Lucid Motors announces robotaxi and new mid-size vehicles

Lucid Motors is entering the autonomous taxi business: The US electric car manufacturer announced a driverless vehicle at its investor day, which is to be used as a robotaxi by ride-hailing services such as Uber.

There are hardly any details: The Lucid Lunar will be a robotaxi that can accommodate two passengers, Lucid Motors announced. The vehicle is exclusively intended for driverless operation and will not have any controls such as a steering wheel or pedals.

So far, however, it is purely a concept. Work is not yet actively underway on it, Lucid Motors told US online magazine Techcrunch.

The Lunar is based on Lucid Motors' new Midsize platform, on which the electric car manufacturer plans to build mid-size vehicles in the future. Part of this platform is the Atlas drive unit. According to Lucid Motors, this is particularly small and light. In addition, the design is simple and efficient: for example, there is only one motor housing that can be installed on both the front and rear axles. This is intended to save costs.

Lucid wants to launch three mid-size models

Lucid Motors has already announced two models on the Midsize platform: the Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV) Cosmos and Earth. The former is likely more of a family vehicle, intended to be particularly spacious. The latter seems to be aimed at a younger audience interested in outdoor activities. The manufacturer is also planning a third mid-size model. However, details will only be available at a later date.

With the Midsize platform, Lucid Motors aims to open up a new segment: The two existing models – the sedan Air and the SUV Gravity – belong to the luxury class. The mid-size vehicles, on the other hand, are intended to be launched on the market for under 50.000 US dollars. The company has not announced when this will happen. It will initially focus on marketing the Gravity luxury SUV.

Earlier this year, Lucid Motors also showed a version of this as a robotaxi, which is to be used by Uber in the future. Lucid Motors is cooperating with the US robotics company Nuro, which is equipping the Galaxy with systems for autonomous use. It is not known whether Lucid Motors will also cooperate with Nuro on the Lunar.

(wpl)