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Lucid CEO and former Model S designer throws shade at Tesla fans, likens group to ‘old petrol fanboys’
When Peter Rawlinson left Tesla in 2012 just before the Model S launched, he probably did not think that his former employer would one day end up becoming the leading force in the electric vehicle industry.
Now the CEO and CTO of Lucid Motors, Rawlinson is gunning for Tesla’s title as the supreme EV maker. He believes the company’s first sedan, called the “Air,” has all the potential to help Lucid overtake Tesla, effectively silencing the “fanboys,” a group of enthusiasts who are widely supportive of the electric car maker and its CEO, Elon Musk.
Peter Rawlinson spent his illustrious automotive sector career at Jaguar and Lotus before joining Tesla in 2008. He left Elon Musk’s Model S engineering team in 2012 and joined Atieva, now Lucid Motors, in 2013 as the Chief Technology Officer. He still holds that title, but another accompanies it as of April 2019: Chief Executive Officer.
In a recent interview with Motortrend, Rawlinson talked about his company’s technology that he believes will pass Tesla, the “fanboys” of Elon Musk’s company, and why the success of the Model S is, at least in part, because of him.
Lucid unveiled the Air in December 2016. Lucid and Rawlinson both claim the vehicle will be capable of 1,000 horsepower and 400 miles of range per charge. While a prototype of the Air managed to prove its range is for real, the horsepower claim is still untested, and Rawlinson knows the doubters still exist. “When I claimed that we would have a 1,000-hp car, or have over 400 miles of EPA five-cycle range, nobody believed it,” he said to MotorTrend’s Kim Reynolds.
His claims do not stop there, however. Rawlinson says the Air will be better than the Model S in every way possible as it equips a power unit capable of more power density than Tesla’s most powerful vehicles. “We’ve got 16.7 kW-per-liter [power density] in our power unit. No one has done that. Tesla hasn’t done that,” he said.
Rawlinson certainly seems like he is motivated by those who speak about Lucid in a bad light, and it is all too familiar for him. “Now I’m having a sense of déjà vu, with history repeating itself,” he says. “Lucid is being put down by Tesla fans. Those old petrol fanboys are the current Tesla fanboys. Very similar rhetoric.”
However, Rawlinson’s rhetoric about his former employer isn’t squeaky clean, either. In 2019, he stated Tesla is not a real luxury brand. “You only have to get inside a Tesla to recognize it’s not really a luxury car. It’s a premium car but not true luxury,” he said.
Perhaps this is why Tesla “fanboys” have been critical of Rawlinson’s new project. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has always said that its competitors are never going to be companies with the same sustainable mission. The companies that are looking to advance petrol-based technology are the real enemy. While there are Tesla fans who are competitive, many are embracing the transition to electrification as a positive thing. Perhaps it is not about the cars at all, but what Rawlinson has said about Tesla in the past.
Additionally, during the interview, Rawlinson says his influence is the reason for the Model S’ success in the electric industry. “Model S was actually styled before I joined Tesla. My task was to retrospectively fit all the bits into it. It was a pretty interesting intellectual puzzle to design a car from the inside out,” he says.
Later in the interview, Rawlinson goes on to say that his thirst for perfection was the reason the Model S became such a successful vehicle. His constant nit-picks and desire to do better drove Tesla’s first sedan to become the pioneer of electric transportation. “But everybody on the Model S team knows I was all over every detail and drove everybody crazy trying to create a car that had to be better and better in every way,” he said.
Rawlinson’s project with Lucid was to be unveiled at the New York International Auto Show last week, but the COVID-19 pandemic effectively shut down all large gatherings. However, the vehicle is scheduled to begin production in late 2020 after its new facility in Casa Grande, Arizona, is complete. Whether the car will live up to its lofty expectations remains to be seen. Still, Rawlinson’s development of the Model S shows he is capable of breaking barriers, and the Air could be the electric industry’s next big thing.
Tesla has added the 15th automaker to the growing list of companies whose EVs can utilize the Supercharger Network this year, as BMW is the latest company to gain access to the largest charging infrastructure in the world.
BMW became the 15th company in 2025 to gain Tesla Supercharger access, after the company confirmed to its EV owners that they could use any of the more than 25,000 Supercharging stalls in North America.
Welcome @BMW owners.
Download the Tesla app to charge → https://t.co/vnu0NHA7Ab
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) December 10, 2025
Newer BMW all-electric cars, like the i4, i5, i7, and iX, are able to utilize Tesla’s V3 and V4 Superchargers. These are the exact model years, via the BMW Blog:
- i4: 2022-2026 model years
- i5: 2024-2025 model years
- 2026 i5 (eDrive40 and xDrive40) after software update in Spring 2026
- i7: 2023-2026 model years
- iX: 2022-2025 model years
- 2026 iX (all versions) after software update in Spring 2026
With the expansion of the companies that gained access in 2025 to the Tesla Supercharger Network, a vast majority of non-Tesla EVs are able to use the charging stalls to gain range in their cars.
So far in 2025, Tesla has enabled Supercharger access to:
- Audi
- BMW
- Genesis
- Honda
- Hyundai
- Jaguar Land Rover
- Kia
- Lucid
- Mercedes-Benz
- Nissan
- Polestar
- Subaru
- Toyota
- Volkswagen
- Volvo
Drivers with BMW EVs who wish to charge at Tesla Superchargers must use an NACS-to-CCS1 adapter. In Q2 2026, BMW plans to release its official adapter, but there are third-party options available in the meantime.
They will also have to use the Tesla App to enable Supercharging access to determine rates and availability. It is a relatively seamless process.
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Tesla adds new feature that will be great for crowded parking situations
This is the most recent iteration of the app and was priming owners for the slowly-released Holiday Update.
Tesla has added a new feature that will be great for crowded parking lots, congested parking garages, or other confusing times when you cannot seem to pinpoint where your car went.
Tesla has added a new Vehicle Locator feature to the Tesla App with App Update v4.51.5.
This is the most recent iteration of the app and was priming owners for the slowly-released Holiday Update.
While there are several new features, which we will reveal later in this article, perhaps one of the coolest is that of the Vehicle Locator, which will now point you in the direction of your car using a directional arrow on the home screen. This is similar to what Apple uses to find devices:
Interesting. The location arrow in the Tesla app now points to your car when you’re nearby. pic.twitter.com/b0yjmwwzxN
— Whole Mars Catalog (@wholemars) December 7, 2025
In real time, the arrow gives an accurate depiction of which direction you should walk in to find your car. This seems extremely helpful in large parking lots or unfamiliar shopping centers.
Getting to your car after a sporting event is an event all in itself; this feature will undoubtedly help with it:
The nice little touch that Tesla have put in the app – continuous tracking of your vehicle location relative to you.
There’s people reporting dizziness testing this.
To those I say… try spinning your phone instead. 😉 pic.twitter.com/BAYmJ3mzzD
— Some UK Tesla Guy (UnSupervised…) (@SomeUKTeslaGuy) December 8, 2025
Tesla’s previous app versions revealed the address at which you could locate your car, which was great if you parked on the street in a city setting. It was also possible to use the map within the app to locate your car.
However, this new feature gives a more definitive location for your car and helps with the navigation to it, instead of potentially walking randomly.
It also reveals the distance you are from your car, which is a big plus.
Along with this new addition, Tesla added Photobooth features, Dog Mode Live Activity, Custom Wraps and Tints for Colorizer, and Dashcam Clip details.
🚨 Tesla App v4.51.5 looks to be preparing for the Holiday Update pic.twitter.com/ztts8poV82
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) December 8, 2025
All in all, this App update was pretty robust.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shaded Waymo in a post on X on Wednesday, stating the company “never really had a chance” and that it “will be obvious in hindsight.”
Tesla and Waymo are the two primary contributors to the self-driving efforts in the United States, with both operating driverless ride-hailing services in the country. Tesla does have a Safety Monitor present in its vehicles in Austin, Texas, and someone in the driver’s seat in its Bay Area operation.
Musk says the Austin operation will be completely void of any Safety Monitors by the end of the year.
🚨 Tesla vs. Waymo Geofence in Austin https://t.co/A6ffPtp5xv pic.twitter.com/mrnL0YNSn4
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) December 10, 2025
With the two companies being the main members of the driverless movement in the U.S., there is certainly a rivalry. The two have sparred back and forth with their geofences, or service areas, in both Austin and the Bay Area.
While that is a metric for comparison now, ultimately, it will not matter in the coming years, as the two companies will likely operate in a similar fashion.
Waymo has geared its business toward larger cities, and Tesla has said that its self-driving efforts will expand to every single one of its vehicles in any location globally. This is where the true difference between the two lies, along with the fact that Tesla uses its own vehicles, while Waymo has several models in its lineup from different manufacturers.
The two also have different ideas on how to solve self-driving, as Tesla uses a vision-only approach. Waymo relies on several things, including LiDAR, which Musk once called “a fool’s errand.”
This is where Tesla sets itself apart from the competition, and Musk highlighted the company’s position against Waymo.
Jeff Dean, the Chief Scientist for Google DeepMind, said on X:
“I don’t think Tesla has anywhere near the volume of rider-only autonomous miles that Waymo has (96M for Waymo, as of today). The safety data is quite compelling for Waymo, as well.”
Musk replied:
“Waymo never really had a chance against Tesla. This will be obvious in hindsight.”
Waymo never really had a chance against Tesla. This will be obvious in hindsight.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2025
Tesla stands to have a much larger fleet of vehicles in the coming years if it chooses to activate Robotaxi services with all passenger vehicles. A simple Over-the-Air update will activate this capability, while Waymo would likely be confined to the vehicles it commissions as Robotaxis.
Tesla adds 15th automaker to Supercharger access in 2025
Tesla adds new feature that will be great for crowded parking situations
