Lucid Air Rear Motor - Does Size Matter? 

I don't get it: why is it advantageous to have a small differential inside the motor and then have two huge planetary reductions, one on each side, in contrast with a single differential directly connected to drive shafts? The Lucid solution seems much heavier! What am I missing?

@@ptviwatcher it makes the drive unit over all much smaller

@@elliottslab didn't seem like it. And the overall spinning mass attached to the wheels seems way higher because of those huge planetary reductions.

@@ptviwatcher Yet the weight of a Lucid drive unit is less than 1/4 of the weight of a single motor Tesla rear drive unit.

@@ptviwatcher re: "I don't get it..." no worries you're not alone, for you (and a whole lot of others right here in the comment section) also "don't get it". see with Lucid, you're dealing with "legit Automotive Engineers" not a faker or fraud who simply "pretends" to be an Automotive Engineer (but isn't one).

Its backed by the Saudi PIF fund. Its more financially backed than TESLA

Thank you!

Have they release the 25K Lucid already?

Just gotta snap some more of them pills! 😅

@@wolfgangpreier9160 Please. They are making the $87K one, but are limited on the steel roofs for it, supposedly. I wonder whether they'll free up more frunk space with that one, as it's RWD. Remember when Tesla still seemed to care and offered smaller battery RWD Model S for people who don't need the traction, power and acceleration, but wanted a spaceous representable EV? My main gripe: no wagon. At that price point, say $89K, a wagon with 669 hp to the rear wheels, that's be IIIITTT.

@@Cloxxki 89k? I rather buy a Mercedes for that amount.

@@wolfgangpreier9160 Lucid's intent is to sell into Mercedes (Premium European) market.

I like that they have some serviceability. Tesla is going the other way.

@@mrm1885 I believe the thinking is probably that these things are so reliable and self contained - much lower operating temperatures vs ICE, so easier to pull off - that servicing seems like a pretty niche need for them, they can just be easily replaced and recycled after a million miles instead, at which point addressing any of the other potential points of failure as well due to wear and tear. We'll see I guess, there are only a handful of Teslas that hit this many miles - and are based on their older platforms.

🙋🏼‍♂️

@@AllanSustainabilityFan if you think a filter is lasting 1M miles then id ask what it was like to ride a short bus to school

@@mattbrew11 This is not an ICE design, the constraints are vastly different, so best leave those old assumptions at the door and start fresh. EV motors can be highly reliable self contained units because of vast difference in moving part counts (~20 vs ~2000) as well as operating temperatures (~50 Celcius vs ~5000 Celcius) for example. There's also the fact the Tesla's designing these motors for their own internal use - upcoming robotaxi - while others design products with planned obsolescence in mind, so two vastly different design mindsets at play.

I have a Lucid Air Touring and trust me, Once you go Lucid you cannot go to any other EV anytime soon. The driving dynamics, Performance and Luxurry, It's really a game changer

I got my Air GT just over a year ago. Not one service issue. The driving dynamics are phenomenal. I think the single motor Pure will be fantastic with that RWD feeling, but i hear that most people are ordering AWD.

@@Miata822 RWD for me

@@johnreed5056 Did you ever test drove or owned a Tesla? Just curious to know if you have experienced a Tesla.

@@Miata822 Did you ever test drove or owned a Tesla? Just curious to know if you have experienced a Tesla. Asking because most Tesla fanboys sound like Tesla is the best EV ever. But your comment certainly makes me question that claim that I here often everywhere.

I believe Mercedes Benz embraced this also in some of their trucks, using hub reduction gears from the late 1950s onwards to allow faster rotating smaller upstream driveline components.

@@philhealey449 Its the speed/torque equation. Swaps High speed low torque to keep the motor in its sweet spot range. Then makes the motor split its power through an internal differential. That's Master Class Engineering & Packaging probably the best Light Weighting & Efficiency. The 7:1 planetary sets eliminates the need for bigger pitch heavier gears Offset Gear Train. Maybe they should have used a Quaife Torsen type Limited Slip gear Differential?

@@kevinburke6743 I guess practical limit with mass of the wheels precludes a gearless shaftless pancake motor in each wheel, or a NASA Lunar Rover harmonic drive?

@@philhealey449 a double rotor single Stator AXIAL FLUX motor could probably do the job best. The rotors could be the Ring gears of the planetary systems. holding the planets & sun gear( on a drive coupling. Straight to the CV joint. No need for a diff with vector torque. No need to ever slip as with one slowing down as the other speeds up in a closed loop feed back system. This could be instantly overseen & corrected by steering input. The only problem is packaging Axial Flux or Pancake motors are discs. thin in comparison to their diameter. It is their diameter that gives them their power. Whereas Radial Flux motors are tubes which are longer than they are in diameter. It is simplistically their length & diameter that gives them their power. Per kilogram I think you'll find that axial flux motors are more efficient. Then this Father & Son outfit come along and muddy the waters with their Hunstable Electric Propulsion Unit. Basically a Radial Flux motor with two stator of an Axial flux motor stuck on the end to use the magnetic field which would otherwise go to waste! They call it quite Logically a Raxial Flux Motor. To get back to your question Pancake motor having bigger diameter than radial flux motors means the drive has to have higher less straight(Horizontal) PowerTrain.

Probably why the Sapphire leaves Plaid for dead

Lol!!! 'You used to'm

@@MegaWildernessand how much volume is tesla at vs. lucid Anyone can make an amazing product. Can you do it at scale and speed to actual do what you are in business for. Making money. Obviously a lucid should be better then tesla. It’s a low volume high priced product. I’ve never compared McDonald’s to a steak house..

@@ssing7113 Absolutely correct, Tesla is a Big Mac Cheap and nasty

Tesla has a history of iterative refinements, as they find ways to design-out cost, while improving performance. Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I wouldn't be surprised to see Tesla adopt some of the clever motor design improvements now being pioneered by others, as Tesla continues to demonstrate it's mastery of volume production, at rates others can only dream about.

Lucid Air Pure is cheaper than Model S and carried everything under the hood

@@johnreed5056 Model S Plaid here in Canada starts at $119,990 vs Air Pure starting at $121,500. Not cheaper, though comparable.

Lol!!!! As if tesla was the only one to innovate!? WTF!!!

@@CrypticFoxGaming the lucid is much more luxurious than all those teslas

@@carholic-sz3qv Have you seen standard automotive manufacturing? Innovation in the space moves at a snails pace, and often model year updates are more cosmetic than anything. Much of what the OEM's have been producing in EV's is cobbled together from existing parts, etc. Just saying it's nice to see other manufacturers innovating and making purpose built technology. No one required you to be a dick.

Automobiles are a wholly unique use-case for electric motors. Electric motors that run continuously at a fixed speed are a mature technology going back some 100 years. Short duration variable-speed electric motors like in hand-held power tools are also fairly mature, although continually improving rare earth magnets has lead to some dramatic improvements in size and power output for those in recent years. But EVs are a really bizarre use-case. The motors have to operate for long durations at a wide range of speeds and with high torque at all speeds. I suspect going forwards we will see many new improvements. Especially as EVe diversify into more segments. That said, the motors themselves ARE very similar from most manufacturers, but the rest of the drive train is VERY different.

It's not far from what you expected, difficult to improve a motor when they're at 95% efficiency. The changes are mostly with the placement of the differential and gearboxes

Electric motors are actually super old much more older than ICE! we still haven’t developed the ultimate of those!

Brushless DC motors are kinda new on this scale that’s for sure. I think Nick Tesla actually made the first real AC motor and that’s incredible.

In Lucid's 'Tech Talk' video about this drive unit they go into much deeper detail about the motor design considerations if you are interested.

I think Corey spoke way more than walker. Hush and let the man talk hehe

I found that so condescending and annoying.

From my point of view you cannot exactly see manhours or tool costs from a product itself. There is no way to see for sure, whether some certain assembly step is performed by skilled human workers or a robot (but you can do educated guessing of course). You cannot see, whether a Chinese worker did it in a Chinese factory for cheap labor or lets say some Union worker from the US at higher pay. You also cannot see, whether some company has bought materials or parts at certain spot market prices (changing every minute) or at prices of long-term agreements with certain suppliers. Nor can you see warranty cost such as for faulty parts (think of Chevy Bolt battery packs) and how they split that with LG. Or replacement costs on failed early Tesla drive units. Finally, there are costs for logistics and shipping, that depend on distances between a suppliers plant and assembly plant. Or costs in storing and handling parts in warehouses. So, there must be a fair share of assumptions inside those calculations. One of the most recent examples was Munro calculating something like US$150-200 per car (in parts and handling) saved from removing the ultrasonic sensors and wiring loom, and extrapolating that to many thousands of sold cars. But then, customers disliked this new "Vision only" way without proper software support initially, did not get the software in time and then did not (and still do not) trust the new alpha/beta software for parking, even had a few auto-park features disabled, and Tesla had to give massive discounts far higher in the thousands of USD per car. Also insurance went up. I would take all their analyses with a grain of salt.

@@MooseOnEarth Tesla has no Stealerships, they sell direct and have REAL TIME DATA on sales , production and control profits and adjust prices accordingly, in days ,not weeks or months, like legacy auto. As of yesterday Ford has nearly 3 months supply of its bestselling F150 pickup ( as per the earnings report), Ford is not making money on its BEVs ,it made money on ICE Pickups and SUVs, almost the same story with GM, how they survive in the transition to BEVs will be interesting, of course there's always the TAXPAYER to bail them out.🤔

@@MooseOnEarth The Tesla vision thing is a false equivalency. We know for sure Tesla was saving money in that switch. From a cost perspective it made perfect sense. From a PR (and potentially safety) perspective, it made less sense. Munro can only analyze what they think something will cost in terms of parts, materials or labor. They arnt in the business of making a judgement call of whether it also makes sense from a PR perspective. Munro also promotes attachment methods that are less user-serviceable over traditional bolts and screws. Is it better to drive up cost to make something the owner can take apart in minute detail? Or does it make more sense to just sell them a more expensive unrepairable replacement module? Also, Munro has a pretty good idea what things cost because theyve worked in the industry for decades and know what things cost to their clients. And they DO know when parts are made in China because they know who the common suppliers are and where they do their manufacturing. And all of those suppliers have catalogs filled with prices. Its not magic, its what they do.

​@@patreekotime4578 Much of the cost for Tesla Vision is in software development, software maintenance, data collection, data analysis, AI programming and training, datacenter operations, all the staff around that, and the Autopilot hardware in the car. AFAIK, Munro never accounted for the software and services side, because you cannot tear that down, weigh it on a scale, and put nice little labels on it. They have a serious blind spot in firmware, software (including all processes around it) and digital services and will likely underestimate or overestimate there. Apart from that: Munro can only have cost models for established parts and established processes in manufacturing for the past. There are many things that have not even been done for decades: CFK bodies in volume production cars (think BMW i3), 6000-9000t die casting (think IDRA and Tesla), large-scale Li-ion battery production (be it prismatic blades or cylindrical cells with part-dry electrolytes), ADAS. In addition, all fixed cost (even if there was an estimate) must be allocated to the actual units really produced. This number however will depend on production volume, which will depend on sales, which will depend on pricing and rebates and competition, finally depending on offers and demand. From my point of view, Munro would need a kind of dynamic predictive world economic model including labour rates, tariffs, customs, contracts, energy prices (oil, gas, electricity), chip shortage, supply chain issues, scrap rates, maintenance contracts, exchange rates, interest rates, and so on. I believe, that Munro does a good job at estimating likely costs based on hardware alone for some point in time in the *past*, but I remain sceptic, whenever they claim, they could do so for an entire car and entire car business with high accuracy in the *future*.

I'll be there.

Thanks, Walker did a great job on his first time in front of the camera.

I agree absolutely. Better than those shown by the CEO and VP of Lucid. Cory / Walker presentation was similar but more detailed and answered everything about Lucid's motors. The comment about relative moving parts is also excellent. But hub wheel motors have zero. The moving parts are not in contact at all, separated by air gaps, no need for any lubrication. Relative may not be appropriate, should be contacting/sliding/rubbing moving parts.

We keep it real and raw like Sandy

I doubt it. Tesla fan boys can be pretty closed minded. Pretty sure Elon is taking notes.

Why would someone be a fan of Tesla? By what I see and hear it’s the first principle approach and the tech. If someone does it better I become a fan of them too

Tesla is full of geniuses, but they can't achieve ALL the firsts and greatests. They do, however, put together an impressive array of great innovations that no others can both match and implement at scale and low cost. There will be things like this motor which rise above Tesla quality- everyone can be your teacher!

@@jamesengland7461 👏👏👏

@Mr C exactly. Elon isn't close minded.

Thanks for watching, Michal!

Doesn't have carbon fibre so probably 50% cheaper

@@NyashaM do you really think that? I mean, do you think the lucid motor is cheaper than the Tesla plaid motor? I can’t imagine that.

re: "Maybe a hint in percentage or so" "NO INFO FOR YOU...!!!" (Soup Nazi voice) look mister you just "come off the dime" and buy yourself a report like the rest of us. Texas Ranger's got himself a baby, and as they say "baby needs a new pair of shoes", possibly even a "Rollie"...? hey the kid might be "stylish", you don't know. 😁

@@cybergigafactory yes, looking at size and the materials used, it looks like Lucid motors may be half as costly of Plaid.

@@GreenDriveIndia as I know, the smaller something with the same power is, the more expensive it is. But maybe the materials could be such a great difference that it is cheaper but I doubt it. I would like if @munrolive would tell us, which of these two is the cheaper one.

To be fair, Lucid had something very similar probably 5 or 8 years ago already. It's less about technology, and more about willingness to put in the engineering and, to an extent, cost, to achieve ideal solutions. Many posh EV SUVs have nu frunk but the Lucid Air which is a sleek Sedan, gets 280 litres worth. That's strictly because they CARED to do it. Not easy, but doable, and only commitment to offer customers value will do so. They flunk where almost everyone does: no wagon. By now, it's a super underserved LARGE demographic being forced into sedans they don't want, or kept out of EVs because they ahve an actual life to run, only place and budget for one, car, etc. Real life realities of motoring.