Dubai: What’s not to love in the Lucid Air?
As the Saudi-backed EV manufacturer gets closer to delivering its first model to buyers in the UAE, the anticipation is peaking nicely. The model and the car brand are getting talked up in social media, and its latest financials – quite upbeat ones - have only fine-tuned the expectations ahead of the actual delivery of the initial units.
In Dubai, the US-headquartered Lucid already has a ‘studio’ – showrooms are for legacy car brands– and that’s adding to the visibility. Now, all it needs are for Lucid Air models – priced from Dh299,000 - to show up in high frequency on the UAE roads, and that would be one more step in the brand’s growth narrative.
In an interview with ‘Gulf News’, Faisal Sultan, Vice-President and Managing Director of Lucid Middle East, gives a status update on what UAE buyers and fans can expect.
It was in April that you announced the Dubai ‘studio’. How far are you into the ground game when it comes to sales and after-sale support?
We have had many reservations for sure, and in the next few months the cars will be rolled out. In fact, Lucid is in the final stages of scheduling the first deliveries. Lucid operates on a direct-to-consumer model, whether in the US, Canada, the six markets where we are in Europe, Saudi Arabia and Dubai.
There will definitely be an expansion into Abu Dhabi, whether that's in sales and service. Expansion will keep on happening, including on a massive service centre in Dubai. But we already have options where Lucid car owners can get their service done at a third-party provider.
When you announced Lucid Air, what you were promising as a single-charge range did come across as an eye-popper. Can you stick with the promised range?
Lucid is going out of its way to take on some of the challenges that buyers think come with EVs - especially on range anxiety. We are able to give them 838 kilometers on a single charge. None of our competitors can come close to that. Even factoring in heat losses and not having the EV charging infrastructure, what Lucid Air can do goes a long, long way.
We are also giving buyers free home chargers, and even installing the charger for free.
When customers become aware they only need to plug and charge their vehicle once a week, the interest and demand will come automatically.
How far have you progressed on production at King Abdullah Economic City plant in Saudi Arabia?
Globally, on the production side, there were some issues that all carmakers had to go through after Covid. But that side of the auto market has really recovered. Lucid has not faced any challenges on production.
We are on track to produce more than 10,000 cars annually. If need be, it can go above that, but we monitor the demand, in different global regions, and based on that can change our production schedules.
The Arizona, US, plant is fully functional with Phase 3 is on the way.
As for King Abdullah Economic City, the plant in Jeddah is also up and running. We got that started last year, with a capacity of 5,000 vehicles in a year. When expanding into all the GCC markets, we will be able to use that capacity more and more. The Saudi facility is on an SKD (semi-knocked down) basis, where the whole kit comes from Arizona and then gets assembled in Jeddah. There was a slow start because we wanted to train the workforce in Saudi and also take them to Arizona, where they get trained, and become part of the assembly operation.
The pricing for the Air is super-premium. Do you plan to widen options with subsequent models?
I will say Air’s pricing is very competitive at Dh299,000 and over compared to the competitors who are not offering any of the things we do. And the range is 40% lower for a comparable model from the competition. Their charging speed is 30% lower.
They have the same battery pack, but comes up with 30-40% less range. That just tells you where we are at on every technology we put into the Air.
We also have mobile service vans, which is a concept that we’ve made our own. We can 70-80% of the service done directly at the Lucid owner’s home.
But what about new models?
Gravity, which is our full-sized luxury 7-seater SUV, is, I believe, even more refined. It’s going to be extremely competitively priced too. Early production has started, and the first deliveries will start in H1-2025 all over the world. We do have high hopes.
We also announced a mid-sized model, and that will be our volume product. Most of it will be produced in the Saudi plant - and It’s not just for regional consumption alone. That platform is going to have three distinctive vehicles that can compete against some of our perceived competitors.
