Tesla turbulence versus Lucid waters.
Tesla Motors and Lucid Motors are headquartered just 10 miles apart In San Francisco’s, East Bay. The two companies will be offering the upcoming Air sedan and the eight-year-old Model S, which will be carefully compared.
Despite being practically neighbors, the two companies are poles apart when cultures are concerned.
Despite rubbing elbows, the two companies’ corporate cultures are polar opposites. Elon Musk sparred with Alameda County over idling his factory during the COVID-19 outbreak has sparked a tiff with the country officials. Musk subsequently challenged the officials to “arrest me first” during its early reopening, and then threatened to move their headquarters to another state.
Lucid Motors on the other hand abided by county regulations and throttled back on only on-site employees and the rest were relieved of on-site work. Lucid simply adapted. No layoffs, no furloughs (in fact, their approximately 1,000-member crew will grow by 700 by the end of the year). No dramatic headlines etc. The Bay Area workforce is now focused on the company’s Casa Grande, Ariz. Ironically though, the Lucid factory did focus on remote work the company never shut its factory doors.
With the motor display about to begin one might address it as “Tesla’s turbulence versus Lucid’s calm waters” Lucid is eschewing any kind of Tesla-type, rock-show car introduction and instead is showing off its production-spec Air sedan in an online event on September 9.
Tesla has proudly flaunted its Air’s approach. The automotive beast has a Zen-like design, a touted 0-60 mph time of under 2.5 seconds and advantages in interior space due to a miniaturized powertrain, the Air also boasts a claimed 400-plus miles of range. California’s working-remote orders put a kibosh on Lucid’s plans for a real-world demonstration (instead, releasing a video of it), but Tesla recently announced that the Model S Long Range Plus has now officially cracked the barrier, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certifying it at 402 miles (after, yes, a Musk tweet about the EPA originally messing up the test).