The Car That’s No Longer ‘Just a Car’ – The Design Team Behind The Lucid Air

What happens when you mix the talents of top automotive designers and a new electric vehicle technology? The Lucid Air could very well be the best car ever made and compete with the Mercedes Benz S-Class by creating a new kind of relaxed luxury sedan with all the amenities a consumer would ever want while helping our planet.

Leading designers from Lucid Motors explain their design philosophies and inspirations.

Lucid’s Pedigree

Lucid Motors has a royal heritage with top designers and engineers from automakers who are breaking from the traditional to create a new original electric lavish automotive paradigm from the ground up. Founded as Atieva in 2007, the company originally started as a battery developer then expanded to drivetrains and eventually showed a prototype vehicle in late 2016.

Peter Rawlinson, who served as chief engineer at Lotus, principal engineer at Jaguar and was the chief engineer of the Tesla Model S, is the CEO of Lucid Motors. The company announced $1 billion in funding from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund last year which was finalised in April. The company moved into new headquarters in Newark, California, in July.

The Lucid Air is Level 4/Level 5 autonomous ready with technology supplied by Mobileye. Lucid is partnering with Electrify America for super-fast charging. The in-house designed powertrain delivers 1,000 horsepower and 217-mph top speed. The name Lucid Air comes from the freeing up of space of the interior from the smaller electric motor and driving components.

When you listen to its designers, the Lucid Air is definitely more than just a car… 
 

The space of a car can be like a vacation.

“We want to be a car brand that is not a car brand. In a lot of ways a lot of car brands are about the technology or about the figureheads, Tesla especially,” says Nathan Barbour, head of brand creative at Lucid Motors who formerly lead UX design at Audi.

“We enable the people building the brand. Being in Northern California a lot of our DNA is California based. It’s about blending the artisanship and technology. It’s a human brand,” says Barbour.

He notes that CEO, Peter Rawlinson, empowers everybody in the company in their areas of expertise.

A Luxury Vacation on the Inside

Joan Jung, head of interior design at Lucid Motors, formerly manager of global advanced interior design at Ford Motor Company explains how car interior design relates to how you feel.

“In a car, you are in your own very personal space. We sing out loud. We make faces. We eat. We do things while we are driving. It’s not really a car any more. The space of a car can be like a vacation” says Jung.
 

You want to be on vacation because you need our own space and quiet time, says Jung, who asks the question: “What if the car interior every day gives you power back by making the interior super comfortable with amazing ergonomics, but most importantly it is beautiful?”

The car is where you rest, where you put your feet, it can be calmly designed to make you feel relaxed, says Jung.

Sitting or lounging in the sumptuous seats that are beyond comfortable inside the Lucid Air feels more like a luxury spa or a quiet lounge in a 5-Star Hotel or private executive jet.

The first Lucid Air design is called Santa Cruz with natural colours that harken back to shoreline majestic cliffs and sand of the California coast. Finishing touches include genuine walnut trim inlaid in the doors and console with luscious leather seats.
 

A New Design from Scratch

Derek Jenkins is the vice president of design at Lucid Air. He was formerly the director of design at Mazda North America, chief designer at Volkswagen NA and served in design roles at Audi. Working at Lucid Air opens up new design possibilities.

“I would equate it with going solo. For me obviously working at Mazda was wonderful a passionate company very focused on design as well as at VW and Audi. Inevitably, you are bound by the legacy of that company– whether it’s the idea of what the look for that company should be, or what the technology should be or what platform is at a given time. You’re kind of styling around given parameters.

“To be able to step away from that and say ‘We’re going to write the rule book as to what this needs to be from an architecture standpoint, from a brand standpoint and from an aesthetic standpoint—So that’s a thrilling opportunity that doesn’t come along very often,” says Jenkins. “Combined with the view that we are in a big shift to electrification and electric cars will be different from gas cars. We need to drive that and make it appealing to the customers so that we can transition as fast as possible. It was a seductive prospect – it was an easy change.”
 

Jenkins believes that what’s interesting about this time is that it’s all converging at once— new use cases, scenarios, business cases,  electrification changing the architecture and the autonomous discussion changes the use case and experience.

“It’s super accelerated right now so I think we have to be open-minded. I personally enjoy being more future-focused than looking back,” he says.

“I feel like I spent a career of being told you have to look back in order to do a successful product. Now you really don’t have to look back. Technology is enabling an era where compromise is not a word. You can pretty much get everything in one vehicle and that’s super exciting to bring that together in one vehicle.”
 

The Future of Lucid

Lucid Motors recently started construction of its factory in Casa Grande Arizona. The first Lucid Air sedans will average over $100K and there will be more affordable versions as production ramps up ultimately to cost around $60,000.

“We’ve been in stealth mode. Next year we will be opening showrooms across the country. We will be selling the Lucid Air direct and through dealers depending on the state and are looking at some kind of membership service in the future,” confirms Barbour.