Yahoo Autos Here's What We Know About the Midsize Lucid SUV
Lucid is hard at work preparing its Gravity SUV for production by the end of the year, a launch the company says is still on time. But there’s a project going on in the background that might be even more important: Midsize. We sat down with Senior Vice-President of Product and Chief Engineer Eric Bach to learn the latest on the car(s) that Lucid hopes will finally give it the size and scale to be a competitive force.
“The next stepping stone is our midsize,” Bach starts. “We are building that platform that's capable of, maybe a million in volume annually with multiple models on it. And we're starting with that first vehicle that we have shown, but we have a portfolio of one, two, three vehicles already in our heads obviously because we need to build a platform that can encompass multiple different vehicles with their attributes, their sizes, their mass occupancy and so on. So we are developing a platform as well as the first top hat right now, and it's in a great stage.”
That first “top hat” is the one Lucid teased only a week ago that’s rumored to be called Earth. It looks like a fairly typical midsize SUV under darkness with a hint of the wagon-esque styling seen in the Gravity. It will start under $50,000 and launch in 2026, but what else?
Keeping the price down will be key to scale, and with that come changes from the ultra-luxury vehicles Lucid’s been known for from the beginning. Bach suggests a small battery with a greater focus on cost is likely. Think 300-plus miles of range instead of the 500 miles from the Air.
“There will be trade-offs, right?” Bach said in reference to the Air versus Midsize. “We've got laminated glass all around there, right? Do you need that on every midsize vehicle? I don't think so. No, no one in the competition has it and then maybe we don't need things like that, but that's just an example.”
Lucid is developing its next-generation electric motor – named Atlas – for use in the Midsize platform. It’s even smaller than the already-compact and power-dense electric motors used in the Air and incoming Gravity. Of course, Bach says it’s also cheaper and lighter, further reinforcing the drive to reduce costs and increase efficiency for the Midsize project. This new Atlas motor won’t just be exclusive to the three midsize vehicles, though, as Bach says we should expect it to be used as a front motor for the Air and Gravity in the future. The bigger, more powerful motor of those vehicles is expected to remain in the rear, however, giving them the classic rear-biased drive characteristics we love.
Another vital part of the Midsize platform is the development itself. Bach admits Lucid could’ve done better with the Air, largely pointing the finger at time and strategy.
“And of course not everything was perfect,” Bach says referring to the Air’s launch. “Because yeah, maybe we could have done it better had we had a little bit more time, had a little bit more bench, more people, and more leverage with suppliers.”
Lucid applied learnings from the Air to the Gravity, and is going even further with the Midsize project. Virtual development is the next big move, which Lucid dipped into with the Gravity, but is going all-in on with the Midsize platform.
With the Air, Bach says Lucid was limited by money and how many prototypes the company could afford at the time. There were three fully tooled phases with a beta mule phase, a production development phase, and a pre-production car before the production car became whole. Thanks to the wonder of virtual simulations, Bach says Lucid is completely skipping the first tooled mule phase of the process on the Midsize project. It’s also upping its game by opening up a new office in Michigan with hopes of attracting talent from the local pool of traditional automakers. Bach suggested some of the more nuts and bolts parts of a car – think basic elements that you’d find on any car like hinges, window motors, etc. – could benefit from folks who’ve done those things for years at a traditional automaker. Lucid prides itself on its technology, but it’s easy for a car to falter if the whole package isn’t as impressive as the state-of-the-art EV tech within.
When Lucid launches its first midsize SUV in 2026 with hopes for greater scale, it’ll be all the more important to ensure everything is perfect. The success of the Gravity will be telling once it goes on sale next year, and the folks in Newark, C.A. – Lucid's HQ – hope to ride its success straight into the mainstream with the three midsize vehicles to come later.
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