Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
A few months after Ford CEO Jim Farley praised China-based automakers, including the world’s largest NEV maker BYD and newcomer tech giant Xiaomi, U.S. EV maker Lucid Motors revealed it had acquired Xiaomi’s debut model, the SU7 sedan, along with two other Chinese electric vehicles for benchmarking purposes.
Automakers often purchase competitors’ electric vehicles to dismantle and analyze their components, a process known as reverse engineering. While some carmakers purchase vehicles discreetly through retail channels to avoid attracting notice, others enlist third-party firms with expertise in teardown analysis.
As an example, a Tesla Cybertruck was seen earlier this week being transported into one of BYD’s factories in China.
Speaking to InsideEVs, Lucid‘s senior vice president of product and chief engineer Eric Bach said Lucid “has also been testing and tearing apart” Chinese EVs.
“If you look at the maturity and the refinement of the exterior body or the interiors, you can find some of the competitors there showing a very high standard of execution. And I think it is really important to acknowledge that the Chinese competition is not bad in terms of quality,” the executive told InsideEVs.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said in October that, despite not being a fan of “talking about competition so much” he’s been driving a Xiaomi SU7 sedan since March this year adding he doesn’t “want to give it up.”
Lucid has recently started production of the high-end variant of its second model, the Gravity Grand Touring. The SUV, which can fit up to seven persons, received last week an official EPA-estimated range of 450 miles.
The company announced in November that the Grand Touring variant — priced from $94,900 would be the first to be produced, with the Lucid Gravity Touring variant planned for late 2025, with pricing starting at $79,900.
Sales in Europe are set to begin in mid-2025, with the first deliveries expected in early 2026, according to Alexander Lutz, the former Managing Director of the European market, who disclosed the timeline last month.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
