TIMELINE TO PARITY
How Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson sees the path to mass EVs
The big electric difference
‘Most of the car is the same. There’s too much bullsh*t about electric cars being di erent from petrol cars. They’ve all got four wheels and suspension, and the bodyshells are virtually the same. But of course there is one huge di erence. |n a petrol car there isn’t anything like a battery pack in terms of cost. A petrol engine costs maybe $2.5k, $3k; $4k for a good one. Now let me tell how much a battery pack costs: $20k-$30k, maybe $35k. How can you sell a car for $25k when the battery’s costing you $25k?’
The efficiency tech race
‘We need an emphasis on infrastructure. You should be leaving home fully charged but not everyone has a garage so we do need infrastructure such that people have the confidence to drive a car with modest range, knowing they can charge on every street corner. But the main thing is technology. The EV of the future needs to go further on less battery. Eciency is key [Merc’s experimental EQXX, above, is good for a real-world 7.5 miles per kWh] and it’s about technology: high voltages, advanced algorithms, thermodynamics, electromagnetism… You then need the economies of scale to drive down the price per kilowatt-hour. So, 150 miles of range and the technology to achieve six miles per kilowatt-hour; 150 divided by six means you only need a 25kWh battery. Then you get the battery price down to under $100 per kilowatt-hour, so that’s $2500 for the cells plus perhaps another $1000 to put them in a pack. Now you’ve got a $3500 battery pack, not a $23,000 battery pack, and something like parity.’