The Gravity Would Have Landed Lucid on Safer Ground, So Why Did They Start With the Air?

I realized that on the day Lucid introduced its electric SUV at the AutoMobility LA (aka LA Auto Show). The startup's first product was not supposed to be a high-volume car, but it should have more demand than an electric sedan could offer these days. In a way, it shows that Peter Rawlinson left Tesla after developing the Model S, but that Tesla never left the Lucid CEO's mind. In a way, his company tried to repeat what Tesla had done, but it focused on how it did that, not on why.

Tesla's Master Plan was to sell a high-end electric sports car, make enough money with it to develop another one for a broader audience (the Model S), and repeat that cycle until the company covered all relevant market segments. The truth is that this plan never worked. Tesla's first time making money was in Q1 2013, but that was an exception until 2020 – when the company had its first profitable year. It would be only by Q2 2021 that Tesla would post profits without the sale of carbon credits.

When the battery electric vehicle (BEV) maker introduced the Model S, the Toyota Camry still sold well. Nowadays, what really moves the needle is the RAV4. In other words, any company wishing to sell enough units of anything to make a profit will have to present an SUV or something that looks like one. That said, Lucid's first vehicle should have been the Gravity.

Following almost the same steps as Tesla may look like the main reason for the Air to have arrived first, but that is probably an error. Rawlinson is an engineer. He has already made it patently clear how proud he is of Lucid's products and their efficiency. If the company's first vehicle were the Gravity, Lucid would not have made as much of an impact among automotive specialists as it did with the sedan. After all, the Air was the first BEV to offer a range of more than 500 miles.

Although the company said the Gravity would present a similar range, it confirmed there was no way a vehicle with a much larger frontal area would deliver the same numbers. With that in mind, the Air became Lucid's business card: a product that was supposed to show what the startup could achieve. Fair enough, but the company also needed something that would sell in better numbers, especially as a public company trying to attract investors.

I've already written about how Lucid and Rivian do not follow the same paths as other startups because they do not need more money to stay afloat. Both found investors that helped them pursue their plans without concerns – which is a luxury only a handful of other companies enjoy. Even if they did not do that well in the beginning, Saudi Arabia and Amazon would not let them go down. To be fair, Rivian could eventually lose its financial support because Amazon is also a business, but it already raised enough money to navigate bad times. On the other hand, Lucid should never lose the petrodollars from the Saudi government because it is a strategic asset. Saudi Arabia knows oil will eventually run out, so it wants to have a successful car company as a backup plan.

Despite counting on a backer with deep pockets, Lucid could have made a better business plan. If the Air were necessary to showcase the company's engineering prowess, it could have also introduced the Gravity to do the sales volumes load-lifting. If it really wanted to sell the sedan before anything else, another option was to launch it to American and Chinese buyers. Apart from being the world's biggest market, China still has a taste for high-end sedans. On the other hand, Chinese customers are also more demanding than American ones. Blowing it there with lousy build quality could have had long-lasting consequences.

Even if its range is not as impressive as the Air's, 440 miles is a remarkable figure for a tall BEV that seats seven people. With that in mind, wouldn't the Gravity have given Lucid the volumes it wanted to achieve in its first years? Having that SUV only now seems to have been a serious miscalculation. Sadly, it was not the only one the company committed.

The Air series production was postponed more than once with the excuse that Lucid wanted it to be flawless. It would not compete with the Model S because it would be a truly premium car – comparable to the Mercedes-Benz S Class. That generated an expectation that the electric sedan would have a perfect fit and finish.

As I wrote in October 2022, that was pretty far from what customers really found on the production cars. They came with trim issues, paint problems, 12V battery failures, and the now infamous "Turtle Mode," which cuts power. As I said at the beginning of this story, luxury is not having to worry about anything, and Lucid did not deliver that. Why it failed to offer that is something only the company and its executives will be able to answer.

Summing up, Lucid needed to demonstrate its tech and efficiency with a body that made that easier (a sedan). At the same time, it needed to achieve higher sales volumes to make another stand – that people wished to buy its cars. Sadly, people do not want sedans anymore – at least not in the US. With that, Lucid also lost access to the luxury of not having to worry about the future. The Gravity may eventually revert that situation if the startup still has the luxury of time.