Peter Rawlinson, the former CEO and CTO of the EV maker Lucid Motors, has won the ‘2025 Sturmey Award’ from the British publication Autocar.
After speaking with Lucid‘s former chief, the magazine said Rawlinson “continues to advise the creative teams he built,” in a rare comment since transitioning to the position of Strategic Technical Advisor to the Chairman of Lucid’s Board last February.
The Sturmey Award, named after Autocar’s founding editor Henry Sturmey, recognises an individual whose technical achievements have significantly advanced the car industry.
Rawlinson was praised as one of a select group of British engineers who “have honed their skills working in challenging automotive careers at home, then risen to stellar status by taking charge of globally significant projects in other countries.”
Last year’s recipient was Marek Reichman, Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer at Aston Martin.
Lucid announced Rawlinson’s exit in late February, just minutes before it reported fourth-quarter earnings. The executive did not appear on the earnings call.
The company said he would take up a newly created advisory role, with a later filing revealing that Rawlinson would earn a monthly salary of $120,000 and other benefits.
Marc Winterhoff, previously Lucid’s Chief Operating Officer and a former lead on the company’s account at consultancy Roland Berger, was named interim CEO.
Speaking in March to Arab News, Faisal Sultan, Lucid’s Vice President and Managing Director for the Middle East, said Rawlinson had been “preparing for this type of departure.”
Two people familiar with the matter told EV in early March that Rawlinson had been “forced out” by Chairman Turqi Alnowaiser, who also selected Winterhoff to take over on an interim basis.
Alnowaiser, Head of International Investments at Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) since 2016, became Chairman of Lucid’s Board in April 2023 and has been a director since 2019.
Rawlinson joined Lucid in 2013 as Chief Technology Officer and was appointed CEO in 2019.
Following stints at Imola Cars, Lotus, and Corus Automotive, Rawlinson was introduced to Elon Musk by BMW Group design chief Adrian van Hooydonk. That meeting proved decisive for his entry into electric vehicles.
“At the time, even scientists said the energy density of batteries was so poor, nothing could be done,” he says.
“But Elon said we were going to use lithium-ion batteries, the kind they put in laptops. This promised cars that could do 200 miles with 70kWh of batteries, weighing 300kg. It was a game-changer.”
“We’d spotted the fact that EVs were viable, and no one knew! This was my chance. Elon wanted to rethink everything. I knew I was the right guy to do that, so I grabbed it with both hands.”
Musk has since downplayed Rawlinson’s role at Tesla while criticizing the timing of the departure.
In a 2020 post on X, the Tesla CEO said: “Rawlinson didn’t design Model S. Prototype was done before he joined & he left us in the lurch just as things got tough, which was not cool.”
He added: “He did make some contributions to body/chassis engineering, but not to powertrain, battery, electronics or software.” Musk reiterated in May 2021 that “Rawlinson was never chief engineer.”
Speaking with Autocar, Rawlinson has continued to promote Lucid’s mission of energy efficiency. “I co-founded Lucid not just to make EVs but to advance the art of electric cars,” he says. “Using smaller batteries is absolutely crucial to that.
“Some people believe the real task is to make batteries cheaper, but even if you achieve that, the weight and size won’t change and you’ll probably have less output. The real task is to make cars go farther with less battery – by saving weight, improving aerodynamics and cutting frontal area, by cooling batteries better and making motors more efficient. We’re doing all of it. That’s the vision of Lucid.”
Autocar’s profile accompanying the award detailed his early career at Jaguar, where in his early thirties he was responsible for advanced body design and crashworthiness on the XJ41 and XJ42 coupé and convertible projects.
Lucid is expected to report its second quarter production and delivery figures later this week.
