Lucid Motors unveils the Air, a new luxe electric car with a 400-mile range
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Setting aside the design aesthetic of the tesla, which is minimal and modern, the actual quality and finish of the tesla is stupefying. It's unbelievably bad. I sat in a mazda recently that was much better by every measure.
M5: 4288 lbs, 550 bhp, 400 mm six-piston fixed-caliper compound disc brakes, custom Bavarian elastokinematic suspension honed on German race tracks for decades.
P85D: 4936 lbs, 557 bhp, 355 mm four-piston fixed-calliper regular disc brakes, standard suspension setup you find in a Ford Crown Victoria.
It's not a surprise that a heavier car with the same power and significantly worse brakes and suspension handles significantly worse.
But as you say, no-one is buying a Model S to go play on racetracks. Especially since we know it can't do a full lap of the Nürburgring Nordschliefe without overheating and reducing power output.
I've been a driver for twenty years and I have never felt like I cared about 'handling'. When car reviewers talk about it I always picture a 45 year old man-child white-knuckling the wheel at the local intersection while revving his 325i, eyes darting between soccer moms and pensioners in the cars around him and imagining himself to be Ayrton Senna. Though that is probably uncharitable :)
I have owned many different cars between a top-end BMW and a beater Hyundai. The BMW is certainly a more enjoyable ride, but 'handling' was never a concern, except perhaps in a very occasional circumstance that might have gotten me arrested.
At worst, "handling" is the difference between a car that's fun to drive and one that bores me. At best, it's the difference between smashing into the truck that stops suddenly at highway speeds and making it onto the shoulder.
I drive a small family car and I know that with worse handling we'd all have been to the hospital at least twice.
This is true, and the U.S. road network evolved this way, with cars evolving to suit the 'freeway' or the little road to get to the 'freeway'.
In Europe we have an entirely different type of road network, ours does have fast motorways and dual carriageways where 'handling is not needed'. However, the bulk of the network is the older type of network where this handling thing does matter. In fact, we kind of chuckle with embarrassment at the sight of U.S. cars and their crude engineering. In a narrow country lane when the 325i meets the U.S. soccer-mom lard-mobile, you know that the guy in the 325i will be the one flicking into reverse and backing up to a passing point.
If your experience with driving is sitting in traffic or driving around suburban streets, you're right, handling (mostly) doesn't matter.
[1] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ca/e2/45/cae2...
But I admit I might feel differently if I had to navigate roads like that on a daily basis.
I’ve yet to see one up close in person. When you rag on the interior fit and finish, are you talking about things like the quality of plastics used, gaps between panels, tactile feel of buttons, and so on? In other words, I’m assuming your complaint isn’t purely an aesthetic one (“I don’t like how it looks”), but rather an objective criticism on materials and engineering.
Here’s a litmus test: How’s the stitching on door panels and seats?
People are happy paying now limousine-class prices for £20-30,000 range quality and comfort, just because of the novelty and image that a Tesla projects. But how much longer can they sell in the image without reinforcing the image with the styling, comfort and quality that is to be expected of a £60,000 car ?
I'd be curious to hear some more detailed thoughts about what you think stands out in this regard.
But the drive is amazing, so in the end, it's all worth it. Tesla should really concentrate on the interior because it nailed the drive itself.
The style of German luxury cars is really a question of acquired taste. For many of us, plastic does just fine.
Probably not that many of you actually. When given the choices between more "noble" materials versus plastic at close prices, the market always sides so heavily against plastic that the competing product dies unless it sells for a LOT cheaper than the one with noble materials.
For eg: iPhone 5c vs classic iPhone 5. You can't sell a plastic phone for the price of an iPhone. Plastic is synonymous with cheap and if it's not cheap then no one is buying it.
For the same reason Tesla cars make a lot of people cringe at the price tags asked.
I hope by that you meant they are using engines which run on overprocessed dinosaurs ?
Besides that, I guess techwise both the S Class and 7 series have more than anyone would want. For eg the S Class (or maybe the 7 or both) has had steering correction for crosswinds for a couple of years now ! Besides other things like night vision, automatic breaking etc etc
They are not self driving for sure but I believe many S Class or 7 series owners/leas holders don't drive themselves. They pay someone else to drive them around most of the times.
The 7 can detect and compensate for a flat tire during driving.
I think the parent post was confusing multimedia with technology.
And honestly the hardware for multimedia in Teslas is already outdated. Tesla is updating their platform at a much higher cadence than most cars, but they still haven't escaped the impedance mismatch between multimedia hardware which gets outdated in a year, and cars, which are outdated over much longer periods.
That's why to me a high quality BT or well placed wired input is all that matters
I see... that makes sense.
I have been in a Tesla (not as the driver though, it was a taxi !!!) and that screen garnered the same reaction from me as I reacted to the 12" iPad. The touch interface did seem to be well implemented.
From a pure interaction perspective I still find the new BMW iDrive interface with the physical command dial to be quite practical, especially in the left hand drive versions. The screens are not as enormous as Tesla but they are still serviceable.
I totally get the point with updated BT and wirings. I recently bought an very cheap BT 4.0 receiver to plug into the AUX socket and stream audio from my phone. There is a significant difference between the audio quality produced by BT streaming compared to playing CD in the head unit.
I wish such things were user serviceable.
It was approximately the least luxurious sedan you could conceivably purchase, comparable to my old Jeep CJ5. All metal and plastic. Fabric seats. Manual windows, locks, transmission. I was shocked that it had a radio and AC.
But it felt like a vehicle that would last decades in that climate with a screwdriver and a wrench. It was simply and purely a car, in a way that was refreshing. I might buy a car like that, especially if they made a more rugged version with a cruise control.
The 0-star crash rating, lack of airbags, and lack of rear shoulder belts and rear headrests don't need to be emulated, though.
https://jalopnik.com/horrifying-crash-test-against-a-modern-...
On the one hand, it's cool that Tesla have made electric cars appealing to the high-end market, because that's the only market that can really afford them at the moment, which lets them bootstrap and iterate downmarket to achieve their stated goal of helping the world transition to carbon free power.
But I hope they don't get too caught up in high-end details like fancy leathers, because unlike the cost of the battery, those aren't on a steady downward trajectory, and therefore distract from making a mass market car.
i agree completely. i have mentioned this to people, but i get weird looks from people awed by tesla. i have sat in one and even rode along a friend's test ride. the door handle jiggles. when the door closes, it doesn't have that firm "i'm a car door, and i just closed" feel and sound. the leather isn't that great and the seat backs and trim is sort of tacky. there's a lot of plastic pieces that jiggle around.
my kia optima sxl is finished much, much better than any tesla i have sat in.
i have asked the question: can tesla really beat in just a few years some of these other car manufacturers who have been making cars and iterating on designs for decades in quality and robustness? i think the answer is that, no they haven't, but people are continually wooed by thinking tesla is the greatest car because it's electric and has a gigantic screen. (i for one feel like the screen is poorly designed with respect to how it's mounted. it looks like someone just tacked on a giant monitor to a dash.)
I can't imagine that the difference between a 200kW and an 800kW drivetrain is more than ~5% of the cost of the car.
If you have a battery with high capacity it would have a very small sustained draw and vise versa.
The chemistry that allows for dense storage doesn't allow for high capacity and vise versa.
Some of the new chems that are specially designed for EV's try to marry the best of both worlds but in both cases you can have a considerably higher capacity or considerably more power if you use chem that was optimised for either.
An ICE doesn't get faster if you put a bigger fuel tank in.
If you just add cells you increase the weight of the car which can also have a negative or neutral effect on performance.
If you have two lithium batteries which are identical with the exception that one is double the capacity, the larger battery will be able to provide double the current at the same voltage and thus double the power. Lithium batteries are rated for current draw as a multiple of their capacity.
Lithium batteries are rated for current draw based on their chemistry please do some basic reasearch.
And no if you have 2 identical 18650 they'll have the same density and sustained and peak current draw if not they are not identical.
Cell size, chemistry, internal resistance, breakage and short currents etc are all variables based on the exact make of the battery.
Unfortunately the range is around 1/4 of what you want. The battery pack retails for $5k, so let's say it costs another $15k for 400 mile total range (assuming nothing else changes, e.g. extra weight). Would you pay $50k for one with a 400 mile range?
o_O
Only seen one Model X and didn't think that was nearly as nice looking - mind you it was in white which might not be a good colour for it.
I'd say it's nice looking, but more importantly it's iconic.
That said they do apparently have a lot invested. The car is clearly intended to be a step above a model S. They have executive features, more power, and a more detailed interior (although, no leather?).
Makes it so obvious what kind of pretentious people they 're going after. I'd love to see a manufacturer say they made a "badass battery car"
"Look at us! We are going to have THIS disruptive product in FOUR YEARS".
"Look at us! We are going to have THIS disruptive product in THREE YEARS".
"Look at us! We are going to have THIS disruptive product in TWO YEARS".
"Look at us! We are going to have THIS disruptive product in ONE YEAR".
"Look at us! We are going to have THIS disruptive product in TWO YEARS".
"Look at us! We are going to have THIS disruptive product in THREE YEARS".
"Look at us! We are going to have THIS disruptive product in... Shit! We have no buyers".
People want to solve problems today. They don't go to Home Depot to buy a drill bit for a hole they need to drill in four years. Or two. They need to drill a hole now.
The constant announcement of vapor products only serves to either tell the audience you are clueless and have no product anywhere near a reasonable horizon or --not sure which is worst-- push people into making a decision in favor of a competitor.
Cars are a displacement market. This is a market where a purchasing decision means a long term loss of the opportunity by all competitors. Once someone buys a car they stop looking for 2 to 10 years.
In a displacement market, spooking your prospects into making a decision in favor of a competitor generally means you slit your own throat. You thought you were being hip and cool while making amazing advanced announcements of a vapor product and, instead, you convinced prospects that you and your product are not real. The next move is natural: If they have a reasonably immediate need they lose all trust and hope on you and buy the competitor's product.
See you in a decade.
This, BTW, is very common in engineer-driven companies.
I know. I was the moron making these incredibly dumb decisions for my own business twenty years ago. I can't even described the amount of business I lost because I convinced myself that talking about what's coming "real soon" was actually of interest to my prospects. It wasn't. They bought the competitor's product and I lost them for a decade or for a lifetime. They got tired of hearing me go on about a nonexistent mythical product. Some of these losses represented company-changing multi-million-dollar multi-year lifetime opportunities. Gone. Shitty way to learn a lesson.
It's a very different thing if a company like BMW says "We are building a pure electric and here's the i3 and i8, two of our experiments" vs. a Joe-Blow-Startup without a factory or scale saying "...coming soon". BMW can survive this because it has a reputation and a following.
Some people (my wife) would rather buy an electric BMW to replace her current IC BMW. She is happy to wait. She trusts and likes BWM and knows they can deliver. She likes Tesla, but BWM saying "we are almost there" along with their reputation is likely to keep her from buying a Tesla.
On the other hand such loyalty does not exist with an unknown startup. The effect is to eventually see the continuing announcements of vapor as a signal that they are never going to be a viable option. And they are gone.
OK smart-ass. How do you do it then?
Simple. Develop a product. Finish it. Get it to the point where you can deliver a good reliable product. At that point, not before, announce it and open the doors.
As much fanfare as you want. Market as far and wide as your budget and skills allow.
The key is: The product has to be real and you have to be able to take orders AND deliver now, not in two years.
Lucid Motors has been blabbering incessantly about a car for quite some time now. And their "important announcement" is:
"Look at us! We are going to have THIS disruptive product in TWO YEARS".
Yeah. Good luck. Shitty way to learn a lesson.
Not the ghost of Adam Osborne, I take it? That was back in 1981 ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
(we learn from history that we don't learn, blah, blah ...)
Who's paying for all this development? Why would investors give you money when they've never heard of you, and you have nobody to show that's willing to buy your product?
Want to show an investor people want to buy your product? Show them the money you collected for your product.
> Why would investors give you money when they've never heard of you
Investors need to hear from you and your future plans. Potential customers should only hear about products they can buy, not vapor-ware. Investors will give you money for a vision and even an imperfect prototype.
However, as evidenced by Google's recently stated exit from building its own vehicle, actually bringing a new consumer car to market in any kind of decent volume is really, really, hard. I'd put my money on a slow conversion from ICE to EV with the existing manufacturers over the next 20 years, and smaller entrants popping up and going bust every couple years. Remember the Fisker Karma? And also remember how Tesla almost went broke multiple times? Long-term success for startups in the auto industry is rare.
Or they just figure that making battery cars is not going to be a high-margin business (Apart from waymo, they dont seem to have plans for a bigger car), unlike self-driving software which is what Google is doing well.
We need more work on energy infrastructure though. There are many countries that will be unable to cope if EVs start selling massively.