Peter Rawlinson shared this point of view in an interview with Barron’s resource. The private company Lucid Motors, which he heads, considers Tesla to be its main competitor, of which Rawlinson previously worked as vice president. Lucid has yet to ship the first high-end electric Air cars next year, but the company already has a track record of racing Formula E and manufacturing in-house in Arizona. The head of Lucid Motors considers the presence of its own enterprises to be the key to the success of the business – in his opinion, this is not the case when you can entrust everything to contractors.

The Lucid Air electric car, according to the manufacturer’s specifications, is capable of driving about 820 km on a single charge. The most “long-range” version of the Tesla Model S is capable of driving 643 km without recharging. According to the head of Lucid Motors, electric vehicles of this brand provide a mileage of 7.2 km per kilowatt-hour of electricity, while Tesla’s figure does not exceed 6.4 km.

Lucid has partnered with ABB to develop traction batteries. According to Rawlinson, even if an electric vehicle manufacturer buys traction batteries with the required characteristics on the side, it is the high-quality integration of other elements of the power plant that will ensure maximum efficiency, and this process should also not be outsourced. Optimization of the control software is also important, which has been repeatedly proven by the progress in this direction, which Tesla has demonstrated.

It is not in vain that Lucid is entering the market with the most expensive model of an electric car, the Air, which will be offered for $ 170,000. As Peter Rawlinson explains, “building a Volkswagen Golf is much more difficult than a Rolls- Royce. ” Expensive cars are produced in small volumes with the involvement of a high proportion of manual labor. Mass production requires huge investment and highly automated production.

Many players in today’s electric vehicle market will inevitably be absorbed by others, according to the head of Lucid Motors. Practice shows that private companies often merge with public companies in order to quickly gain access to the capital market. The EV segment will inevitably face consolidation on its way to maturation. Elon Musk recently announced that within seven years the capacity of the electric vehicle market could reach 30 million units per year. Tesla itself claims two-thirds of this volume, but the remaining ten million electric vehicles remain a tidbit for everyone else.