The Lucid Air has made its first UK appearance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Speaking exclusively to Autocar, a spokesman confirmed that the American EV maker will begin exporting cars to European and Middle Eastern buyers this "June or July" and then expand to China in 2023.
Lucid didn't explicitly confirm which markets it will export to first, but in a previous interview, an employee reportedly confirmed that Germany would be its first port of call.
Once established, sales will be rolled out in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Monaco, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and all-important Norway, where EVs dominate.
Yet to be confirmed is the UK market, but an insider working closely with Lucid has strongly hinted to us that right-hand drive has always been planned for the Air.
If so, expect production to begin late this year and for the full Air line-up to be available to order for British buyers online towards the end of 2022 ahead of deliveries in 2023.
As well as the big expansion, Lucid has also confirmed that it's developing an even more powerful version of the Air that neatly packages not one but two power units with the Air's rear subframe.
Autocar has seen what's been described as the Megawatt rear axle, which is thought to produce as much as 1341bhp.
There has been no official confirmation about how much power the tri-motor Super Air will produce, but a safe bet is that it will be upwards of 1600bhp. That should easily have it match or beat the Tesla Model S Plaid's claimed 0-60mph sprint trim of 1.9sec.
The new rear axle is also set to be used in the upcoming Gravity SUV to which Lucid engineers are putting the finishing touches ahead of its debut in early 2024.
Other new developments in the work for the existing Air include a pair of airline-style reclining rear seats to boost comfort.
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Yet another over-powered, gadget-laden, super-expensive prestige car that's not built for the masses.
Although now enough of the general car buying public has been fooled into paying for cars on interest-laden finance, maybe these cars are being built for the masses, i.e. to con them into spending much more on a car than they should, that they'll also never actually own.
Maybe it's the color, but this Car looks Range Rover huge!, it looks from the images to be long and wide, not something you'd particularly want on UK Roads, and also, I do wish they'd stop going on about how quick these EV Cars are, to an extent speed is irrelevant, it's how far and what your doing on the journey which by the looks of it we'll be watching Tv or reading a Book, Paper or even...shock horror! talking to your co passenger/s .
I really dont get this fascination with mega horsepower EV's (particularly in normal saloon cars).
There is nowhere on public roads to explore this kind of acceleration or top speed safely (especially in the States). The extra battery capacity just adds weight which negates the whole point of the car, by reducing range - particularly when demonstrating the cars potential to their vomiting passengers.
Its this 'one trick pony' thing which eventually sees the car just sitting in commuter traffic like everyone else, but carrying a huge weight penalty.
They are a new company and R&D costs are high.
Hence they are following the tried and tested strategy of low volume, high margin luxury EVs first. Then later down the line, they will bring out more affordable EVs. They have already outlined this strategy, it's the same as Tesla's approach to entering the market.
Its like saying "its silly to want to buy a Ferrari since we never go that fast on public roads".... well you buy a Ferrai because it can go that fast and you want it and everybody else wants and relish it too. Its called envy....and sems like you've got it in spades.
@FR12
.....seeeeems like you are making assumptions without knowing facts matey!
The day I get envious about any one elses car (let alone some yankey piece of crap with no provenance), will never happen.