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Yesterday, the stock price of Lucid, a new American car company, suddenly soared by nearly 10%. It turned out that it had launched a new car.

The 2025 Lucid Air is officially called "the world's most energy-efficient electric car." Their CTO Peter Rawlinson believes that the new Lucid Air series further consolidates Lucid's leadership in technology, and it consumes "less electricity than any other model" during the journey.

How much is it? Their slogan is "one kilowatt-hour can run 5 miles", which is just over 8 kilometers, equivalent to 12.43kWh/100km.

This is an incredible achievement for an executive sedan that is five meters long, more than two meters wide and weighs 2.5 tons.

Run fast and run far

In fact, the Lucid Air Pure's range has only increased by 1 mile (1.61 kilometers) compared to its predecessor, but its 420 miles (about 676 kilometers) of range comes from a smaller battery pack.

It should be pointed out that this 676-kilometer result is not the CLTC operating range commonly used in China, but is based on the results measured under the US Environmental Protection Agency EPA cycle test specifications, which is closer to the vehicle's actual range.

The 2025 Lucid Air Pure has an 84kWh battery pack at the bottom, which is 4 kWh less than the 24 model. Lucid says the smaller battery pack means they can produce more cars with the same amount of material, while also reducing the need for charging for users to a certain extent.

Air Pure is an entry-level model launched by Lucid last year to expand the influence of the Air series. At that time, the price of this configuration was $78,900, and it was later reduced to $71,400. Today, the 2025 model has lowered its starting price to $69,900 (about 508,000 yuan). For this $70,000, you can get a 430-horsepower motor, a 0-60mph time of 4.5 seconds, and a maximum energy replenishment of 321km in 17 minutes, thanks to its 900V architecture.

Above the Pure model are the Touring and Grand Touring, priced at US$78,900 (about RMB 574,000) and US$110,900 (about RMB 806,000) respectively. Both are dual-motor four-wheel drive models with a total power of 620 horsepower and 819 horsepower respectively, and a 0-60mph acceleration time of 3.4 seconds and 3.0 seconds respectively.

Even with an additional motor, the Touring and Grand Touring still have a longer range, 653 kilometers and 823 kilometers respectively (I wrote it correctly, the actual test result of the previous generation Grand Touring in the Edmunds EV Range Test was around 750km, which is quite exaggerated).

But it should be noted that the latter has been replaced with a larger battery. The specific capacity of the battery is not yet known. For reference, the previous generation model was 118kWh.

In addition, the Lucid Air series also has a top-of-the-line model called Sapphire, and its price is doubled based on the Grand Touring version, reaching US$249,000 (approximately RMB 1.81 million).

Like the Tesla Model S Plaid, the Lucid Air Sapphire is also a three-motor model with a combined power of 1,234 horsepower, and it only takes 1.89 seconds to push you from a standstill to 96.5 km/h. But this beast also has a higher power consumption, and the EPA range is reduced to 687 km.

Of course, this is still a very good result. In comparison, the EPA range of Tesla Model S Plaid is only 577km.

In fact, Lucid's pursuit of "efficiency" can not only be reflected in the range, but we can also feel it inside.

Under the shell of Lucid Air Sapphire, the inverter and motor are its core. Although SiC inverters and motors with a maximum speed of nearly 17,000 rpm can also be seen in other models, and some Chinese independent brand models even have better parameters, the extremely high power density brought by the small size of the inverter and motor is what makes Lucid special.

High power density means maximizing the magnetic flux generated by the stator within a limited space, so more windings must be arranged per unit area of ​​the stator. Lucid chose to increase the number of openings on the stator, reduce the unit opening structure area, and arrange the trapezoidal winding structure in the unit opening according to the cross-sectional shape to maximize the use of the stator opening area and increase the magnetic flux.

Another structural highlight is the cooling method of the motor. Lucid abandoned the simple but large shell cooling system and arranged transverse through holes in the stator's open intervals to form a cooling cycle inside the motor, ultimately greatly improving the cooling efficiency within a very limited volume.

In short, through various efforts, Lucid has controlled a 670-horsepower motor to 74kg, with a power density of more than 7kW/kg, ranking first in the world. From 2021 to now, this record has not been broken by any manufacturer. In comparison, the motor power density of the Model S Plaid is 2.96kW/kg; the Zeekr 001 FR, which successfully stuffed 4 SiC motors into the body, has a motor power density of 4.4kW/h.

The world's most energy-efficient electric car, literally.

There is no end to the road of car manufacturing unless the money runs out

"Big factory" and "big factory" are not the same thing.

A friend once told me that the former is a giant with a significant influence in the industry, while "factory size" is more like some kind of spell that copies an ordinary assembly line into countless ones.

This is a kind of language art that can confuse capital. Both have their own wonders, but their growth paths and results are often very different. Similarly, if a company creates a good product that attracts attention, it may not necessarily guarantee that the company will eventually flourish and bear fruit.

In May this year, Lucid released its first quarter financial report for 2024. The data showed that Lucid had a net loss of US$685 million during the reporting period and revenue of only US$173 million. In terms of production and delivery, Lucid produced a total of 1,728 Lucid Airs in the first quarter and delivered 1,967. Although it increased by 40% year-on-year, it continued to burn money.

In the earnings call, Lucid CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson said that a large part of the company's current spending is preparing for future products that enable it to expand production and achieve profitability. "The larger our scale and the more cars we produce, the more production we can spread over fixed costs."

But the market has heard this statement countless times since Lucid delivered its first car in 2021. At that time, the ambitious Lucid said that its sales were expected to reach 90,000 units in 2023, becoming the second "Tesla" in the US market. However, in 2023, Lucid's full-year delivery volume was only 6,001 units.

Unable to sell, Lucid has no choice but to continue burning money. Thanks to the US$1 billion investment from the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), Lucid's cash liquidity will still be quite high at approximately US$5.03 billion as of the end of the first quarter of 2024.

Next, Lucid plans to deliver its second model, Gravity, an SUV, by the end of this year. "We believe that Gravity has the potential to be the best SUV in the world," Rawlinson said.

▲Gravity

Lucid's development has always been closely linked to capital, including Chinese capital.

In January 2014, BAIC invested $100 million in Lucid's Series C financing, holding 25% of the shares and becoming the largest shareholder. In the same year, Jia Yueting invested tens of millions of dollars in Lucid in his personal name and became the second largest shareholder.

At that time, BAIC hoped that Lucid would give priority to the Chinese market, but Lucid founder Xie Jiapeng believed that the American market was more promising. This disagreement created a rift in the cooperation, and BAIC subsequently sold all of its shares to Jia Yueting, making him the largest shareholder of Lucid, with a shareholding ratio of about 40%.

Finally, with the collapse of LeTV, Jia Yueting's electric car company Faraday Future fell into a financial crisis. In desperation, Jia Yueting sold his shares in Lucid Motors.

If Lucid had come to China at that time, it might be a different place now.