To hear Jason Cammisa tell it, the Lucid Air isn’t just a Tesla 2.0 – the whole brand is. In a way, it’s also a time machine and one that has allowed its CEO Peter Rawlinson to take part in something many of us have dreamed about. It’s provided the chance for him to go back in time and have a do-over.
And that’s significant because Rawlinson was the chief engineer of the Tesla Model S before he decided to break out on his own. He knows Tesla’s flagship sedan in intimate detail. In fact, he knows a lot about just how Tesla approaches development and has decided to do things differently at Lucid.
So Lucid has aimed at building the best luxury sedan on the planet and they borrowed the best ideas from brands like Tesla and Mercedes to pull that off. That’s because those two companies have set the bar with regard to luxury sedans.
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Mercedes leads with regard to interior comfort and quality while Tesla runs away from the pack with better straight-line performance and technology. Lucid wanted to step over both brands, so the Air has more space, more power, and unquestionably impressive build quality.
Cammisa says that comes down to marrying the tech from the Tesla with an engineering-first focus like the one found at Mercedes-Benz. That’s why the electric motors in the Air have three times the power density of anything else on the market right now, including the ones found in a Tesla.
It’s also why the Air is so cavernous. Jason jumps in the frunk of the sedan and frankly looks like he’s in a bathtub. It’s that big. So yea, the Lucid Air manages to combine a bunch of stuff that other companies already have like quality materials, power, and technology. The difference is how much better the Air does it, according to Cammisa.
Of course, he also points out that Rivian is trying to do the same thing with its R1T and that soon, both companies will compete directly with the R1S and the Lucid Gravity.