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Lucid showcases large fleet of Air prototypes, has plans to ramp even more
Lucid Motors, an electric vehicle startup based out of Silicon Valley, California, recently released a rare view of over 40 prototypes of its first electric vehicle, the Air sedan.
Lucid recently announced that it had expanded its market into the Middle East, making its soon-to-be-produced vehicles available in North America, Europe, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The electric vehicle startup has been developing the Air since December 2016, when the company unveiled the sedan. Since that time, the automaker has worked toward improving its performance and range, aiming to compete with electric vehicle powerhouse Tesla, which is based just a few minutes away from Lucid in Fremont, California.
Lucid’s prototype fleet is comprised of over 40 vehicles, and the company plans to add dozens more, according to a press release.
The prototypes have been collecting information and data for Lucid engineers to gather and analyze as the company continues to refine the finer points of its first vehicle. Each of the cars has a specific purpose. Some have spent time in Minnesota’s frozen tundra for weather dependency testing. Others are subjected to extensive range assessments by driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles on a single charge.
-->Currently, testing for these vehicles is on hold because of social distancing measures. As all of its Beta prototypes sit inside of its Silicon Valley headquarters, Lucid shared images of its debut vehicle sporting four distinctly different camouflage wraps, each of which will be detailed in an upcoming story from the automaker.
The Air is a dual-motor electric sedan that will have 1,000 total horsepower and an estimated top speed of 217 mph. However, its performance may not be the most impressive statistic the car holds. After its 400-mile journey from its corporate headquarters in the Bay Area to Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles on a single charge, Lucid proved its vehicle would compete with some of the longest-range EVs on the market today.
The company was established in 2007 and is backed by numerous investors. The largest is the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which provided Lucid with a $1 billion investment in September 2018. The investment from the Saudi Arabian fund helped Lucid fund the construction of its $700 million production facility in Casa Grande, Arizona. The facility began construction in late 2019, and Lucid intends to start producing the first variants of the Air by the end of 2020.
The Air is expected to cost $60,000 for United States buyers. Lucid intends to begin fulfilling orders for its Middle East-located customers during the latter half of 2021, with details on pricing, product specifications, and available configurations to be determined when production officially begins.
Watch Lucid Motor’s video of its Air prototypes below.
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News
Tesla sees sharp November rebound in China as Model Y demand surges
New data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) shows a 9.95% year-on-year increase and a 40.98% jump month-over-month.
Tesla’s sales momentum in China strengthened in November, with wholesale volumes rising to 86,700 units, reversing a slowdown seen in October.
New data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) shows a 9.95% year-on-year increase and a 40.98% jump month-over-month. This was partly driven by tightened delivery windows, targeted marketing, and buyers moving to secure vehicles before changes to national purchase tax incentives take effect.
Tesla’s November rebound coincided with a noticeable spike in Model Y interest across China. Delivery wait times extended multiple times over the month, jumping from an initial 2–5 weeks to estimated handovers in January and February 2026 for most five-seat variants. Only the six-seat Model Y L kept its 4–8 week estimated delivery timeframe.
The company amplified these delivery updates across its Chinese social media channels, urging buyers to lock in orders early to secure 2025 delivery slots and preserve eligibility for current purchase tax incentives, as noted in a CNEV Post report. Tesla also highlighted that new inventory-built Model Y units were available for customers seeking guaranteed handovers before December 31.
This combination of urgency marketing and genuine supply-demand pressure seemed to have helped boost November’s volumes, stabilizing what had been a year marked by several months of year-over-year declines.
-->For the January–November period, Tesla China recorded 754,561 wholesale units, an 8.30% decline compared to the same period last year. The company’s Shanghai Gigafactory continues to operate as both a domestic production base and a major global export hub, building the Model 3 and Model Y for markets across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, among other territories.
Tesla bear Michael Burry got blunt with his beliefs over the company’s valuation, which he called “ridiculously overvalued” in a newsletter to subscribers this past weekend.
“Tesla’s market capitalization is ridiculously overvalued today and has been for a good long time,” Burry, who was the inspiration for the movie The Big Short, and was portrayed by Christian Bale.
Burry went on to say, “As an aside, the Elon cult was all-in on electric cars until competition showed up, then all-in on autonomous driving until competition showed up, and now is all-in on robots — until competition shows up.”
Tesla bear Michael Burry ditches bet against $TSLA, says ‘media inflated’ the situation
For a long time, Burry has been skeptical of Tesla, its stock, and its CEO, Elon Musk, even placing a $530 million bet against shares several years ago. Eventually, Burry’s short position extended to other supporters of the company, including ARK Invest.
Tesla has long drawn skepticism from investors and more traditional analysts, who believe its valuation is overblown. However, the company is not traded as a traditional stock, something that other Wall Street firms have recognized.
While many believe the company has some serious pull as an automaker, an identity that helped it reach the valuation it has, Tesla has more than transformed into a robotics, AI, and self-driving play, pulling itself into the realm of some of the most recognizable stocks in tech.
Burry’s Scion Asset Management has put its money where its mouth is against Tesla stock on several occasions, but the firm has not yielded positive results, as shares have increased in value since 2020 by over 115 percent. The firm closed in May.
In 2020, it launched its short position, but by October 2021, it had ditched that position.
Tesla has had a tumultuous year on Wall Street, dipping significantly to around the $220 mark at one point. However, it rebounded significantly in September, climbing back up to the $400 region, as it currently trades at around $430.
It closed at $430.14 on Monday.
Tesla appears to be making a change to its exterior side repeater cameras, which are used for the company’s Full Self-Driving suite, and other features, like Sentry Mode.
The change appears to be a potential upgrade in preparation for the AI5 suite, which CEO Elon Musk said will be present on a handful of vehicles next year, but will not be widely implemented until 2027.
Currently, Tesla uses a Sony sensor lens with the model number IMX963, a 5-megapixel camera with better dynamic range and low-light performance over the past iteration in Hardware 3 vehicles. Cameras in HW3 cars were only 1.2 megapixels.
However, Tesla is looking to upgrade, it appears, as Tesla hacker greentheonly has spotted a new sensor model in its firmware code, with the model number IMX00N being explicitly mentioned:
Looks like Tesla is changing (upgrading?) cameras in (some?) new cars produced.
Where as HW4 to date used exterior cameras with IMX963, now they (might potentially) have something called IMX00N— green (@greentheonly) December 1, 2025
Sony has not announced any formal specifications for the IMX00N model, and although IMX963 has been used in AI4/HW4 vehicles, it only makes sense that Tesla would prepare to upgrade these external cameras once again in preparation for what it believes to be the second hardware iteration capable of fully autonomous self-driving.
Tesla has maintained that AI4/HW4 vehicles are capable of self-driving operation, but AI5 will likely help the company make significant strides, especially in terms of overall performance and data collection.
Tesla last updated its exterior cameras on its vehicles back in early 2023, as it transitioned to the 5-megapixel IMX963. It also added additional cameras to its vehicles in January with the new Model Y, which featured an additional lens on the front bumper to help with Full Self-Driving.
Tesla’s new self-driving computer (HW4): more cameras, radar, and more
Tesla sees sharp November rebound in China as Model Y demand surges
Tesla bear gets blunt with beliefs over company valuation
