Will Lucid come out with better battery and motor tech than Tesla?

[CyberMoose]

All i am see from my perspective is healthy competition. Although, LUCID is significantly more expensive than Tesla.

Oh competition is the best. Also new competition is even better, which is what Lucid is bringing to the table.

Think about trucks before Cybertruck, yes there was competition but it never really seemed like competition to me. You had the big 3 that just seemed so comfortable where they were, they didn't change much about the trucks in any eye catching way and new things each year didn't have a much of a wow factor but it was like they were catching up to things we have been used to seeing in cars for years. The biggest thing I was excited about was Rams recent air suspension that helped it get luxury car of the year (as a truck). Then all of a sudden CYBERTRUCK! and now every manufacturer is racing towards this electric truck production goal. I won't say Tesla was the only factor in this, I think with EV's becoming more and more popular, it was going to happen, but I do believe the Cybertruck put more focus on the question of 'where are the electric trucks?' than any other factor.

So now when we look at battery competition, I think Tesla has been actually doing very well without the major competition of anyone having more range, but now I want to see what Tesla does when more manufacturers are pushing higher end EVs that should have this increased range like Tesla. Before Lucid, as far as I know everyone behind Tesla was around 80 miles to 250 miles of range, Tesla didn't have to do anything to stay ahead. I'm really excited to see Tesla do what Tesla does best and that's impress us with a big announcement, which should be on battery day.

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[android04]

I was impressed by what I saw in regards to their motors. The motors they compared to are obviously Porsche Taycan, Model 3, and Model S motors. If there are no drawbacks to their motor (like durability or cooling) then hopefully Tesla can eventually match or beat their technology.

Also, in regards to motors, two months ago someone in a Tesla forum teased this image of the possible upcoming Tesla plaid powertrain drive unit (dual motors and inverters). It's not verified yet, but it seems very similar to the Lucid drive unit in its form factor. If this is really a Tesla dual drive unit, it seems to me that Lucid won't be ahead for too long (at least in size and tech).

 

[xXChartmanXx]

Competition is fantastic. Makes everyone better (Except maybe Nikola lol).

 

[Sirfun]

Tesla is way out front for the moment. It is selling cars that outperform any of the competition at prices that have come down out of the stratosphere. But as has been said many times before one should not be judging in terms relevant to the auto industry but rather the high tech sector. Dramatic leads do not long persist in this sector. Ways to push the envelope are constantly sought and continuously found with competitors continually leapfrogging one another.

It is absolutely to be expected. Does Lucid have a motor that is "better" than Tesla's? Perhaps but what does "better" mean. Tesla's motors are 95% (?) efficient. Perhaps Lucid's are 96. Yes that is better but not much. Rawlinson brags about less cogging. Well yes, less cogging is better than more but how does this effect efficiency? Is it perhaps at the cost of efficiency? Is there more noise from cogging in a competitor's car (I can hear it in my X) than Lucid's? Does it matter?
Lucid took their prototype to a company with a dynamometer, gave them some drag and inertial coefficients, had them program those into the machine and had them run the EPA protocol. They came up with 517. That is an estimate of what their EPA rating will be and not, probably, a bad one. I don't doubt that their production cars will achieve an EPA rating of a bit over 500. But note that the car does NOT have an EPA range of 517 miles. The EPA was not, AFAIK, present to monitor this test nor have they, AFAIK, approved the drag or inertial coefficient set nor the final "fudge factors" that determine EPA range.

Then 13 of the 25%, a bit more than half or the extra range is indeed "dumb range". The other 12% is "smart" range. Where does it come from? They didn't get a 12% improvement over Tesla in better motor efficiency because that would make their motors "over unity" (more than 100% efficient) and the same goes for inverter technology.

Yes, they did. Now that should lead to some additional improvement in drive train efficiencies. But as there only a few percent to be gained here then we can only assign perhaps 2-3% to that leaving 9 - 10% to be explained otherwise. Obviously, most of these come from the relative drag and inertial loads. According to one website:

"[The Air's] width is around 35 to 40 millimeters narrower, height is about 30 millimeters lower and length is probably only about five to ten millimeters shorter." than an S. Rawlinson brags about a low Cd (and he has every right to). Putting these together means that the Lucid would have
0.21* (77.3*2.54 - 4)*(56.9*2.54 - 3)/(0.23* (77.3*2.54 )*(56.9*2.54 )) = 0.875876 drag relative to a Model S that is, drag is 12% less. That does not explain all the unaccounted for extra range as drag is only part of the load with, of course, it becoming very important if driving at high uniform speed. If much of the highly publicized LAX to SFO run was done on the interstate it could explain a substantial chunk of the Lucid's advantage over the S.

The other major part of the load is inertial, both translational and rotational. I mention the later as Rawlinson specifically mentions it WRT the motor and transmission. A car that is dimensionally smaller by 5% would be, cetris paribus, 14% lighter but I have no idea how paribus the ceteris is. Suffice it to say that a great way to increase range in the lower speed regimes (which are an important part of the EPA protocol) where the inertial load assumes greater importance. Again we can't say that 14% less inertia would explain all the observed differences.


Well as I get older I get gassier too but that aside there are a couple of wins on the Lucid side of the ledger at this point. The electrical system at 900 V might be a percent or two more efficient, the low inertia rotors in the motors might add a fraction of a percent to efficiency but the big win here would be the 9% reduction in the drag coefficient. Range garnered by increasing the battery and making a smaller car is indeed "dumb" range.

A resounding "Meh". It's not something I would ever use.


Keeping in mind that bidirectionality can mean a couple of different things the CT does have it in the sense that there will be 240 VAC available in the bed of the truck and apparently it will be pretty hefty. This would allow you to power your house with it via an appropriately connected transfer switch and charge another CT from it by means of the UMC plugged into it. I don't know what bi-directional means in the Lucid. The CT will be able to interface to one's house via AC if the mains are disconnected. It could not be used for V2G. And its ability to interface to another CT (or BEV of any description really) is limited to AC. The other way to use "bidirectionality" is by direct connection of the battery in one vehicle to the battery in another or to an interface box in the house which contains the inverter which, with proper software could interface with the grid.

Thank you AJ,
as usual you put together an excellent response. I was wondering if part of the V2H had to do with their Lucid wall connector. With Tesla not selling wall connectors currently, it made me think (maybe) they are changing the wall connector to be bi-directional.

 

[glowplug]

We want V2V & at least V2H.

This is interesting, but how useful/practical is it really?

 

[ajdelange]

The HPWC is still out of stock? Indeed it is. It's been quite a while now.

In any case the dramatic changes to allow the vehicle to interface with the home power system and in turn the grid are in the vehicle but some burden falls on the wall charger too. It's main functions are to communicate with the car, any installed Power walls and, in the case of V2G, the utility and based on these communications to decide when to connect the car to the mains.

 

[Sirfun]

The HPWC is still out of stock? Indeed it is. It's been quite a while now.

In any case the dramatic changes to allow the vehicle to interface with the home power system and in turn the grid are in the vehicle but some burden falls on the wall charger too. It's main functions are to communicate with the car, any installed Power walls and, in the case of V2G, the utility and based on these communications to decide when to connect the car to the mains.

Yep, I looked on Tesla's website before my comment to you.
The blackmarket/EBay prices are way higher than Tesla. Someone has a new one for $1600

 

[ajdelange]

This is interesting, but how useful/practical is it really?

I suppose that depends. You have, as I pointed out, AC V2V and V2H but at limited power level. With it as it is the notion of a CT based rescue service for people who run out of gas on the road isn't very practical because if you travel to a discharged CT it would take hours to put more than a few miles into it. If the V2H were DC/DC such a service could travel to a distressed Tesla and pass 50 kWh to it in a much shorter period of time thus making such a service feasible. With respect to V2H people need to have an idea as to how much power they use in a day. Over the last 30 days I've used 67 kWh/da. Were power to go down for a week I would last 180/50 = 2.6 days if I fully discharged a fully charged CT at, of course, the expense of having no fuel left to drive the CT. I would have to implement serious load shedding in the case of a protracted outage. With a generator with 1000 gal tank I'm good for 2 weeks (and one hell of a propane bill) without load shedding and longer with. So I don't find this very appealing but note how badly people here want it. They have a different perspective than I and that's fine. Also I think it makes great marketing. Few, when they see that nice picture on the Lucid website, will have any idea about what the numbers imply (113/67 = 1.7 days for me) but the picture is very confidence inspiring.

 

[Crissa]

Don't discount the speed of turnover of a battery vs a generator. And the quiet.

-Crissa

 

[Sirfun]

I suppose that depends. You have, as I pointed out, AC V2V and V2H but at limited power level. With it as it is the notion of a CT based rescue service for people who run out of gas on the road isn't very practical because if you travel to a discharged CT it would take hours to put more than a few miles into it. If the V2H were DC/DC such a service could travel to a distressed Tesla and pass 50 kWh to it in a much shorter period of time thus making such a service feasible. With respect to V2H people need to have an idea as to how much power they use in a day. Over the last 30 days I've used 67 kWh/da. Were power to go down for a week I would last 180/50 = 2.6 days if I fully discharged a fully charged CT at, of course, the expense of having no fuel left to drive the CT. I would have to implement serious load shedding in the case of a protracted outage. With a generator with 1000 gal tank I'm good for 2 weeks (and one hell of a propane bill) without load shedding and longer with. So I don't find this very appealing but note how badly people here want it. They have a different perspective than I and that's fine. Also I think it makes great marketing. Few, when they see that nice picture on the Lucid website, will have any idea about what the numbers imply (113/67 = 1.7 days for me) but the picture is very confidence inspiring.

You a very much more aware of your usage than most of us. I had looked at the average home usage of 909 KWH per month and thought a CT would be a great backup. 900 per month would only average 30kwh per day. So my thought was I could use the CT for a day maybe 2 then drive to a supercharger that's working and recharge the batteries.

 

[ajdelange]

Yep, I looked on Tesla's website before my comment to you.

So back to your original question: wonder what the story is with this. The Gen 3's haven't been out that long. They were shipping with firmware that was a shadow of what they were promising for the near term future but we were lead to believe that this would be taken care of via OAT update. Does it have something to do with that? Maybe there is a basic design flaw in the Gen 3. It certainly seems flimsy compared to a Gen 2. ???

 

[Sirfun]

Don't discount the speed of turnover of a battery vs a generator. And the quiet.

-Crissa

And having to deal with fuel and fumes. Plus the peace of mind that you are not SOL when the power goes out. I don't store fuel because fuel goes bad. There's always the Arkansas credit card. (siphon the vehicles tank).

 

[ajdelange]

I had looked at the average home usage of 909 KWH per month and thought a CT would be a great backup. 900 per month would only average 30kwh per day. So my thought was I could use the CT for a day maybe 2 then drive to a supercharger that's working and recharge the batteries.

Sounds perfectly reasonable.

And I emphasize again that the CT will give you possibly as much as 10 kW of AC to use for this purpose in which sense it is just like a 10 kW generator. It just needs to be wired to a per code manual transfer switch. The only thing I wonder about is whether the vehicle will have to be "turned on" for that outlet to be live. Perhaps the App will let us turn it on remotely whatever the vehicle state. That would be nice.

 

[TruckElectric]

They have also been supplying the electric motors for Formula 1 racers

I knew Lucid made batteries for Formula E but not motors.

From Wikipedia: Lucid has designed, developed, manufactured and supplied battery packs for all race teams in the 2018–19 Formula E season,[37] and will continue to do so for the 2019–20 season,[4] in collaboration with McLaren Applied Technologies and Sony.[38][39] The Formula E specification[40] calls for a battery weight of 250 kg (550 lb), 54 kWh energy, and peak power of up to 250 kW


CAR AND DRIVER Link: Lucid (Formerly Known as Atieva) Will Be the Sole Battery-Pack Supplier for Formula E

 

[TruckElectric]

Here is a 1:22:30 video about Lucid