[nick_kline]

There's no magic required here, people. Batteries, engines, just tiny changes on existing Teslas. This car is dooable by Tesla and by third parties like Lucid Air just replicating some of the things Tesla has done and making small improvements.

1. Battery capacity: Tesla had 100kw cars 4 years ago. 13% increase - easy, even within Tesla's grasp, they just have not bothered.

2. Efficiency and range - this is just a small improvement on what the Tesla model S has, add more batteries. The Lucid Air is bigger than a model 3 and closer to an S. The S already has 400 miles. Tesla improved on the original 2012 (yes, those are 8 years old!) model S' range by using the more efficient model 3 engines on the S. The S has 100kwh currently.

3. The model 3 has different batteries than the S, apparently they have a bit higher capacity in the 3 than in the S. All Tesla has to do to give the S another boost is switch to using the model 3 batteries, add a few more. The one downside of the 3 batteries is supposed to be they have less max power, so less acceleration? Tesla is going to have 'battery day' soon when they will talk about their next generation batteries, and perhaps talk about S improvements.

4. Manufacturing, and especially getting enough batteries - this is where Tesla is likely really ahead. It's hard to make cars in volume, even expensive ones. But getting enough batteries for a large fleet of cars is the early 21st century unobtanium. Every other car company that ones to make large volume EVs can't do it. Where everyone is at least Japan and Europe and the US. China might be able to pull this off, too soon to say.

[reitzensteinm]

Nobody is saying Tesla can't match this, and given Elon's personality, I guarantee Tesla will have a Taycan style reaction and seek to reclaim the crown in short order.

However, that competitors are nipping at Tesla's heels is an absolute sea change compared to a few short years ago. They used to not only be ahead in every metric, but also improving faster than their competition further solidifying the lead.

Tesla sets a very high bar, but genuine effort is being made now to compete. It's fantastic, and great news for the EV movement. Reading EV news is finally fun again.

[kemiller]

Yup, 4 is the key. Lucid Air is being marketed as high end luxury car, so 113kwh is totally believable. But Tesla's first-mover advantage in this case is having locked down the battery supply chain necessary to scale. It seems that most of Tesla's competition is stalling for time while they wait for their battery suppliers/partners to catch up. I don't doubt at least some of them will get there eventually, but it should take a few years.

[baybal2]

I don't think Tesla has so much, if any advantage. Open market cell prices are very good.

[nick_kline]

Then why does every company say that they have production limitations based on availability? VW was saying that just a few months ago, and so was porsche. That's give as the reason why Audi and Jaguar have low volumes.