
Lucid Air EV’s Battery Will Be 113.0 KWh - clouddrover
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a33797162/2021-lucid-air-517-mile-range-113-kwh-battery/
======
dgritsko
"...when it comes out in 2021."

My rule of thumb when it comes to all breathless headlines around battery
technology is that "I'll believe it when I see it". It's one thing to achieve
these specs for batteries when n = (small number), but can they be affordably
built at scale?

~~~
WorldMaker
2021 starts in less than 5 months. I think a lot of people are still so used
to seeing 202x dates as "far future" that it's really easy right now to lose
perspective that that future is already here.

~~~
mmrezaie
Oh come on, you jinxed it. Now, 2020 will never finish!

~~~
14
Unless it’s actually the year 2525, and we are all just trying to stay alive,
but we are in a virtual reality meant to hide the truth from our eyes. Oh what
a time to be alive

~~~
airstrike
My pet theory is we're part of a simulation to understand whether 2 days is
the optimal weekend length for the future of mankind.

~~~
kipchak
So far is the evidence pointing towards more or less than two days?

~~~
ezrast
When I'm president of the world I'll keep the weekend at two days but shorten
the work week from 5 to 4. This feels sort of like a 20% reduction in work but
actually you'd only need ~7% more time-efficiency to make up the productivity
gap. A lot of industries would recoup that for free just due to having a less
exhausted work force.

Sorry, Thursday.

~~~
brianwawok
Please dump Monday instead. The name has a stigma.

------
WhompingWindows
The sheer storage capacity of the battery is less interesting than the cost.
Getting below $100/KWh will reduce EV price to FAR below ICE vehicles; while
BEV's are already at parity with ICE on total cost of ownership, BEV's are
going to continue the long descent to MUCH cheaper, and $100 is going to be an
important milestone.

I think new ICE vehicles are going to be banned in most major economies by
2030, so really, ICE is having its last decade of relevance in new vehicles.
Given vehicle replacement cycle is around ~20 years, by 2050 the ICE vehicle
stock will be reduced to 99% specialty machines like classic cars,
motorcycles, and various heavy equipment for industry.

~~~
tachyonbeam
I have been a TSLA investor for a few years, I believe in electric vehicles.
At 100$/KWh we're talking 5000$ for a 50KWh battery back, which is plenty
enough for most people. This could allow us to see $15K-20K electric cars in
just a few years, maybe before 2025, which is awesome. Very soon buying a
gasoline vehicle, in a modern economy, will have people giving you weird
looks.

What does have me a little worried though is that most of the world doesn't
live in a wealthy city. As electric cars rise, gasoline prices will come down,
which will keep gasoline attractive for a while, particularly in poorer
countries. Failing ICE vehicle companies will try to sell their gas vehicles
to these poor countries as well, and our used cars might end up there too. In
other words, poorer countries could keep gasoline cars going for another 30
years after they've been banned here. What are we going to do about that?
We're all breathing the same air.

~~~
AgloeDreams
Bigger problem: More than half of Americans do not have a garage to park their
car in to charge. Fast charging is great for road trips but it's got nothing
on gas fill ups..yet.

~~~
WorldMaker
Street level charging is very possible (and growing quickly in Europe). Any
street with lamps or parking meters already has easy opportunities for
chargers to be added.

~~~
AgloeDreams
In America this would require some pretty high-level rework of how city
infrastructure works.

~~~
WorldMaker
Not really? We have electricity at the streets. We want additional plugs on
the streets, and _maybe_ a credit card reader on those plugs (even that's not
a given, really; cars themselves can transmit their payment information these
days, or costs could be rolled into existing city taxes/parking fees). This
isn't rocket science, this is infrastructure America has been building since
the early 1900s.

~~~
nordsieck
> Not really? We have electricity at the streets. We want additional plugs on
> the streets, and maybe a credit card reader on those plugs

Your parent was not saying that it'd be difficult to have a few charging
stations on streets, but rather that it would be difficult to add a lot of
densely packed chargers on the street.

Today, there just isn't that much use for electricity on the street: traffic
lights and the occasional parking meter are pretty much it from what I can
tell.

What you're proposing is adding 100's if not 1000's of amps of electricity to
the sidewalk. For many, many streets.

The situation is even more dire in the north: while it's not too bad to charge
in a garage, particularly if it's insulated, EVs on the street will have to
expend a substantial amount of energy keeping their batteries warm during the
winter months, meaning that the minimum charging rate for those areas will
have to be solidly in the Level 2 range.

All of this work isn't impossible or even conceptually difficult. But it is a
lot of work, and it's not as simple as just setting up charging stations and
hooking them into the already existing infrastructure.

~~~
WorldMaker
Most American street lamps are already "Level 2 range" for historic reasons
that many of them are high powered sodium lamps or extremely early
fluorescents.

In most major US cities the combined density of traffic lights, street lamps,
and parking meters (especially parking meters!) is extremely high; much higher
than average in Europe from what I've seen. Plus, most US cities don't have
historic preservation laws that apply to "street furniture" like street lamps
and parking meters, as opposed to European cities that have _already_ done a
lot of work into shaping EV plugs to look more like historic street furniture
and fit within preservation law limits. Europe has a slight advantage that
their default plug output is closer to "Level 2" than America's paltry "Level
1" wall outlets, but even that advantage isn't as huge as it seems to some of
these discussions. (Especially, again, given America wired most streets and
parking lots for "Level 2" in the first place because those styles of street
lamps were more convenient for more decades.)

It _is_ just as simple as adding plugs to the streets. People keep acting like
car chargers are some sort of futuristic new electricity component, but at the
end of the day it is a slightly smarter US dryer plug and maybe a meter. Maybe
we need to beef up those circuits to support future demands, but just starting
with the demand we have today we don't need to worry so much, the capacity is
already there, and we know how to scale the infrastructure for demand as we
add it, because scaling electricity infrastructure is a well solved problem.
So what if it is a "lot of work"? That's not a "huge high-level rework", as
suggested above, that's an "expand what's already there, eventually as
needed/demanded". We're not moving to some foreign concept of a new energy
grid, we are taking the energy grid we have and expanding it as demand happens
(again, nowhere conceptually any different than what cities have done since
the very first electric street lamp rollouts in the 1910s).

~~~
fomine3
Amperes for charging EV is outrageous compared to other electric devices. It
shouldn't be easy to deploy massively for power grid.

------
bryanmgreen
The title should be updated as it is misleading in a critical way.

The word "big" suggests the size and weight of the battery is bigger, which is
not the case. That would be entirely unremarkable. Their quote directly states
this: "It's relatively easy to achieve more range by adding progressively more
batteries, but gaining 'dumb range' that way increases weight and cost, and
reduces interior space." He continued, "Lucid Air has achieved its remarkable
range whilst also reducing battery size"

A better title: "Lucid Air's EV 113.0 KWh Battery Is More Powerful, Efficient,
and Lighter-weight Than Tesla's"

~~~
natch
Let’s not jump the gun though. We still don’t know enough about Tesla’s 2021
and later batteries. Your suggested headline is built around a comparison to
missing information.

Also Tesla’s best battery will be 200kw, not 113kw... I guess they missed
that. And Cybrtrk may be higher than that.

But yes reducing size and weight and improving efficiency are all great
things! Kudos to them if they can get it into a shipping car at volume.

~~~
detritus
[https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck](https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck)

I had to check - they've not gotten rid of the vowels and a c

Having seen what Elon's at least half to blame for naming this year, I
could've fully believed he'd gone that route!

~~~
natch
Could have sworn an earlier version did but maybe it wasn’t official. Thanks
for pointing that out. I do like it better with vowels.

------
ogre_codes
> The vehicle is more efficient than the Model S Long Range Plus, which has a
> 100.0-kWh capacity and 402 miles of range.

It always makes me cringe when I see headlines which compare potential
products to a shipping product. It shouldn't be surprising that a future
product is better than a currently shipping one.

A year ago Lucid was bragging that they would have a 400 mile range. Now Telsa
is shipping a car with a 400 mile range. So Lucid has to up their game.

~~~
AgloeDreams
Whats interesting is that they are focusing on the current Model S and zero
mention of the 3, which has a significantly better efficiency due (in addition
to the smaller size, admit-ably) to the fact that the newer 3 design,
powertrain, and chassis was a rework that is far superior to the, basically, 9
year old, Startup-developed, Model S. Next-Gen Model S will bring not just
larger packs but Model 3 lessons in weight and their claims probably wont pan
out, even if true.

~~~
tyfon
The current Model S is actually on par with the model 3 in terms of battery
and drivetrain. They continuously update it.

They stuck the Model 3 motor type into the front of the Model S and primarily
uses that for driving. You get to use the less efficient induction motor in
the back for high accelerations. The chemistry in the battery is also the same
but in a slightly different format.

I have a Model X and it's also updated in this fashion. They have come a long
way since the 2012 Model S.

I suspect they will come out with a 100 kWh Model 3/Y though and it seems that
the efficiency/range should be compared to these as you say instead of the big
cars.

------
slg
The first sentence of the article:

>After surprising many with the Air's 517 miles of EPA-estimated range...

A few paragraphs later in the article:

>During a real-world ride along with Lucid in one of the company's prototypes
traveling at 70 miles per hour on the highway, the Air achieved 458 miles
before depleting its battery. The automaker still needs to deliver a
production vehicle to the EPA before it has an official EPA number. It expects
to do so in early 2021 when the Air goes into production.

Isn't that opening incredibly misleading? The car does in fact not have 517
miles of EPA-estimated range. The company is projecting 517 miles of range
once the EPA tests it, which has not happened yet. So why are they calling the
517 number "EPA-estimated"?

~~~
abraxas
Even 458 miles (737 kms) of highway EV driving at 70mph (112 km/h) is
phenomenal. If this is coupled with a relatively fast charger infrastructure
(150KW+) this means game over for fossil cars. When you can drive for 6 hours
or more on a single charge there is absolutely no inconvenience factor in
owning an EV at that point.

~~~
PossiblyKyle
A lot of countries are still interested in fossil cars because they can slap
their bullshit taxes on them and the gas, so I wouldn’t expect an instant
transition, as it’s going to severely impact lobby-backed revenue streams

~~~
Gibbon1
Most countries once EV's are cheaper than gasoline and diesel cars are going
to outright ban gasoline and diesel cars so they don't have to import oil and
pay for it in dollars.

------
mcot2
The number of kWh of a pack is kind of a meaningless number for comparisons. A
larger pack may actually be worse as it adds weight.

They key numbers I want to see are volumetric density (wh/l), gravimetric
density (wh/kg), and cost ($/kwh) at the pack level and the cell level. Other
key numbers are operating temperature ranges, max charge rate, maximum
charging curves, idle energy loss or leakage, and overall efficiency of the
vehicle (wh/mi) in many specific testing regimens (different speeds/air
resistance, temperatures, and weather conditions.

~~~
baybal2
Very true.

There are EVs with inferior cell gravimetric power density, who in the end
manage to have superior pack gravimetric density, and superior mass fraction
(cell weight/car weight) than Model S.

~~~
mcot2
Yes exactly. Going further than that they may even choose a lower density for
cost reasons. Elon responded to me about this when I tweeted him about LFP
which have worse density but a lower cost, better thermals and safety. In
China they are going to use LFP on the low cost SR+ Model 3.

------
mattlondon
500+ miles range. Nice.

At a constant 70mph, that is over 7 hours continuous driving (...although I
wonder how much range decreases at that speed?)

I do wonder what the magic numbe needs to be before people stop complaining
that x00 miles is not enough and that they reguarly drive 19000 mile a day
etc.

~~~
pedrocr
I wish we had a standardized test for range at continuous 70/80/90 mph instead
of the EPA and WLTP tests. Those are designed for overall efficiency testing
when what people really want to know about EV range is how long they can go on
road trips. For everything else charging at home every night makes pretty much
any EV range enough for the commute and the efficiency is always great
compared to gas.

~~~
londons_explore
> efficiency is always great compared to gas

This isn't a given. Money-efficiency in the UK at least is only good if you
charge at home. If you pay on-street prices for electricity, you can easily
spending more per mile than a gas car.

Eg. An electric car might do 330 Wh/mile. A recharge on the road would cost £3
(connection fee) + £0.30 per kWh. That means if you top up 25 kWh, you'll end
up paying £10.50, and able to travel 76 miles, or £0.138 per mile. A typical
2018 gas car gets 50.8 imperial mpg costing £0.108 per mile at todays gas
prices in London.

Overall, unless you can charge at home, an electric car will cost you more per
mile for fuel/electricity alone.

~~~
pedrocr
The efficiency is still great in your example. You're just paying outrageous
prices for electricity. That's not an efficiency problem, it's a price
problem. EPA/WLTP also doesn't help you measure if your electricity prices are
reasonable or not compared to your gas prices.

~~~
mijamo
Ionity is even more expensive than that in most of Europe.

------
nharada
I wonder if this will become the new high end luxury EV, at least until Tesla
does a refresh of the S. My impression is that right now the current Model S
isn't really that popular because the 3 is functionally similar at a much
lower price point, but clearly that segment of the market willing to pay 120k+
for a top tier vehicle exists because they paid it when the S was the only
game in town.

~~~
Zanni
I have a Model S and a Model 3, and I actually prefer the 3 (though I
generally prefer sportier cars to luxury cars). The smaller size makes it more
nimble, the lack of air suspension gives better road feel, the horizontal
orientation of the central screen seems more effective, and I don't miss the
dash at all. The only things I do miss from the Model S are the much more
comfortable steering wheel, AM radio (weirdly missing on the Model 3), and a
hatchback. If I were looking for a new EV today, I'd probably be looking at a
Model Y.

~~~
odysseus
What is more comfortable about the Model S steering wheel?

~~~
Zanni
The Model S steering wheel has a nicer surface texture, a rounder cross-
section that feels more comfortable in my hand, and is (slightly) padded. The
Model 3 steering wheel is hard plastic, and the cross-section is a narrow
ellipse that creates a hard edge.

------
hn_throwaway_99
Excited to see more competition in the EV space. Still, press releases are
free...

------
gambiting
I do remember reading an interview with a guy in charge of the electric Clio
development, and he basically said something along the lines of "we could have
easily put 2x as large battery in the Clio, but then your average driver would
need to drive it for at least 10 years before the car became a net benefit for
the environment". These massive batteries have an environmental cost is what
he was saying.

~~~
bryanmgreen
I agree that massive batteries have an environmental cost that has nowhere
near been researched thoroughly. I too think that they are not advanced enough
to be easily be called a "green" option.

That said, Lucid is not improving range through battery pack addition, but
rather through increased efficiency which reduces the size of the pack, which
is promising.

From their press release: "Lucid’s (efficiency) breakthrough is not merely
just a few percent; we are talking about a significant improvement, which I
shall cover further on September 9th."

------
zackmorris
I procrastinated for an hour and did some quick research to see how much the
drag coefficient and rolling resistance affect fuel economy:

[https://www.nap.edu/read/11620/chapter/5#39](https://www.nap.edu/read/11620/chapter/5#39)

Specifically a) city (top) and b) highway (bottom):

[https://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309094216/xhtml/images/p2000f6...](https://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309094216/xhtml/images/p2000f633g40001.jpg)

For an internal combustion, midsize passenger car, including standby, here are
the losses:

City:

    
    
      Engine + driveline + standby: 85%
      Aero: 3%
      Rolling: 4%
      Braking: 6%
      Accessories: 2%
      ---
      100%
    

Highway:

    
    
      Engine + driveline + standby: 78%
      Aero: 11%
      Rolling: 7%
      Braking: 2%
      Accessories: 2%
      ---
      100%
    

Looks like Tesla motors are 93-97% efficient:

[https://www.pcmag.com/news/report-tesla-model-sx-
upgrading-t...](https://www.pcmag.com/news/report-tesla-model-sx-upgrading-to-
more-efficient-electric-motors)

And regenerative braking is 80% * 80% = 64% efficient, or 36% costly (about
1/3 as much energy wasted):

[https://www.tesla.com/blog/magic-tesla-roadster-
regenerative...](https://www.tesla.com/blog/magic-tesla-roadster-regenerative-
braking)

I'll just run the math for an electric car with a 95% efficient electric
motor, assuming 0% driveline losses with direct drive and no transmission,
with no standby losses:

City:

    
    
      Engine + driveline + standby: 5%
      Aero: 3%
      Rolling: 4%
      Braking: 2%
      Accessories: 2%
      ---
      16% (already 6.25 times more efficient by going electric)
    

Highway:

    
    
      Engine + driveline + standby: 5%
      Aero: 11%
      Rolling: 7%
      Braking: 1%
      Accessories: 2%
      ---
      26% (already 3.85 times more efficient by going electric)
    

Rescaled to 100% by multiplying each term by (100/total):

City:

    
    
      Engine + driveline + standby: 31%
      Aero: 19%
      Rolling: 25%
      Braking: 13%
      Accessories: 12% (rounded down to make 100% total)
      ---
      100%
    

Highway:

    
    
      Engine + driveline + standby: 19%
      Aero: 42%
      Rolling: 27%
      Braking: 4%
      Accessories: 8%
      ---
      100%
    

So we can see that city driving is dominated by engine efficiency and highway
driving is dominated by aerodynamic efficiency. But both lose about 25% (1/4
of the energy!) to rolling resistance.

Googling "mileage loss percentage due to drag coefficient" and "mileage loss
percentage due to rolling resistance":

[http://www.arcindy.com/effect-of-aerodynamic-drag-on-fuel-
ec...](http://www.arcindy.com/effect-of-aerodynamic-drag-on-fuel-economy.html)

    
    
      For passenger cars this means that aerodynamics is responsible for a much higher proportion of the fuel used in the highway cycle than the city cycle: 50% for highway; versus 20% for city. This means that if you make a 10% reduction in aerodynamic drag your highway fuel economy will improve by approximately 5%, and your city fuel economy by approximately 2%.
    

[https://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NVS/Vehicle%20Research%20&%2...](https://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NVS/Vehicle%20Research%20&%20Test%20Center%20%28VRTC%29/ca/Tires/811154.pdf)

    
    
      A 10 percent decrease in tire rolling resistance resulted in an approximately 1.1-percent increase in fuel economy for the vehicle. This result was within the range predicted by technical literature.
    

Converting these for electric in city and highway by multiplying by 6.25 and
3.85 respectively:

City:

    
    
      Each 10% reduction in aerodynamic drag increases mileage by 13%
      Each 10% reduction in rolling resistance increases mileage by 7%
    

Highway:

    
    
      Each 10% reduction in aerodynamic drag increases mileage by 31%
      Each 10% reduction in rolling resistance increases mileage by 4%
    

Comparing drag coeficents:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient#Ty...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient#Typical_drag_coefficients)

    
    
      Lucid Air: 0.21
      Tesla Roadster: 0.35
      Tesla Model S: 0.24
      Tesla Model 3: 0.23
      Tesla Model X: 0.25
    

So the Lucid Air has about a 10% better drag coefficient than the Tesla model
3, which gives it (at most) 13-31% better range city-highway. I think this is
a liberal estimate, and that drag coefficients will never be below about 0.20,
so improvements here will probably be marginal from here on out.

It seems to me that a better return on investment might be to fix tires.
Someone needs to think outside the box on this and create a tire that acts
stiff at high speed, but still grips while cornering and braking. Eliminating
this resistance would add 100 miles to electric car range.

I ran this math from a first order perspective, to give an idea of relative
costs. I'm sure it's off (since drag is nonlinear), but it helps visualize
where the energy goes. Seeing that accessories use as much or more energy than
regenerative braking was eye-opening for me.

Oh and you don't even want to know about bicycles. The upright position is the
worst possible, and wastes most of the rider's energy. I wish recumbants were
safer and more affordable, although this matters less each year with
improvements in electric assist, mostly from reduced cost and better
batteries.

~~~
ebg13
> _a tire that acts stiff at high speed, but still grips while cornering and
> braking_

Having a higher PSI rating and an air pump + brake-controlled deflate valve
could do this.

------
throwawaysea
Do the EPA estimates account for weather changes (hot and cold weather, as
opposed to moderate temperatures)? How trustworthy is the 500 mile claim?

------
abledon
Lets just see what they announce on Battery Day... that nano-tech teaser
image...

------
lr
Given the number of job openings (491) for the company, who actually works
there now? By that I mean, how can they already have a car, or know these
kinds of specs, when there are that many positions to be filled...

------
modzu
does anyone know why EVs dont use gears for more efficiency?

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Because they don't need them. Electric motors produce mostly constant torque
across all RPMs.

That said, there usually is some kind of gearing as I understand it, but a
static reduction, not in the way a combustion engine car is.

~~~
bfieidhbrjr
Yeah but the Taycan has a two speed gear IIRC to get some extra juice out of
the lemon, so to speak.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Most EV conversions start with a manual transmission car and leave the
transmission in, only because it's easier that way. (Just need an adapter
plate to replace the ICE rather than replacing the whole gear box, etc.)

So in those cases, people do sometimes fiddle with gears while driving, mainly
for fun I guess; but most often they just leave it in 3rd and drive that way.

------
sjwright
What’s special about selling a 13% larger battery pack for a much higher
price?

~~~
tzs
It's not 13% larger. They purport to be making batteries that are more
efficient, so they get 13% more power than Tesla's batter pack with a smaller
pack.

Here's an article that talks about this some [1].

[1] [https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a33797162/2021-lucid-
air-5...](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a33797162/2021-lucid-air-517-mile-
range-113-kwh-battery/)

~~~
akimball
Regardless of their claims, I think it likely that their range gain is
attributable entirely to reduced drag coefficient.

