The Air, Lucid Motors’ first automobile and a premium electric sedan, currently has over 10,000 bookings, according to the company.
It may not appear to be as remarkable as the amount of reservations in other programs, but it isn’t poor.
According to recent remarks from Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson, the company has had some difficulties in bringing its first electric car to market, but it’s getting near.
Rawlinson said on CNBC yesterday that Lucid is already generating quality validation prototypes at its Arizona facility and expects to begin delivery to clients by the end of the year:
We achieved a landmark last Friday when we started building our quality validation production run of cars. We completed our pre-production run very successfully. The quality validation builds are the cars that we eventually will sell directly to customers once we got the quality right. This is a big step in our mission to industrialize.
He didn’t say when that would happen, but he did say that the first deliveries of the Dream version of the Air will be in the second part of the year.
That timeframe has been pushed back from Q2 2021, which was initially started last year when Lucid introduced the upgraded Air:
| Models | Price (USD before incentives) | Range (EPA Est.) | Horsepower | Performance specs (0-60s acceleration, 1/4 mile time, top speed) | Charging (up to) | Availability |
| Air | $69,900 | 406 miles | 480 hp | TBA | 300 miles in 20 mins – 1,200 mph | 2022 |
| Air Touring | $95,000 | 406 miles | 620 hp | 3.2s, 11.4s, 155 mph | 300 miles in 20 mins – 1,200 mph | Q4 2021 |
| Air Grand Touring | $139,000 | 517 miles | 800 hp | 3.0s, 10.8s, 168 mph | 300 miles in 20 mins – 1,200 mph | Q2 2021 |
| Air Dream Edition | $169,000 | 503 miles | 1,080 hp | 2.5s, 9.9s, 168 mph | 300 miles in 20 mins – 1,200 mph | Q2 2021 |
Although the Dream is now sold out, Lucid only plans to produce approximately 500 copies of that variant.
According to the CEO, we’re more interested in the demand for all of the variants combined, which has surpassed 10,000 pre-orders.
Reservations need a deposit ranging from $300 to $1,000, depending on the edition.
Electomo’s opinion:
It may not seem like much in comparison to the statistics we’ve heard from Tesla and others, like as Ford’s over 100,000 pre-orders for the F-150 Lightning, but it’s still amazing.
You must keep in mind that Lucid has yet to provide anything, making it more difficult for them to establish reputation and motivate consumers to place purchases.
Tesla had around 12,000 reservations for the Model S in the summer of 2012, before the electric vehicle was delivered.
Tesla had already delivered the Roadster and established some reputation at the time.
Lucid, on the other hand, is in a stronger position since Tesla has already helped to establish credibility for electric vehicles in general, something it lacked at the time.
At this point, I’m certain that Lucid will deliver the Air at the very least. It’s unclear where things will go from here, but Lucid is one of my top EV startups.
