March 13, 2026 - Lucid Goes for Automation and Simpler to Build Vehicles

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for March 13, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.  

Yesterday, Lucid Motors held its first-ever investor day in New York and began to reveal key technical details of its business and product plan for the next several years. Like most automakers, Lucid is targeting increasing levels of driving automation for its new products and hopes that consumers will be willing to pay a subscription for those features. Lucid also highlighted the fact that all of its vehicles are built with the necessary redundant braking, steering, and power supply components to support automation and hopes others will follow the lead of Nuro and Uber and commit to using its products as the basis for robotaxis. Lucid also showed off a concept for a small two-seat robotaxi but gave no commitment to actually producing it yet. 

However, more important than that was the first hints we saw of Lucid's new midsize platform that goes into production late this year. The first of three currently planned models is called Cosmos, a sporty crossover to take on the Tesla Model Y, Ford Mustang Mach-E, and others. This will be followed by Earth, a more mainstream product to go against models like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Rivian R3 and finally an off-road model to challenge the Rivian R2. The most important element of this new architecture is the design and the way it will be built. We got a good look at the whole vehicle platform, which demonstrates what Chief Engineer Zach Walker calls radical efficiency. Everything about it is designed to be easier to produce, addressing a major issue with the Air and Gravity models, but also easier to repair, more energy efficient, and providing excellent performance. It uses exactly the same motors front and rear, with the motors mounted centrally at each axle. This way, if they opt to build right-hand drive models, everything fits exactly the same on either side of the motor, no rerouting the steering system. Rather than adopt single large castings for the front and rear structures, they've used a mix of materials and processes, including castings, extrusions, and stampings that reduces overall capital and material costs while also making it much easier to repair for lower insurance costs.

Lucid will publicly reveal the Cosmos and Earth in the coming months, but what we've seen to date looks extremely promising and could finally lead the company to a profitable path if it can execute on everything.

Thanks for listening.