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Lucid CEO steps down as company details executive changes

Credit: HBO Axios

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Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson has stepped down as the company’s top executive this week, and the company has named an interim leader as it begins the search for a successor.

On Tuesday, Lucid announced in a press release that Peter Rawlinson will transition from the role of CEO to a Strategic Technical Advisor to the Chairman of the Board. Meanwhile, the company has moved Chief Operating Officer Marc Winterhoff as the interim CEO, and the Board has already begun a search to find Rawlinson’s successor.

“Now that we have successfully launched the Lucid Gravity, I have decided it is finally the right time for me to step aside from my roles at Lucid,” said Rawlinson. “I am incredibly proud of the accomplishments the Lucid team have achieved together through my tenure of these past twelve years. We grew from a tiny company with a big ambition, to a widely recognized technological world leader in sustainable mobility.”

Rawlinson previously worked as Tesla’s Vice President and Chief Engineer for the Model S, and he went on to help found and launch Lucid in 2016. Winterhoff has held the position of COO since being hired by Lucid in December 2023. Prior to that, he was a Senior Partner at Roland Berger for over 12 years, following his time at Arthur D. Little and LHS Communications, according to his LinkedIn page.

READ MORE ON LUCID MOTORS: Lucid Gravity order page goes live, starts at $95k and tops out at $126k fully loaded

“With his extensive background in the automotive industry, Marc is uniquely suited to leading the company during this transition period,” said Turqi Alnowaiser, Chairman of the Board of Directors. “The Board looks forward to partnering with Marc and our talented senior leadership team as we execute our strategic initiatives to position the company for long-term growth and gross margin improvement. Under Marc’s leadership, we expect business and operations to continue as usual.”

The news comes after Lucid in late December began delivering the Gravity SUV, its second electric vehicle (EV) to launch after the Air sedan in 2021. Lucid’s Gravity SUVs also recently gained access to the Tesla Supercharger network, with the Air expected to gain access in the second quarter.

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In 2024, the luxury EV maker produced 9,029 vehicles and delivered 10,241, generally beating analyst estimates. The company should continue ramping Gravity production at its Casa Grande, Arizona factory throughout the next several months, ahead of plans to launch a yet-unveiled mid-size “Model Y competitor,” that’s aiming for production late next year.

What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Lucid shares Gravity SUV factory video with CEO Peter Rawlinson

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Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

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Tesla appears to have teased a long-awaited Model Y trim for a Friday launch

The company posted it with its Europe & Middle East account, and it appears to be a Model Y Performance, which has been spotted testing at the famed Nurburgring in Germany.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla appears to have teased a long-awaited Model Y trim for a launch on Friday.

The company posted it with its Europe & Middle East account, and it appears to be a Model Y Performance, which has been spotted testing at the famed Nurburgring in Germany.

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The Model Y Performance became a big-time hit after it packed the family-style interior with lightning-fast acceleration, speed, and handling.

As Tesla transitioned the Model Y into the updated “Juniper” design, the company took its time to create an even better vehicle with the new Performance configuration.

It has surely taken its time, but the vehicle appears to have undergone some exterior changes to enhance aerodynamics, handling, and overall performance.

We recently went into what was different about the test units spotted at Nurburgring in an article, but we’ll also list them here:

  • New 21″ wheels
  • All black headliner, a big change that was included in the Model Y L, the first time a Model Y has had that option
  • Updated brakes
  • Bucket seats that appear to be similar to the new Model Y L in China
  • New Carbon Fiber Spoiler
  • Performance Badging
  • Changes to both the front and rear bumper
  • Suspension with Adaptive Dampers

Tesla Model Y Performance zips around Nurburgring with new features

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It does not seem like there’s much else it could be, but it is important to note that Tesla has been developing a handful of affordable models. There is a possibility that Tesla could launch one of these on Friday, but it seems unlikely.

The affordable models will likely be coming to the United States or China before they would in Europe.

They would be developed at Gigafactory Texas or Gigafactory Shanghai. The company stated in its Q2 Earnings Shareholder Deck that it had continued to expand its vehicle offerings and successfully manufactured the first builds of a more affordable model in June.

Volume production is planned for the second half of 2025.

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SpaceX Starship Flight 10 was so successful, it’s breaking the anti-Musk narrative

That’s all the proof one could need about the undeniable success of Starship Flight 10.

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Credit: Elon Musk/X

Starship Flight 10 was a huge success for SpaceX. When both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship Upper Stage successfully landed on their designated splashdown zones, the space community was celebrating.

The largest and most powerful rocket in the world had successfully completed its tenth test flight. And this time around, there were no rapid unscheduled disassemblies during the mission.

As per SpaceX in a statement following Flight 10, “every major objective was met, providing critical data to inform designs of the next generation Starship and Super Heavy.” The private space enterprise also stated that Flight 10 provided valuable data by stressing the limits of Starship’s capabilities.

With all of Flight 10’s mission objectives met, one would think that it would be pretty easy to cover the story of Starship’s successful tenth test flight. But that’s where one would be wrong, because Elon Musk companies, whether it be Tesla or SpaceX or xAI, tend to attract negative slant from mainstream media outlets.

This was in full force with Starship Flight 10’s coverage. Take the BBC’s Facebook post about the fight test, which read “Elon Musk’s giant rocket, earmarked for use in a 2027 mission to the Moon, has had multiple catastrophic failures in previous launches.” CNN was more direct with its slant, writing “SpaceX’s troubled Starship prototype pulls off successful flight after months of explosive mishaps” on its headline. 

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While some media outlets evidently adopted a negative slant towards Starship’s Flight 10 results, several other media sources actually published surprisingly positive articles about the successful test flight. The most notable of which is arguably the New York Times, which featured a headline that read “SpaceX’s Giant Mars Rocket Completes Nearly Flawless Test Flight.” Fox News also ran with a notably positive headline that read “SpaceX succeeds at third Starship test flight attempt after multiple scrubs.”

Having covered Elon Musk-related companies for the better part of a decade now, I have learned that mainstream coverage of any of his companies tends to be sprinkled with varying degrees of negative slant. The reasons behind this may never be fully explained, but it is just the way things are. This is why, when milestones such as Starship’s Flight 10 actually happen and mainstream media coverage becomes somewhat objective, I can’t help but be amazed. 

After all, it takes one heck of a company led by one heck of a leader to force objectivity on an entity that has proven subjective over the years. And that, if any, is all the proof one could need about the undeniable success of Starship Flight 10.

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Tesla’s Elon Musk takes another shot at Waymo’s capabilities stemming from LiDAR

“LiDAR also does not work well in snow, rain or dust due to reflection scatter. That’s why Waymos stop working in any heavy precipitation.”

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tesla elon musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has frequently expressed his opinions on LiDAR in the past, but in recent days, the EV maker’s frontman has continued to discuss the weaknesses in the technology and why his company has relied on cameras.

He also mentioned the suite’s limits on Waymo’s capabilities.

Tesla completely abandoned using radar alongside its camera suite a few years ago, something it referred to as “Tesla Vision” at the time. For its vehicles, it has only used cameras since this transition, and Musk has never once shied away from this strategy.

Earlier this week, he discussed the reliance of LiDAR and radar by other companies:

“Lidar and radar reduce safety due to sensor contention. If lidars/radars disagree with cameras, which one wins?

This sensor ambiguity causes increased, not decreased, risk. That’s why Waymos can’t drive on highways.

We turned off radars in Teslas to increase safety. Cameras ftw.”

Elon Musk argues lidar and radar make self driving cars more dangerous

He continued with this narrative again and mentioned Waymo specifically on a second occasion.

Musk’s focus this time was on Waymo vehicles and their capabilities in adverse weather, specifically snow, rain, or even dust storms, and how LiDAR struggles to navigate in these conditions.

He said:

“LiDAR also does not work well in snow, rain or dust due to reflection scatter. That’s why Waymos stop working in any heavy precipitation. As I have said many times, there is a role for LiDAR in some circumstances and I personally oversaw the development of LiDAR for the SpaceX Dragon docking with Space Station. I am well aware of its strengths and weaknesses.”

Tesla’s approach is significantly different than most companies. Waymo, Motional, Aurora, and Zoox all use LiDAR for their self-driving programs, while Tesla continues to rely on its camera-only approach.

Musk even said that Model S and Model X utilized a Tesla-developed high-resolution radar, but it could not “compare to passive optical (cameras), so we turned it off.”

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