There are all kinds of CEOs in the automotive industry. They have evolved from low-profile executives to charismatic folks who represent their companies. Peter Rawlinson has a very clear role with Lucid: he’s a teacher. To prove that, he gave a master class about why the Lucid Air is such an impressive machine, especially when it comes to efficiency and range.
The Lucid Air is the first electric car to earn a certified EPA range of 520 miles. It does that with a 118-kWh battery pack that is not even close to the largest one in the market – that on the GMC Hummer EV. The electric sedan reached an unprecedented energy consumption of 4.6 miles/kWh: no current production car, large or small, is so frugal.
Rawlinson begins by explaining fundamental concepts involved not only with electric cars but vehicles in general: energy and power. He then moves to more specific stuff, such as how voltage and current impact efficiency.
The explanation why the Lucid Air uses 924V instead of 400V like most electric cars makes even the most clueless person feel confident enough to explain it to others. We could do that now, but we do not want to ruin your joy in finding that out for yourself.
While talking about these concepts, Rawlinson gives us some sneak peeks on the Model S creation backstage. Lucid’s CEO was Tesla's chief engineer at the time, despite Elon Musk trying to rewrite history. According to Rawlinson, the Model S 85 (kWh) was almost called 300 MJ. The idea was shot down because people would be more familiar with kWh.
The Lucid CEO then explains that each of the 6,600 2170 cells contains around 17 Wh. The energy contained in one of them is enough for the Air to move a bit more than 100 yards. That’s just a fun calculation, mainly because a single cell could not make the electric sedan move.
Rawlinson shows a deep knowledge of manufacturing when he explains why Lucid’s battery modules cool the cells at the bottom, how they are connected, and why all that makes the Air easier to produce and more efficient.
The battery connectors are encapsulated in a plastic injection molding that happens in a single shot of molten aluminum in a die-cast machine. Rawlinson seems pretty proud of that, almost as much as he is about the cooling plate that goes into the bottom of the cells. This is something we feel we must explain just to convince you that the video is worth watching in full.
Lucid’s CEO argues that heat transfers in a cell head toward the bottom of the cell. Cooling them there would already make a lot of sense there only for that reason, but there are two more, perhaps even more crucial to that decision.
Using strips entwined among the cell to cool down their sides reduces the battery module energy density. Apart from that, the flat surfaces at the bottom of the batteries make them contact the cooling plate much more effectively. The strips do not touch the sides of the cells in the same way, creating heat points in the batteries. Above all, the cooling plate is much easier to manufacture: you just put it on the bottom of the cells, and that’s it.
The video is right below. Anyone willing to understand electric cars a bit more should make it mandatory to watch. The almost 37 minutes you’ll spend doing so are well worth it. Believe us that you may do it more than once: we did.
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