Lucid — History, Models and Everything You Need to Know

Lucid Motors traces its origins to 2007, when Bernard Tse and Sam Weng founded a company called Atieva, initially focused on developing electric vehicle battery technology rather than complete vehicles. For its first several years, Atieva operated primarily as a battery and powertrain technology supplier, building expertise in electric vehicle engineering without producing a consumer-facing product.

The pivotal moment in the company's history came in 2013 when Peter Rawlinson — who had served as Tesla's chief engineer overseeing development of the Model S — joined Atieva as Chief Technology Officer. Rawlinson brought deep technical expertise in electric vehicle architecture and a clear vision for what the next generation of electric vehicles could achieve. The company rebranded as Lucid Motors in 2016, explicitly shifting its strategy from a pure technology supplier toward building complete, market-leading luxury electric vehicles. Rawlinson became CEO in 2019, driving the company toward the launch of its first vehicle.

Lucid received its most significant capital injection from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which began investing in 2018 and has since become the company's largest shareholder, holding a majority stake. This investment provided the substantial capital required to bring the Lucid Air to production and fund the company's subsequent expansion, including the construction of a dedicated manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, Arizona, and a second factory in Saudi Arabia itself.

The Lucid Air, which began deliveries in late 2021, immediately established Lucid's technical credibility by setting the record for the longest EPA-certified range of any production electric vehicle. The Air Grand Touring achieved an EPA-estimated 512 miles of range — a figure that surpassed every Tesla model available at the time and demonstrated the genuine engineering sophistication of Lucid's proprietary battery and motor technology. Lucid's engineers achieved this efficiency through an extremely compact and powerful electric motor design, advanced battery chemistry and an aerodynamically optimised body that achieved one of the lowest drag coefficients of any production sedan.

The Air also offered extraordinary performance alongside its range credentials — the Air Sapphire variant produces over 1,200 horsepower from a tri-motor configuration, making it one of the fastest production sedans ever built, with a 0-60mph time under two seconds. This combination of class-leading range and genuine performance demonstrated that Lucid was not simply an efficiency-focused alternative to Tesla but a credible competitor across the full spectrum of electric vehicle capability.

Lucid's competitive position is built almost entirely on demonstrable engineering superiority — particularly in motor efficiency, packaging and range — rather than brand recognition or marketing scale, areas where the company still significantly trails Tesla. Lucid's proprietary electric motor technology, developed in-house rather than sourced from suppliers, achieves power density and efficiency figures that even Tesla's own engineers have acknowledged as class-leading. The Saudi Public Investment Fund's substantial and ongoing financial backing provides Lucid with the patient capital needed to scale production and develop new models — a significant advantage given how capital-intensive automotive manufacturing remains, even for software-defined electric vehicles. The launch of the Gravity SUV and the planned more affordable Earth model represent Lucid's attempt to translate its technical leadership in the luxury sedan segment into broader market relevance — a transition that will determine whether Lucid can become a mainstream success story or remains a respected but niche engineering-focused manufacturer.