Lucid Motors is working to close the gap with Tesla in advanced driver-assistance technology and expects to make major progress next year, interim Chief Executive Marc Winterhoff said Friday.
Speaking at Morgan Stanley’s Laguna Conference, noted that many potential Lucid customers are likely to come from Tesla and will expect comparable driver-assistance capabilities.
“And I think a lot of your customers that will migrate — a subset of your conquest will come from Teslas where many of the people who would — people afford a Gravity probably had full self-driving as well,” Jonas said.
“And just from my own experience, if you have that, if you have full self-driving, it’s really tough to give up,” the analyst added.
Winterhoff confirmed that autonomous capabilities is “a very big focus” for the EV maker.
“Many of the Tesla people that want to buy a Lucid actually tell us exactly what you just said. So that is a very big focus for us, and we’re working on this,” Winterhoff said.
The executive said he uses Lucid’s current Driver Assist system daily but wants more.
“Every time when I go to work, my commute is 45 minutes. When I go to the highway, I turn Driver Assist on and I turn it off when I leave the highway. And I would love to have the car completely go to the parking lot, if possible,” he said.
Winterhoff added that Lucid expects to “close that gap” with Tesla in 2026, working with external partners to deliver a system beyond what is currently available.
“We plan to actually leapfrog what is out there right now and get something out which is even on a higher level,” he said.
The comments less than two months after the company rolled out a major update to its DreamDrive Pro suite of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).
The upgrade introduced Hands-Free Drive Assist and Hands-Free Lane Change Assistfeatures, delivered to Lucid Air owners through an over-the-air update in late July and set to reach Gravity SUV owners later this year.
DreamDrive Pro, an optional upgrade, integrates LiDAR, radar, visible-light cameras, surround-view cameras and ultrasonic sensors.
Winterhoff also reiterated that Lucid is still aiming to build 20,000 vehicles this year, despite lowering its official 2025 production outlook in August to between 18,000 and 20,000 units.
The interim CEO said the team is pushing hard to reach the higher target, stressing that employees are “giving everything to make that happen.”
