meaningful way? None
Even McLaren which sells cars for 3x the amount Lucid plans to do is close to bankruptcy.

The big 3 have all failed and were saved
The European brands are helped by their governments and So are Japanese brands.

Manufacturing and developing cars is the most capital intensive business there is with very small margins unless you scale production.

Tesla has 2 interiors and no options with 2 mass produced models. Lucid strategy is opposite of this and its just much harder to make it work.

 

So the only company that can meet EV demand is Tesla? Thats just ridiculous.

I don't believe anybody thinks that...but its not as impossible as "legacy automakers" might lead you to believe. A car is a tangible product like everything else.

Thats completely absurd lol. Stellantis owns many brands that have incredibly popular cars.