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Tech Giant Samsung and Lucid Motors Announce Major Battery Breakthrough

Lucid Motors teaser 1 photo
Photo: Lucid Motors
If you read automotive news daily, it's easy to forget about a cure for cancer and imagine that the one thing everyone wants the most at this point is a major breakthrough in battery technology.

That, together with a worldwide network of fast chargers, would indeed solve our transportations problems, assuming, of course, we also find a way to produce electricity in a responsible and sustainable way. However, even though progress in both these fields is actually pretty fast, it still doesn't feel fast enough. But plenty of companies are working on it.

After changing its name from Atieva to Lucid Motors, the EV startup backed by the same Chinese billionaire that should be pumping money into Faraday Future as well announced it was striking a partnership with Samsung SDI. The South Korean giant is to supply Lucid Motors with the battery cells needed to power the very sporty luxury sedan.

In case you missed it, the Atvus (name unconfirmed yet) is going to be just as fast as a Tesla Model S P100D to the 60 mph mark, if not faster, and it also promises a maximum range of 400 miles (640 km). The car's presentation is scheduled for next week, but production won't strat sooner than 2018.

The team appears very excited about the project, and it does look like everything is going to plan with the site for the $700 million plant settled for Arizona and the partnership with Samsung SDI going very well.

Commenting on the latter, Albert Liu, PhD, Director of Battery Technology of Lucid Motors, had this to say: “I have been very pleased with the results of the collaboration with Samsung SDI in developing a cell chemistry that meets our stringent standards," he said, quoted by Electrek. "Samsung SDI combined their in-house chemistry expertise with massive real-world datasets and state-of-the-art battery models provided by Lucid to develop a cell that is both energy dense and resistant to damage associated with fast-charging.”

Like the other two major partnerships - Tesla and Panasonic on the one side and Faraday Future and LG Chem on the other - Lucid Motors and Samsung SDI have jointly developed a cylindrical cell described as "next-generation" that will enable the electric vehicle to reach its full potential.

Peter Rawlinson, Chief Technician Officer of Lucid, was even more emphatic in his description of the collaboration, calling the advancement "a breakthrough": “The breakthrough battery life demonstrated by the new cell from Samsung SDI will be of tangible benefit to our customers, particularly companies with ride-sharing services operating around the clock. I look forward to continued collaboration with Samsung SDI.

If there's something the EV segment isn't lacking, it's claims, but out of the bunch, Lucid Motors has shown a lot of promise while Samsung really doesn't need any introduction. They might be using big words, but there has to be some truth to them. With a lot of these companies - Tesla included with its Model 3 - converging toward a conclusion, 2017 is going to be an exciting year.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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