Lucid History
From Battery Technology to a New Experience Paradigm - A Brief Glimpse Into Lucid's History
“We are reimagining what a car can be from every angle.”
Today, at Lucid, we are reimagining what a car can be from every angle. We are working on transcending the perceived limitations of space, performance and intelligence for those who move the world forward. We are working with the world’s leading creators to build an automobile from the ground up.
It all started with a phone call on the last day of December 2007. I was initially planning on spending the day with my family in Cupertino, but that day took a surprising turn when my two partners (Bernard Tse / Sheaupyng Lin) and I received confirmation of a seed investment from Venrock. We immediately filed the papers to found the company. We were excited to leverage our extensive experience at Tesla and Oracle in battery system architecture and control software to develop advanced high voltage battery packs.
“Unbound from conventions of the automotive industry, we were free to define our own experience.
We started imagining a vehicle that takes full advantage of electrification without boundaries.”
In 2008, we began by working on our battery system; the core EV technology to address the challenge of simultaneously achieving high performance, safety, and durability. Over the next five years we would go on to integrate a diverse set of battery packs into motorcycles, sedans, vans and buses with an energy ranging from 3 kWh to 150 kWh.
Supporting this range of vehicles and battery packs was a formative learning experience for Atieva’s small team of Silicon Valley engineers. By using modern big-data technology to analyze over 20 million miles of real-world driving data, we improved battery system reliability and performance across all projects. Ultimately, we perfected our core battery system technology and accumulated over 50 patents in the US alone. Many of those original vehicles are still running on the roads without a single safety incident.
At the end of 2013 we were a highly capable producer of connected premium electric battery packs and powertrains, but we still had a grander vision. We felt that if we could break free of the existing automotive requirements and architectures, we would be in the position to create real innovation. It was a liberating experience. Unbound from conventions of the automotive industry, we were free to define our own experience. We started imagining a vehicle that takes full advantage of electrification without boundaries.
In 2014, we closed a 9-digit funding round with the goal of developing a complete car. To achieve this, we started building a team of outstanding creators who were independent, entrepreneurial, and had strong personal vision. We were seeking those who forge their own path, build something out of nothing, and have an unwavering sense of who they are. Together with our new team of designers, software and vehicle engineers, we built a custom 900 hp powertrain test vehicle. It was ordinary from the outside to stay unrecognized, but extraordinary from the inside reaching 60 mph in ~3 seconds with a driving range that well exceeds today’s range limitations.
Over these years of perfecting our technology and accumulating an extensive library of intellectual property, we're no longer confined by the constraints of the past and are driven to fulfill your needs. We are creating an experience that is personalized and liberating, erasing constraints of modern transportation. We are building cars for those who want to be free to define their own path… and it all started with the core EV technology, the battery system.
