Lucid boss test drives own car, loves it

One of the newest automakers to enter the electric vehicle fray, Lucid Motors, is nearing the completion of its inaugural luxury passenger car.

Dubbed the 'Air', the big sedan will go head-to-head with Tesla’s Model S and the impressive new Porsche Taycan, with production expected to begin at the company’s Casa Grande manufacturing facility in the latter half of this year.

With four different models on offer from launch, and with power rated from 360kW to 805kW depending on the model, the Air has potential to be a real dark horse in the segment.

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Lucid itself has emerged as a genuine competitor in what is fast becoming a busy sector of the automotive market, and it employs some very experienced industry professionals.

One such individual is the company’s CEO and CTO, Peter Rawlinson. The British engineer has a profound CV in the automotive world, previously working as a principal engineer at Jaguar and a chief engineer at Lotus.

More recently, Rawlinson worked at Tesla, where he was the vice president of vehicle engineering and chief engineer of the Tesla Model S.

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The man’s got some real chops in the game – he’s a CEO that would undoubtedly know what he’s talking about.

So, when Lucid published a video on its YouTube channel of Rawlinson assessing a near production-ready or “release candidate” version of its Air sedan, it represented a fascinating chance to hear his critique of the new company car.

Or at least it should have, if the review wasn’t overwhelmingly positive and filled with platitudes like “it’s (the Air) taking it to a whole new level”, "this car's as much as sports car as a sedan" and “it’s unlike anything I’ve ever driven”.

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That’s not to say Rawlinson didn’t have a few criticisms of the Air – he didn’t think the hill-hold calibration was perfect, and thought more could be done for the torque delivery when getting away from a set of traffic lights.

He also gave a small amount of insightful feedback about the car's steering, which he would know a lot about, given Lotus' attention to detail when it comes to interacting with the front axle.

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