Lucid Motors has officially joined the club of electric vehicle makers with an actual product as the first production car rolled off its AMP-1 assembly line in Arizona!
The first EV was the Lucid Air Dream edition, which the media, investors, and other visitors welcomed during Lucid’s Production Preview Week. Lucid said the first reservations would be fulfilled in late October.
Much of the company’s journey to this event has been publicly chronicled as Lucid kept the media informed of its milestones. Like most other companies with product launches, the Lucid Air has seen many delays, and some of them resulted from the pandemic. It was scheduled for spring 2021, but things had to be pushed to the year’s second half.
Lucid recently celebrated getting the EPA’s stamp of approval for its 520 miles range claim and decided to up the number of reservations to 520 in a symbolic move. It is the most extended confirmed range for any EV. However, the range is not the only selling point for the Air as it can produce 1,111 hp. Lucid spent the last couple of years tweaking and redesigning to reach the two goals.
Lucid will now focus on rolling more customer-quality Air Dream sedans off its assembly lines. After completing the limited run of the Dream, the company will turn its attention to other trims like the Grand Touring, Touring, and Pure, the most affordable.
There are 13,000 reservations for the Air, apart from the 520 Dream editions. These are enough to keep Lucid busy for a while.
Describing his company’s products, Rawlinson said, “The proprietary EV technology that Lucid has developed will make it possible to travel more miles using less battery energy. For example, our Lucid Air Grand Touring has an official EPA rating of 516 miles of range with a 112-kWh battery pack, giving it an industry-leading efficiency of 4.6 miles per kWh. Our technology will allow for increasingly lighter, more efficient, and less expensive EVs, and today represents a major step in our journey to expand the accessibility of more sustainable transportation. I’m delighted that production cars endowed with this level of efficiency are currently driving off our factory line.”
Plans include expanding the production plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, and a forthcoming Gravity, an electric SUV.