- Lucid Group surged as much as 9% on Monday as early reviews of its Air sedan rolled in.
- The electric vehicle manufacturer began to deliver its luxury sedans just last week.
- Reviews of the more than 1,000 horse-power car called the Lucid Air a worthy Tesla competitor.
Shares of Lucid Group surged as much as 9% on Monday, extending its week-long gain to nearly 60% as the electric vehicle manufacturer begins deliveries of its Air sedan.
The company plans to only deliver a few hundred of its premium Air Dream edition cars into year-end, but early reviews are proving to be positive, with The Wall Street Journal calling it a worthy opponent to Tesla. And Road and Track said last month the Lucid Air "is so good it should make Tesla sweat."
The $169,000 special edition vehicle has more than 1,000 horse-power, a range of more than 500 miles on a full charge, and can go 0-60 miles per hour in under three seconds. The luxury EV also has lidar, optical, and radar sensing abilities to help assist drivers on the road, along with the ability to download over-the-air software updates in the future to enable new features.
Lucid plans to deliver some 520 Air Dream edition vehicles by year-end, before it transitions to manufacturing and delivering the lower priced Air model early next year. The company, which is led by former Tesla executive Peter Rawlinson, expects to deliver 20,000 vehicles next year and generate more than $2 billion in revenue.
Lucid will face increasing competition into next year from both legacy automakers like Ford and General Motors, as well as new entrants like Rivian.
But for now, investors are betting Lucid will have no trouble competing against both new and old EV companies, with the company's market valuation just a few billion shy of Ford as of Monday morning.