Auto reviewer Kyle Conner became on Thursday the first person outside Lucid Motors to see and sit inside the Cosmos, the company’s upcoming midsize SUV that is planned to begin production by the year’s end.
Conner described the model as a “younger, more modern” take on the Gravity with a “totally unique” rear end design and an interior he called “striking” and “high quality.”
The Cosmos, named publicly for the first time on Thursday, is the first of three midsize models Lucid plans to build on its new platform.
The Saudi-backed EV maker has revealed at its Investor Day the third teaser image of the mid-size SUV.
Cosmo’s Positioning
Lucid Cosmos — set to enter production ‘by the year’s end’ — targets ‘upscale nurturers,’ a group the company defines as family-oriented, technology-forward buyers who are adopting EVs quickly.
Design chief Derek Jenkins positioned it at the urban, on-road, performance-focused end of the lineup.
A competitive positioning chart shown at the event placed the Cosmos in the upper-left quadrant — sporty and advanced — alongside the Porsche Macan Electric, Tesla Model Y, BMW iX3, and Xiaomi YU7, with the latter being the closest competitor on the chart.
Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said last month that significant volumes will not arrive until next year as production is set to begin in late 2026.
Design
Conner described a cab-forward design with a long tail optimised for aerodynamic efficiency — a silhouette he summarised as a “younger, more modern, really cool looking small Gravity.”
He highlighted strong, sharp lighting signatures and said the rear end was “especially” distinctive.
The vehicle he viewed was finished in a metallic red exterior with a white interior, which the reviewer called “striking.”
Interior and Space
The interior drew the most detailed observations. Conner, who is 6’1″, said his head did not touch the glass roof in the second row, noting that it extends beyond the rear seats and is wide enough to create “a great airy feeling.”
The A-pillar glass extends far forward, which he said provides strong visibility of front blind spots.
He described “beautiful” materials in the light interior colour, with recycled fibres that felt similar to wool, stitching throughout, a glass centre console cover, and a dark headliner.
The cabin uses a single wide screen spanning the width of the dashboard with no secondary display.
“It’s a unique view that doesn’t exist in the western world,” Conner wrote, adding that the user interface is expected to be similar to Gravity’s.
Physical turn signal stalks and a gear selector are retained — a departure from the touchscreen-dependent approach favoured by some competitors.
The front trunk — also known as frunk — is “insanely large,” according to Conner, and the rear cargo area features substantial underfloor storage enabled in part by Lucid’s new Atlas drive unit.
He noted a bottom-hinged accelerator pedal — a detail typically associated with performance-oriented vehicles.
Powertrain and Charging
Conner said he did not have exact battery capacity or power output figures but shared several technical details.
The Cosmos uses an approximately 800-volt system architecture with a permanent magnet rear motor and an induction front motor, both from what Lucid calls the Atlas drive unit family.
A NACS charging port sits in the rear driver-side corner, and Conner said charging speeds “sound very fast.”
He noted uncertainty around how Lucid will handle 400-volt boost charging but said the vehicle will be compatible with Tesla Superchargers — as the Gravity.
Architecture and Engineering
The Cosmos features a nearly entirely new electrical architecture with centralised compute, designed to reduce wiring length, cost, and connection points. Conner described the central gateway mounting location on the firewall as ‘insanely cool.’
On the body structure, he noted mixed materials to reduce cost, with large castings at the front and rear — though not single-piece mega castings.
Crash structures are designed to be replaceable in stages, a measure Conner said is intended to lower insurance costs.
The suspension uses adaptive dampers with a virtual ball-joint axis on the lower control arm and a fixed upper arm — a more sophisticated setup than the MacPherson strut configurations common among midsize competitors.
ADAS and Pricing
Conner said the advanced driver-assistance system will likely use Nvidia hardware for point-to-point Level 2 capability, and urged Lucid to enable it quickly given Tesla’s Full Self-Driving as a competitive benchmark.
He also flagged phone key and NFC response times as areas where the Cosmos ‘can’t have access control problems or major software bugs’ — a pointed reference given the software issues that affected the Gravity’s early months.
Conner said the Cosmos should start at under $50,000 and feature “everything EV drivers want: fast charging, pet mode, route planning, plug and charge, space, comfort, and 0-60 in 3.5 seconds.”
