FIRST DRIVE: Lucid Gravity – 1,000bhp Tesla Model X Rival

[Music] it's high time we went for a good poke around Lucid Motors one of America's brightest electric car startups so here's the first of two films where we go inside Lucid meet its top brass and get stuck into cars which could be Tesla and the luxury Europeans worst nightmare all right well who could be better to talk us around lucid's second album than Derek Jenkins Derek thank you very much for having us the senior vice president of lucid's design and brand and my first question is you've go

t an opportunity that very few car designers have had in the past Century start totally aresh no kind of back catalog no emotional baggage to get on with so how do you go about just dreaming up a car from the middle of nowhere and yeah how does it end up looking like this yeah I mean that's a great question and you're right that is a rare opportunity to really start fresh with a new brand I think for us we established some early brand values around luxury performance efficiency and range aerodyn

amics interior space and once you have those attributes kind of figured out you start to lay out the vehicle then you really want to define the face and the character of the vehicle in the case of gravity it's all about this front end creates this P kind of bullet train quality it's set up around kind of a strong stance on the road of course aerodynamics plays a huge role yeah now you've not done a great big fake Grill which I think anyone who's seen a electric BMW will be grateful for but you k

now these things don't need a huge Grill and obviously it's not in your design DNA to have a huge mesh So yeah thank you for for not doing that but there's also some quite clever stuff going on here with like really Slim headlights that's right right so you're you're right about the grill and that also adds to the cleanliness of the car and it's good for aerodynamics our lighting signature is a big part of it we kept the light blade theme that we have on Lucid air we have this micro lens array t

echnology which is an ultra slim lighting technology and very efficient with energy so it actually helps your range and then of course we've minimized the cooling down low that's better for aerodynamics and it of course helps our range now if anyone was counting like aerob Bingo you've mentioned aerodynamics like several times already thing is there's a reason that Formula 1 cars Indie Cars don't look like Hummers isn't it if you were going to try and build an aero car you wouldn't start with an

SUV can you can you just point out to us like some of the details that you've worked in that desperately try and make you know a large car a tall car yeah kind to the air and punch a kind of smooth hole through it absolutely you know it all starts with this kind of bullet train type quality of the uh the front end it's very upright air flow comes across the top we create some acceleration high pressure here that sets up the air for flowing over the wind screen really tapered Corners uh pronounc

ed on the edge all this ducting serves a purpose to bring an air curtain through to the side of this is real this is absolutely real it keeps flow clean here and that sets up the flow down the side of the car if you're disturbed in this area at the front wheel then you have problems all the way down the side of the car that adds to um drag of course the cabin of the car is essential so very fast uh windscreen very tapered um rear uh spoiler so as you come around the back of the car this tapers o

ver the third uh third second and third row passenger and then accelerates down and that creates a a really clean separation from the back of the vehicle all of these details work to create clean separation off the back even down below where we have very fine treatments all creates what we call a clean wake off the back of the car which ultimately uh contributes to a low coefficient of drivve yeah and I know on the a you have this incredible diffuser where it rather than it being like a token bi

t of plastic shoved on the back end of the car it starts like under that's correct and you know we we really uh embrace the aerodynamic challenge uh but do it in a way that brings Beauty to the car brings sleekness to the car and ultimately uh expresses its capability Derek's ponon for lean unfussy designs is one I find quite refreshing in an age where car makers have been in a weird race to add more angles and aggression to their styling dressing up a friendly family car to look like a Transfor

mers villain just looking down the side of the car here there's two things that stand out to me you've not got an aerofed wheel that's right yes what's the is that just because you hate the look of them or no no with gravity we've chosen um in this case this is the topof the line wheel this is our sport wheel so it's a more open spoke spoke wheel so there is a small aerodynamic penalty that that comes from selecting this wheel we do have an arrow wheel option which has a a flush spoke condition

and that optimizes for range and that that would be our range uh variant uh option and if we just pop down here the other thing and I'm glad you've done this but I'm still going to mention it a proper mirror we have mirrors not cameras like hiding down here now I'm glad because as someone who drives cars in the real world these are much easier to use but obviously you know there's going to be some Arrow penalty some wind noise penalty can you just explain why you with common sense you know we've

of course like most car companies we've explored the video mirror solution and there are some small advantages from an aerody Dynamic standpoint but honestly this is a very aerodynamic mirror um it's very useful we have good viewing space and I think it looks beautiful it helps make the car look wider from the front which is always a creates personality always going for the width isn't it St and so you know I'll tell you I also like keeping the interior free of these additional video screens th

at are necessary with video mirrors so we'll see when we get inside you're not short of screens no we're not short of clean yeah um car designers as well when I spoken to them they often talk about inspiration from from nature from predators from architecture um I know you've got a coffee table inspiration inside is there anything or let me put it a different way what's on your mood board in your design office is there pictures of tigers and leopards Anders Golden Gate Bridge or no leers um you

know it's often um things that are uh uh aircraft inspired believe it or not that's also been a big topic with with um Lucid air and I think the reason for that is because uh we always felt like both Trad you know Classic Air air aircraft and even modern aircraft there's an honesty to the to the to yeah nothing's on a on a an airline of a styling no yet yet somehow they're aesthetically pleasing and I feel like that's a great starting point especially since we take aerodynamics and fluid dynamic

s so serious um and then composing that with Automotive elements that that give it strength on the road um is a is a real starting point for us and of course just a broader industrial design more sculpted type of uh industrial design uh product design that inspires us but I have to say keeping a strong connection with the automobile is also very important so the average person can look at it and see a a hopefully a beautiful automobile the gravity is promised to cost from around $8,000 when it g

oes on sale late this year and being relatively late to the luxury electric SUV party it will have to wade into battle against the likes of the Tesla Model X Mercedes eqs BMW iix Audi rivan Cadillac there's going to be a lot of companies fighting over your money before we do the interior tour let me take you around the block in a very early gravity prototype to prove if nothing else that we're not talking about a concept car here it actually does drive now that's very important in case you're lo

oking around going hm I'm not sure about this interior finish that you realize this is an alpha prototype this is like the earliest kind of lucid gravity running model that it's possible to have it's street legal enough for the guys from Lucid to take on some tests hence why they've trusted me with something which is I imagine worth of absolutely unforgivable amount of money but it's completely unfinished it's 3D printed materials under where the camera is mounted over there you might see that t

he windows not come up but that's fine because this is just validation of the general ideas they're making sure that you know this smaller steering wheel idea how does that work in in the real world and they're also working on the Lucid trademark I guess which is the torque vectoring this car unlike the air is also going to have rear steering it's not quite working on this car yet it's a matter of weeks away that's how quickly the development progresses but they are figuring out how the torque v

ectoring goes with those separate Motors and how that's going to help this car which at the end of the day is enormous to a European anyway have an agility that frankly it doesn't really deserve the other thing that's interesting to me about this is how quickly Rivals are going to appear from all angles I mean okay if you're in the states right now you can already buy a rivan if you want a big electric SUV I mean yeah there's the Hummer you've seen Jack's video driving that to Baghdad worth chec

king out Elsewhere on the top gear Channel but I think that's more of a status car and this is more of a sensible EV but look what's coming soon I mean Range Rover electric Derek mentioned it when we were talking earlier he said he's owned a couple of Range Rovers said he's fascinated to see how they figure out how to turn a car that's all about being square and blocky into an efficient air smoothed EV they certainly got an advantage here haven't they where they can start with a with a clean she

et design it's difficult not to keep going back to the steering wheel I'm very very glad they didn't go with the Yoke it's been become a whole meme arms race hasn't it are you in for the Yoke are you against it I actually thought that controlling what's a really really huge car with a tiny steering wheel would feel kind of unintuitive somehow would feel toy like but not finding it that unnatural ultimately we're only doing a little town drive today because like I said this thing is is a busy pro

totype it's just come back from some serious hardcore track testing figuring out trash control systems and talk voring and it's got a lot more work to do before Lucid put it out of its misery but they've let me have a quick go and I am just getting on with it and I'm someone who's frankly a bit of a ly I don't like it when change happens in car design I like a big steering wheel that you can see through I don't like it when it's too thick I like my stalks I don't like having lots of screens so I

should I should hate this really shouldn't I this is a bit of an arms rate at the moment people coming up with different concepts for this now I'm going to mention it a yoke yeah you could have had a yoke a topless steering wheel it's not where worked for Tesla I think they've now made it an option rather than a standard thing did you think about doing a Yol did you try the Tesla product and yeah can you just explain a bit about why you went for the whole kind of shrunken steering wheel yeah ye

ah so I mean it's a great question and yes we did think about it and and there that does achieve a similar viewability for that Center screen but it it it does hinder the driveability there's a learning curve there um in our case we still wanted good hand overhand kind of experience for people um and so we really focused on reducing the diameter of the steering wheel and optimizing the vertical height of the steering wheel so we can uh get that viewability now I'm going to piig up Europe for a s

econd here because you said there's no other car on the market that does this but in Europe we have perso okay and perso have drunken steering wheel with something they call the eye cockpit I think where it's yeah the displays right up again in your eyeline it's a similar thing now I don't think they're on sale in the us. OR in North America but did you did you find one of those in Europe did you think ah this is interesting or have you have you had a going one and sort of tried to troubleshoot

the issues with that I have but that was not I mean I knew that from years past because they've been doing that for some while um not I know they have a new vehicle coming with a top a horizontal display similar to Lucid air um but I I haven't tested that vehicle or experienced that vehicle yeah it's interesting that to me feels I suppose to some customers in the US this will feel quite alien and new me having driven a little of the purer stuff in the in the UK this feels familiar this is new as

well isn't it we've got the haptic yeah these touch cets it's a new a new approach we were more analog in Lucid a and we wanted greater versatility and future proofing to add more functionality to this area and so it's very tactile yet it's quite swipeable and clickable which allows more versatility and usability of the screens no I'm going to get into like my biggest pet PE if anyone who's ever watched anything I've presented on the top gear YouTube channel will know that I am a touch screen a

theist okay I like I'm not an evangelist I like my physical controls so I'm very glad that you have clickable buttons for turning the temperature up and down the fan speed the volume and your kind of smart button here correct you know just does something that you're going to use all the time um but obviously a lot of this is still touchcreen are you a kind of a minimalist guy you want these buttons purged and how do you decide what gets a physical control and what can live in the screen right ye

ah it's a great question and it's certainly a huge topic as the car becomes more and more digitized there's a tendency to just eliminate all analog interface all tactile feedback and go straight to touchcreen on everything and we've taken a pretty Hardline um Discerning approach to this where we really say what are the fundamental things like if I just want to get in the car and like turn down the fan or turn up the fan or turn up the volume you know that should be an analog interface if I want

to just adjust the airf flow or direction of my air vents that should be an analog interface the door handle the window switch these types of things need to be analog and and so we've really featured those if you noticed all of our analog interface is very tactile um it's it's very um luminous so it's like it's got a quality to it in and so we've really pushed on materiality and analog where it makes sense yeah but you haven't like for example it's interesting to me that you've got like say four

Windows switches but you've got no mirror controls that's right so why does that get relegated into the screen but Windows switches are important enough to get their own yeah I think because that's something where uh the windows mirror adjustment is just not something you're doing that often um you have profile settings you can set your profiles it remembers that it knows it's you and so those are things that we can really set if I just want to roll the window down I got to get to that window i

f I want to open that door I want to I want my drivethru now yeah it's it's like it's like get to it you know and I feel like they're they're Reinventing that is not necessary where something like mirror adjustment steering wheel adjustment those are those are profile type settings so you want that like memorized so like you get in the car knows it's me exactly and so it sets it for me so talking of Reinventing stuff the next sort of thing that seems to be being stripped out which I hate is stal

ks we've had stalks for decades they seem to work brilliantly you don't have to look at them you know you can make them feel really high quality if you null them or you make them out of metal you've still got them Rivals haven't why have you done that yeah so we went through that whole study we did a a lot of uh user testing uh both with folks that are familiar with um electric cars including lucid and folks that are not and after we went through that watch the use cases put people through the t

rials of with and without we we made the conscious choice to hold on to that and and I think it's it's better for it um it's just some things I'm not saying that eventually that won't be the broader Trend in the industry but there's a learning curve to that and I I worry sometimes it we don't want to create an Anno unnecessary annoyance now even if that's going to be potentially a long-term Trend I don't know if we can show it in this demo card there's a feature in here that I think a lot of peo

ple have been crying out for for since big displays appeared in cars and it's something that were you inspired by Saab because you remember sa used to have the night mode and you could hit a button in a Sab cuz they were inspired by fight Jet and you only have the speedo Illuminator everything else is gone remember now there's something in here remind me what it's called it's called digital detox and that's all about kind of reduction screens off yeah essentially just the speed yeah so you swipe

down okay um and digital detox is front and center of course you could assign this anywhere you like you could actually make it one B exactly so you hit that and everything goes dark it's just the basics this is off this has a very low uh aluminous glow to it your core information drive you know drive mode and and speed and everything else is pushed back because it's like if I'm coming home I'm on a dark highway or I'm just I don't need all that you can of course still have the audio playing an

d things like it's not rocket science but I think people would yeah appreciate that I'm sure some of your Tech guys might be furious that like all the features they've incorporated into this and my favorite thing is the fact that you can make it all go away but that is as we become kind of these sort of screen obsessed species yeah being able to have one touch and it's gone on you know you've had a long day maybe you had a long flight and then you've got a long drive and it's dark you don't want

to be having this light beamed into you and stopping you sleeping that's right that's right and I think it's interesting as well just I know we can't we're not in the back right now but just talking about the rear seats you didn't go for like the biggest possible screen in the back so your kids can also be welded to their content the whole time you went for a really tough trade table so they can eat their Happy Meal I think you know sometimes that you just need to facilitate the use of digital

devices rather than try to replace the digital device right with something else because you got a mounting point for your yeah so we create a great table a nice little holder for your tablet or at least something sturdy enough to put your laptop on and and people can get get on with the things that they that that's important to them and and I think one thing that's important with sanctuary and the incar experience is we forget that being inside the automobile is a captive experience and we have

oversight over all the senses the visuals the audio the ambience of the the climate control system the lighting and ambient feeling the uh seat massage heated and cooled you know so it's like now we can we can bring you a multisense experience that's kind of unlike anything else you would do in your daily life right and so that's you know that's where we think um again if you think of what Lucid even stands for as a word it's Clarity of mind and it's like if we can bring that into your daily lif

e to me that's a a big part of it but it can also be about um uh a a kind of uh group setting as well where we can bring music even oh yeah this is the karaoke kind of function basically a karaoke experience which could be a lot of fun for a group um and uh this is something that I think people could could enjoy if you prefer your screens on then you'll appreciate the various meditation modes the gravity can perform or its Lively little karaoke function but for me those are the gimmicks and what

really sets the best SUVs apart is how useful they are when you need a big practical box okay Derek we can agree to disagree Hood Bonnet but can you just show us your party piece cuz I know you're quite proud of this yeah no this is a big part of the shape of the front of the vehicle and and it really creates a a nice experience and I think one of the things that people weren't expecting is that we would uh offer an additional row of seats uh beyond our three rows inside the our fourth row um s

o yeah we we saw this this is an accessory of course this is primarily going to be used for utility you know think muddy boots snowshoes things like that it's really great for carry-on bags and groceries grab a seat you know so we we imagine like people pull up to the beach uh get a glass of wine we've got cup holders up here oh that's American you got to have cup holders right and so you know and you maybe you bring your little Bluetooth speaker out here and you can just enjoy the view and we e

ven provide some shelter if it's not the best weather they bring it to the UK we're weatherproof that's right now we've just been having a bit of Gossip kind of off camera about like General car design and I wanted to bring this back up because your career started with a another very minimalist Aero efficient car that was incredibly ambitious for its time and it could have probably fitted in here with me it was the Audi A2 the Audi A2 now children go and look up the Audi A2 if you're not aware o

f it this was an all aluminium incredibly aerodynamic City car that was one of these third n pek projects wasn't it like with Volkswagen uh XL one the Veyron one of these cars which is like we're not going to compromise we're going to build something that is a technological standpoint for all time and then like with so many clever cars over the years it wasn't a success sales-wise can you just talk about what it was like early on in your career to be handed that kind of blank sheet of paper and

yeah yeah no that was exciting I mean I had just joined Audi it was 1994 um the late great Ferdinand P was was still leading the the the Volkswagen group and super ambitious around sustainability and efficiency back in the 90s and so that that project was was uh I was fortunate enough to be directly involved in that really focused on Space packaging efficiency aerodynamics and it it was it's just something that was incredibly ahead of its time and it was a real boot camp for me as a designer to

be part of that and and and certainly there are some parallels with the uh with this program there's parallels and stretched it and upsized it a little bit yeah there is there there is a little bit you know but I at the time that was a challenge project I know it wasn't um immediately successful in the marketplace but it's one of those vehicles that comes along and and shows that the thinking was in the right place maybe it was just a decade or two too early uh for the market to to to Really uh

bring a big success I've been in car design as a professional for 30 years now and I can tell you right now is by far the most exciting and dynamic time to be in this industry you want to be a car designer as you get time you just mentioned I'm going to stand up now cuzz I feel like you're standing so I shouldn't chill out if you're talking about edgy cars and angular car there's nothing that epitomizes that more right now than the Cyber truck I know that's not like a direct rival for this but i

t is right now it's one of those kind of like headline making cars as a car designer when you look at that do you just winse and go how the heck did you get that into production do you admire it and do you think as a final question do you think that's the start of ever more IAL designs or do you think that will become a bit of an outlier yeah I mean I'm not I I think for me I could never predict that right now I I think that only time will tell um I I definitely applaud the novel approach absolu

tely I think that that's interesting it's it's obviously a risk but it could also yield reward I think regardless of its success or not it it it it's influential it's in the world it's a it's making an impression on people and so um it it it will have an influence any vehicle um throughout history that came along and was really that polarizing or noteworthy whether it was Market successful or not it usually had some KnockOn effect to the overall evolution of Automotive Aesthetics so um in that r

egard I I always applaud something that comes to Market that's uniquely distinct and and and and different yeah I think I I I tend to agree with you but for me I prefer a more more smooth looking thing I mean I'm leaning on it and it's not hurting me so with that I say d it was lovely to meet you thank you very very much and um I really hope you put the steering wheel small or not on the other side quite soon at some point I think you can uh continue to to to uh expect that you can continue to e

xpect that is a slightly waffly way of saying let us concentrate on selling some in the US first then we'll worry about putting one across the pond with the steering wheel on the other side hopefully Lucid can last out its current cash burn phase and get to that stage because on our first impression they've got quite a few bright ideas that the old God would do well to learn from