Lucid Motors gave media and Wall Street analysts their first hands-on access to the Cosmos midsize SUV at its Investor Day in New York last Thursday.
The Saudi-backed EV maker showed both a finished design mockup and a body-in-white production-validation vehicle that confirms assembly-line tooling is already being tested.
Phones were confiscated before attendees entered the viewing area and no exterior photographs have been published.
However, several outlets provided detailed accounts of what they saw, providing the most complete picture yet of the vehicle Lucid‘s Design team has been working on over the last two and a half years.
What Reporters Saw
Car and Driver‘s team saw a burgundy metallic mockup sitting on 22-inch wheels fitted with Michelin Pilot Sport tyres.
Design chief Derek Jenkins said smaller wheels with taller sidewalls will be available for a more comfortable ride.
The magazine described the Cosmos as a smaller, sleeker echo of the Gravity — shorter, lower, with five seats instead of seven and a drooping roofline that splits the difference between a fastback hatch and a more upright SUV.
The shape is driven by aerodynamics.
Jenkins told reporters the drag coefficient will be lower than 0.22, a figure that would be remarkable for any vehicle in the utility category and would beat the Gravity’s already-low 0.24.
Kyle Conner of Out of Spec Reviews, described the exterior as “sharp, super cool, and totally unique, especially in the rear end.”
He compared it to a “younger, more modern” take on the Gravity. The cab-forward design pushes the greenhouse forward to maximise a long tail, improving aerodynamic efficiency while preserving a rear cargo floor high enough for larger dogs.
The A-pillar glass extends unusually far forward, giving the driver better visibility of front blind spots — a practical engineering choice, not just a styling decision.
At the front, Lucid‘s signature thin light bar runs across the nose.
Car and Driver noted that the centre of the bar is black plastic, hiding camera, radar, and LiDAR sensors — the first confirmation that the Cosmos will carry LiDAR.
Rivian will launch the rival R2 equipped with LiDAR later this year as the Launch Edition, but the initial units set to begin deliveries “later this Spring” will not feature the sensor stack.
Angled lower lights complete the lighting signature. Individual letters spell out “Lucid” at both the front and rear.
Lucid has eliminated traditional beltline mouldings on the doors, reducing part count and assembly time while producing a cleaner exterior profile.
The Interior
The cabin ditches the dual-screen layout used in the Air sedan and Gravity SUV for a single 36-inch-wide display mounted just below the windshield, stretching from the instrument cluster area across the centre of the dashboard.
There is no separate central touchscreen. Jenkins said using the same display for both left-hand-drive and right-hand-drive markets keeps costs down.
InsideEVs reported that the display is divided into four zones — from left to right: energy information, navigation, entertainment, and contextual data such as weather. Lucid has not said which portions of the screen are touch-sensitive.
Physical controls survive.
Car and Driver noted buttons for audio volume and tuning, as well as some climate functions.
However, the magazine flagged that air vents can only be opened, closed, or aimed through the touchscreen — calling it “an unsafe annoyance.”
Physical turn signal stalks and a physical gear selector are present, a deliberate reversal from the screen-based approach adopted by Tesla and others.
The steering wheel retains the squircle shape from the Gravity.
Conner described the interior materials as recycled fibre that feels “almost like wool,” with stitching throughout, a glass centre console cover, and a dark headliner.
He called it “striking” and “high quality.” At 6’1″, Conner sat in the rear seat and said his head did not touch the expansive glass roof, which extends beyond the rear seats. He described the rear as “super wide” with a generous, airy feeling.
The front trunk is what Conner called “insanely large.”
Lucid said the total cargo volume, including the frunk, exceeds that of a Toyota RAV4.
The rear cargo area features substantial underfloor storage, made possible by the compact Atlas drive unit packaging.
Conner flagged that the rear passenger floor felt “slightly high” — a minor trade-off worth monitoring. Door openings are large, entry height is low, and foot room is generous.
An AI-powered voice assistant called “Lucid Intelligence” will serve as the primary interaction layer for the infotainment system.
A pre-recorded demo was shown during last week’s event after the live test failed due to poor connection.
The Doors
The Cosmos uses mechanical door handles with fully manual operation — no buttons or electric motors to open or close.
The decision is both practical and regulatory. Electric door mechanisms are already being banned in China, with the US and Europe expected to follow for safety reasons.
Electric motors will lower each door’s frameless window glass slightly when the handle is operated, the same system used in the Air and Gravity.
This is a cost-saving measure as much as a reliability one. The bottom-hinged accelerator pedal inside — a detail Conner noted — is typically associated with performance-oriented vehicles.
Atlas Drive Unit and Powertrain
The Cosmos is built on Lucid‘s all-new midsize platform, powered by the company’s next-generation Atlas electric drive unit.
Atlas is not a scaled-down version of the Zeus unit used in the Air and Gravity. It is a ground-up redesign with 30% fewer parts, 37% lower manufacturing cost, and 23% less weight.
Lucid‘s chief engineer Zach Walker said Atlas is 40% more power-dense than its closest competitor.
Atlas uses identical front and rear housings and mounts — a deliberate manufacturing decision that simplifies production and reduces tooling costs.
The front motor is an induction unit; the rear is a permanent magnet motor.
The combination delivers a claimed 0–60 mph time of 3.5 seconds in AWD configuration.
The platform uses an 800-volt electrical architecture with a NACS charging port located in the rear driver-side corner.
Lucid said the Cosmos can regain over 200 miles of range in 14 minutes of DC fast charging.
Conner said charging speeds “sound very fast” but no specific kilowatt figure has been confirmed. The vehicle will be compatible with Tesla Superchargers.
Lucid disclosed that a 69 kWh battery would deliver 300 miles of range at the platform’s 4.5 mi/kWh efficiency target. The company has not confirmed a final battery capacity or range figure.
The chief engineer said the actual range “could end up with more.” The battery assembly features an 80% reduction in components compared to current Lucid packs.
Bidirectional charging is standard: vehicle-to-home (V2H), vehicle-to-load (V2L), vehicle-to-everything (V2X), and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V). Lucid said the battery cell cost advantage is significant.
To deliver the same 300-mile range, the company claims battery cell costs would be $2,000 higher for Chinese OEMs, $1,500 higher for German OEMs, and $500 higher for US competitors.
Electrical Architecture
The Cosmos uses a nearly completely new centralised compute architecture.
Conner described a central gateway mounted on the firewall, designed to reduce wiring length, connection count, and overall cost.
The midsize platform uses just three pieces of electrical hardware. The Gravity, by comparison, uses twelve.
For ADAS, the vehicle is expected to use Nvidia hardware targeting point-to-point Level 2 capability.
Enhanced Level 2 driver assistance is planned for the Cosmos in 2027, according to the SEC filing accompanying the Investor Day presentation.
Hands-free highway and city driving — already planned for the Gravity in late 2026 — will extend to the Cosmos the following year. Level 3 is targeted for 2028, Level 4 for 2029.
Manufacturing and Timeline
Lucid plans to begin Cosmos production at its AMP-2 plant in Saudi Arabia by the end of 2026.
Initial units from that factory will serve the Middle East, Europe, and other global markets, but some will also head to North America.
US production at the Arizona facility is expected to follow at a later stage.
Prototypes were already being assembled at Lucid‘s Casa Grande headquarters as of late January.
The body-in-white production-validation vehicle shown to reporters at Investor Day confirms that factory tooling is now being tested — a stage beyond prototyping.
Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said the midsize programme will not contribute meaningfully to 2026 volumes.
The company guided for 25,000 to 27,000 total vehicles this year, with the Gravity accounting for the vast majority.
The Earth, the second midsize model, will follow approximately one year after the Cosmos. A third unnamed adventure-focused model will come later.
Jenkins said the public debut of the Cosmos will take place this summer.
Lucid confirmed the starting price will be below $50,000 — a figure the company said during the investor panel represents “up to 70%” lower unit costs than its current models.
The Cosmos and Earth share approximately 95% of parts and required investment.
The platform also underpins the Lunar, Lucid’s two-seat robotaxi concept revealed at the same event.
Lucid is finalising an agreement with Uber to deploy midsize platform vehicles at a scale similar to the Gravity robotaxi programme, with the intention to increase over time.
