Sober? Air doesn't look like a high-performance car. It is a luxury electric vehicle designed and developed from scratch. Its interior space is comparable to that of Mercedes-Benz S-Class, and there are huge luggage compartments at the front and rear. The interior room combines minimalist technology with unpretentious coolness in a unique and intuitive way unique to California.
But sober? Air is really a high-performance car. Recently, Lucid just released the data of Air Fantasy Edition, which is the company's first car. The details are as follows: the cruising range is estimated by the US Environmental Protection Agency to be more than 800 kilometers (Lucid himself said that the running speed is 732 kilometers), the battery capacity is 1 13 kW, the maximum power is 1080 HP, and 0-97km/h accelerates for 2.5 seconds, so the energy consumption efficiency is high. Turbocharged? S is about 4.2 km/kWh).
It is not uncommon for electric vehicle manufacturers to publish absurd performance data. But we have reason to believe that he is sober. The company's current CEO and CTO Peter rawlinson (Peter? Rawlinson) worked in Lotus and Jaguar, and then went to Tesla to take charge of groundbreaking models? S. At Lucid's engineering design, he has obtained enough funds to build a special factory from scratch (the headquarters is naturally in Silicon Valley, California, but the factory is in Arizona), and he is ready for mass production of this car-the first car will be off the production line next year.
The easiest way to get a long cruising range is to use a larger battery. Air's battery pack is very large, but it has not reached the point where it can gain the advantage of cruising range alone. Lucid's cruising range (and power) is the result of an engineering project that puts efficiency first, and the projects are all developed by themselves. For example, the high-voltage architecture applies their experience to the battery project of electric formula racing. Taycan uses an 800 volt system, while Air uses 924 volts.
Rawlinson explained: "The main advantage (of high voltage) is to reduce heat loss. Under the same power, if the voltage is doubled, the current intensity can be halved; When the current is halved, the heat loss is reduced to a quarter (low current means low resistance, which means less energy loss and less heat generation). " The effect of high pressure is a bit like Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus. Chapman) obsessed with a virtuous circle: low heat means you can use a smaller and lighter cooling system, which means you can use a smaller radiator, and the drag coefficient is lower (air is only 0.2 1), which means you can go further ...? The world's leading motor drive? Lucid's driving unit has a maximum power of 670 HP, but all units including motor, reducer, inverter and differential weigh only 74 kg. Porsche Taycan? Turbocharged? The rear drive unit of S (of course, it uses a 2-speed transmission) is slightly weak, but its weight reaches 170 kg, and the front drive unit weighs 76 kg, but its power is only about 250 HP.
Rawlinson said: "From the perspective of power-to-weight ratio, our unit efficiency is 2.5 times that of other products." How is this done? There are many means, some of which are not made public, but one of them is to take independent development as part of the overall project. Competitors usually use parts from several suppliers, and the result is "Frankenstein" (a monster made up of various parts of different corpses). This solution will only be heavier, less efficient and less integrated. Rawlinson is also obsessed with miniaturization. In order to facilitate the space design, he ordered the engineering team to make the drive unit as small as possible, which would naturally be lighter.
In addition, some engineering designs are also unique, such as the patented gear tooth profile can reduce the shear force of oil, thus improving efficiency, and the "unique differential and planetary gear transmission", as well as the analysis of the magnetic field in the motor stator, to determine the fixed-point heat dissipation area that can improve Lucid's efficiency. The resistance of stator copper coil will increase with the increase of temperature (thus reducing efficiency), and Lucid can overcome this problem more effectively-in most electric vehicles, the motor is cooled by water jacket, which is a bit like trying to cool the iron core from the outer layer of the atmosphere. ? Furthermore, Lucid does not use IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) commonly used in the industry, but uses a more efficient metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor-rawlinson claims that this technology is very advantageous in high-voltage systems such as air.
"I can't make it public yet, because someone will definitely copy it." Rawlinson smiled and said frankly, "I'm not going to make it public in the first half of mass production. We know where the first cars will be sent. They are all cities with car companies: two to Stuttgart, one to Ingstad, one to Wolfsburg and one to Detroit ... Pandora's Box will be opened by then. " By that time, we should have experienced the fierce data of Air and got a glimpse of the future of electric vehicles.
We introduced Lucid Company in April, 20 18, and interviewed Peter rawlinson, who was still CTO at that time, and Derek Jenkins, vice president in charge of design. Jenkins), and also tried to ride the 1 engineering prototype of Air. This trip left a deep impression on us, including cars, practical development methods and the integrity of the whole project in engineering and design, but Lucid did not satisfy such achievements. Because rawlinson doesn't like to set specific goals, he only gives basic principles, so his team should start from every aspect of this car and make it as high-performance and efficient as possible. In the United States, the price of Dream Edition is about $6.5438+0.7 million, and there will be another version of $80,000. rawlinson hopes to make electric vehicles more affordable through Lucid technology.