Lucid’s interim CEO, Marc Winterhoff, mentioned that the corporate is seeing an elevated variety of Tesla prospects coming to the model and took the chance to throw some shade at Tesla’s growing old car lineup.
Over the past 5 years, Elon Musk has compelled Tesla to shift its focus to autonomous driving, neglecting its electrical car lineup within the course of.
Tesla launched a single new car throughout that interval, the Cybertruck, which is a industrial flop.
The automaker launched vital updates to the Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y, however solely gentle updates to the Mannequin S and Mannequin X. The influence is being felt within the gross sales of these autos.
Lucid, which now has fashions to compete with each Mannequin S (Air) and Mannequin X (Gravity), has been in a position to steal a few of these prospects.
In an interview with the Monetary Instances, Marc Winterhoff, Lucid’s interim CEO, mentioned that the automaker is seeing an growing variety of Tesla prospects buying and selling of their autos for Lucid Air and now Gravity:
“We’ve seen an uptick, that’s undoubtedly the case, in Europe and in addition right here within the US. The Mannequin S, nothing has modified in 12 years now . . . [customers] are actively on the lookout for different choices.”
On paper, Lucid’s autos do evaluate favorably to Tesla’s Mannequin S and Mannequin X when it comes to specs and options. Lucid additionally gives extra choices than Tesla.
On the subjective facet, many additionally see Lucid’s design as being extra luxurious for the worth level than Tesla’s minimalist strategy.
Electrek’s Take
I believe Tesla believes that its minimalist strategy to design makes it ageless. There’s some fact to that, however I believe there are limits, and we’re reaching these limits.
Tesla “up to date” the Mannequin S and Mannequin X this summer time, however probably the most vital replace was the worth.
Gross sales have crashed to a couple thousand models 1 / 4, when Tesla had put in capability for 25,000 models per quarter.
In the meantime, I examined out the Lucid Air final winter, and I used to be blown away by how unbelievable it’s.
Arguably, the one facet the place Tesla nonetheless holds a lead is with the ADAS system, and I’m informed Lucid made a major improve to that this yr. I’m supposed to check it once more.
In the event that they begin to shut the hole there, now that they’ve entry to the Supercharger community, I believe it could be onerous to go for a Mannequin S over an Air.
