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Lucid cuts prices by up to $8000 to attempt to surge demand

Credit: Lucid

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Lucid has cut prices on the Air electric vehicle lineup by as much as $8,000 in an attempt to surge demand.

The Lucid Air Pure Rear-Wheel-Drive is now priced at $69,900. The most affordable and accessible trim of the Air features a sleek interior and exterior design and a driving range of up to 410 miles. It was previously priced at $77,400.

The Lucid Air Touring is now priced at $77,900 and features an All-Wheel-Drive powertrain that produces 620 horsepower. It was previously $85,900.

The Grand Touring is now $109,900, and features just a $1,000 discount. This is one of the premiere trims of the Lucid Air, featuring 819 horsepower, an All-Wheel-Drive powertrain, and an astounding 516 miles of range.

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Lucid said it wanted to expand the ownership experience and the price cuts were intended to directly address the commonly-mentioned barriers against purchasing or leasing an EV: price and ease of ownership.

“We are optimistic about the future of EVs and believe strongly that increased adoption is a necessary path towards reducing the impact of climate change,” CEO Peter Rawlinson said. “We have worked tirelessly to enable the Lucid Air lineup to deliver unsurpassed range and performance from less energy, and so I’m delighted that today we are able to share this benefit with our customers.”

2023 Lucid Air Deliveries

Lucid announced that it had delivered 1,734 vehicles in the fourth quarter. This brought its 2023 totals to 8,428 produced and 6,001 delivered.

Its Q4 performance was a 10 percent drop from the same quarter a year prior.

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Lucid struggles in Q4 and decreases deliveries from a year earlier

It also dropped production output goals in November, stating that its projected numbers for manufacturing goals did not “prudently align” with its capabilities.

New Strategies

In December, Lucid decided to upgrade and update its Air lineup with more customization availability to attempt to push more vehicles out of the door.

Now, it is attempting to cut prices for more demand triggers, but the question is, will it work?

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Lucid updates and upgrades Air lineup for 2024

Unfortunately, Lucid is losing a lot of money per unit. In Q3 2023, it was losing $430,000 for every vehicle it produced.

Now that prices are lower and volume is still low, it seems that number will increase.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla rolls out xAI’s Grok to vehicles across Europe

The initial rollout includes the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain.

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Tesla is rolling out Grok to vehicles in Europe. The feature will initially launch in nine European territories.

In a post on X, the official Tesla Europe, Middle East & Africa account confirmed that Grok is coming to Teslas in Europe. The initial rollout includes the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain, and additional markets are expected to be added later.

Grok allows drivers to ask questions using real-time information and interact hands-free while driving. According to Tesla’s support documentation, Grok can also initiate navigation commands, enabling users to search for destinations, discover points of interest, and adjust routes without touching the touchscreen, as per the feature’s official webpage.

The system offers selectable personalities, ranging from “Storyteller” to “Unhinged,” and is activated either through the App Launcher or by pressing and holding the steering wheel’s microphone button.

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Grok is currently available only on Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, and Cybertruck vehicles equipped with an AMD infotainment processor. Vehicles must be running software version 2025.26 or later, with navigation command support requiring version 2025.44.25 or newer.

Drivers must also have Premium Connectivity or a stable Wi-Fi connection to use the feature. Tesla notes that Grok does not currently replace standard voice commands for vehicle controls such as climate or media adjustments.

The company has stated that Grok interactions are processed securely by xAI and are not linked to individual drivers or vehicles. Users do not need a Grok account or subscription to enable the feature at this time as well.

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Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.

In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has officially ended the option to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright, a move that was announced for the United States market in January by CEO Elon Musk.

The driver assistance suite is now exclusively available in the U.S. as a subscription, which is currently priced at $99 per month.

Tesla moved away from the outright purchase option in an effort to move more people to the subscription program, but there are concerns over its current price and the potential for it to rise.

In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.

Although Tesla moved back the deadline in other countries, it has now taken effect in the U.S. on Sunday morning. Tesla updated its website to reflect this:

There are still some concerns regarding its price, as $99 per month is not where many consumers are hoping to see the subscription price stay.

Musk has said that as capabilities improve, the price will go up, but it seems unlikely that 10 million drivers will want to pay an extra $100 every month for the capability, even if it is extremely useful.

Instead, many owners and fans of the company are calling for Tesla to offer a different type of pricing platform. This includes a tiered-system that would let owners pick and choose the features they would want for varying prices, or even a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual pricing option, which would incentivize longer-term purchasing.

Although Musk and other Tesla are aware of FSD’s capabilities and state is is worth much more than its current price, there could be some merit in the idea of offering a price for Supervised FSD and another price for Unsupervised FSD when it becomes available.

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Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report

xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. A new financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year.

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Credit: SpaceX

Elon Musk’s bankers are looking to trim the debt that xAI has taken on over the past few years, following the company’s merger with SpaceX, a new report from Bloomberg says.

xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. Bankers are trying to create some kind of financing plan that would trim “some of the heavy interest costs” that come with the debt.

The financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year. Musk has essentially confirmed that SpaceX would be heading toward an IPO last month.

SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms

The report indicates that Morgan Stanley is expected to take the leading role in any financing plan, citing people familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley, along with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are all expected to be in the lineup of banks leading SpaceX’s potential IPO.

Since Musk acquired X, he has also had what Bloomberg says is a “mixed track record with debt markets.” Since purchasing X a few years ago with a $12.5 billion financing package, X pays “tens of millions in interest payments every month.”

That debt is held by Bank of America, Barclays, Mitsubishi, UFJ Financial, BNP Paribas SA, Mizuho, and Société Générale SA.

X merged with xAI last March, which brought the valuation to $45 billion, including the debt.

SpaceX announced the merger with xAI earlier this month, a major move in Musk’s plan to alleviate Earth of necessary data centers and replace them with orbital options that will be lower cost:

“In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale. To harness even a millionth of our Sun’s energy would require over a million times more energy than our civilization currently uses! The only logical solution, therefore, is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space. I mean, space is called “space” for a reason.”

The merger has many advantages, but one of the most crucial is that it positions the now-merged companies to fund broader goals, fueled by revenue from the Starlink expansion, potential IPO, and AI-driven applications that could accelerate the development of lunar bases.

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