After Atieva’s first vehicle was outed last week by public filings with the state of California obtained by Recode, the company announced today that it is changing its name to ‘Lucid Motors’. For the occasion, the company also released new teaser images of its upcoming all-electric sedan.
Last week, we had only a grainy black and white picture so pretty much anything is a step up, but I have to admit that those images look very good. Of course, we are only talking about promotional shots.
As discussed last week, the vehicle codenamed ‘Atvus’ is an all-electric luxury sedan equipped with a 87 kWh battery pack and has an output of more than 900 horsepower.
Atieva, now ‘Lucid Motors’, wants to unveil the vehicle by the end of the year and bring it to market in 2018.
Here are the few new pictures released by the company (click for higher resolution):
The vehicle program is led by former Tesla VP and Model S Chief Engineer, Peter Rawlinson. The effort to bring the vehicle to market has reportedly advanced significantly and the company is narrowing down on a location for a factory with planned capacity of ~20,000 units during the first year and a ramp up to 130,000 vehicles annually for the plant.
On its new website, the company writes about the vehicle’s “intelligent” features:
Our vehicles will feature automated driving systems, natural voice interactions, and intuitive user interfaces. Whether sitting in the front or back, the onboard intelligence will deliver a uniquely personal experience unlike any other currently on the road.
It will be difficult for new companies to carve themselves a place in the electric luxury sedan segment with claims of “automated driving systems” now that Tesla announced fully self-driving hardware for all Model S sedans going into production today.
What do you think of the new Atieva? You like the name change? Let us know in the comment section below.
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