Tesla
competitor resorts to deceit
to increase their sales
Peter Rawlinson, a former Tesla engineer, became part of an electric car company called Lucid Motors. Rawlinson is the CEO. Lucid was seen as a Tesla competitor, and to increase their EV market share, Lucid appears to have no problem resorting to misinformation and disinformation.
Here's an example from Lucid. Here they attempt to compare Tesla's existing public charging network with the planned Lucid charging network.
Lucid makes it sound like their network will be far better than Tesla's, but the opposite is the case. Notice that Lucid is partnering with the worst of all the public EV charging companies. Electrify America was borne out of the financial penalty that Volkswagen had to pay for breaking the law when they deliberately cheated on their diesel vehicle emissions testing. The average "up time" for their EV charging pumps is 40%. Tesla's is 99.6%. Tesla cares about their charging infrastructure; EA clearly does not care about theirs. Of all the charging companies Lucid could have partnered with, EA was the worst choice.
The other bulletpoints Lucid cites in their favor are equally as ridiculous. In fact, the Tesla charging network is so good and so reliable that Ford, GM, Chrysler, Stellantis, Honda, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Rivian, Nissan, Volvo, Hyundai, and VW have asked Tesla to allow them to have access to Tesla's charging network for their EVs, and engineering group SAE International also announced that it will standardize the connector that was named by Tesla the "North American Charging Standard" (NACS). And even some public charging companies asked Tesla for permission to use the Tesla connector for their chargers. But who didn't ask to adopt the NACS? Lucid and Electrify America. Hmmm.
What other shenanigans has Lucid pulled? How about when they set up a Lucid test drive car next to a Tesla Supercharger station in California and offered Tesla owners who came there to charge their Teslas a test ride in the Lucid. Not cool. And how about Lucid poaching talent from Tesla. Yes, this is done all the time in the automobile manufacturing industry... except for Tesla.
But evidently karma applies to automobile companies too...
And the Altman Z Score for Lucid places them in the "Distress Zone", meaning that their chance of going bankrupt within two years is 80%.
We need more EV manufacturers, but not like Lucid.
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