Lucid Motors plans to unveil its third EV model “somewhere mid next year”, six months before the electric crossover enters production, Chief Financial Officer Taoufiq Boussaid said Wednesday.
Speaking at the UBS Conference, Boussaid said the company has “a tentative official reveal date” set for “somewhere mid next year,” timing that may coincide with a planned investor day in the first half of 2026.
However, the CFO said he his suggesting the company have an exclusive preview for analysts and investors ahead of the public unveiling.
“I’m trying to have an exclusivity for analysts and investors,” he said, when asked about the timing of both events.
Unlike previous vehicle launches, Lucid will skip reservations and open orders immediately upon public reveal.
“We don’t want to do reservations. We will go straight for orders,” Boussaid said, adding that “timing should be more or less in line” with the investor day.
The investor day will provide details on the company’s strategic roadmap as investors seek for updates on upcoming models and overall strategy for the Saudi-backed EV maker.
Lucid plans “to explain our road map and how we will be getting there and when,” Boussaid said.
Midsize Platform Strategy
The upcoming crossover will be Lucid‘s first vehicle with starting prices in the $50,000 segment, approximately $20,000 below the current entry-level Air sedan.
The model is scheduled to start production in late 2026.
In late October, Lucid released a teaser image showing the crossover will adopt a low-slung design similar to the Gravity SUV.
The vehicle will be the company’s first to feature NVIDIA Corp.’s DRIVE AGX Thor computing platform and to target Level 4 autonomous capability.
The teaser marked the second preview in thirteen months, following an initial image shared in September 2024 when Peter Rawlinson was still serving as chief executive and chief technology officer.
Uber Partnership
The ride hailing giant Uber said in July said it would invest $300 million in the EV maker and acquire at least 20,000 Gravity vehicles over the next six year for its planned robotaxi fleet.
Boussaid said Uber selected Lucid because the company has “a fit-for-purpose car with a redundant architecture with all the safety, which is required for this type of application.”
“We had an available solution, which required minimal changes, minimal fitting to operate as a robotaxi as opposed to some of the existing solutions right now where you have to add a lot of sensors, LiDAR and so forth,” he added.
The CFO indicated the upcoming midsize model will be “even more advanced” for autonomous operations than the Gravity SUV.
“The Gravity is the first start. I mean it’s a big car. It’s an expensive car. It might not be the obvious choice for a robotaxi service. But the next step of the program will be with the midsized as that will be even more advanced in terms of its ability to serve this type of application,” Boussaid said.
Lucid‘s vehicles for Uber will use autonomous driving technology from Nuro, the self-driving startup that raised $203 million in a funding round last year backed by NVIDIA and other investors.
