Fresh off its new $1 billion round of funding from Saudi Arabia, Lucid Motors is announcing today a new partnership with Electrify America “to provide Lucid customers a nationwide charging plan.”
As we previously reported, Electrify America was created as part of Volkswagen’s $2 billion settlements with California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its use of emission test cheating devices in its diesel vehicles.
They have several electrification initiatives – mainly having to do with charging infrastructure.
Their biggest project is the deployment of “over 2,000 DC ultra-fast chargers at nearly 500 sites in metro and highway locations across 40 states and 17 major cities by June 2019.”
Peter Rawlinson, Chief Technology Officer of Lucid, commented on the partnership with the company:
Giovanni Palazzo, President and CEO of Electrify America, added:
Lucid aims to bring its first production vehicle to market in 2020. By that time, Electrify America should already have quite an extensive charging network available to EV drivers.
Electrek’s Take
Honestly, I’m not sure I understand the nature of this deal. It certainly wasn’t explained well by Lucid.
It’s not like Lucid customers wouldn’t have access to Electrify America’s network in the first place. The network is made to be available to all electric vehicles that support CHAdeMO or CCS, which includes most EVs today.
It sounds like Lucid simply “validated” Electrify America’s chargers to determine that it works with their batteries.
One thing that would require a deal would be an agreement for a seamless charging experience with a nationwide charging plan, like Electrify America did with Audi for the e-tron, but that doesn’t appear to be the case here.
Regardless, it sounds like Lucid will rely on Electrify America for its charging infrastructure.
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.
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