He just stepped down from Lucid Motors. But that doesn't stop Peter Rawlinson from criticizing 'most electric cars' as crap.
Many car brands are solving the range problem of electric cars with ever-larger batteries. But that makes most electric cars crap.
At least that's what Peter Rawlinson, who stepped down as director of American Lucid Motors last week, thinks.
He tells Autocar .
In the pursuit of ever more kilometers in electric cars, car brands are going crazy with ever larger battery packs, according to Peter Rawlinson. And that only makes matters worse for electric cars themselves.
– What building an energy-efficient electric car gives you is basically a better car. And that's where we have the problem.
Most electric cars are doing it completely wrong
– If you look at a similar gasoline car that goes maybe 8 kilometers per liter, it is better than the car that goes twice as far because the performance is better.
– Most car enthusiasts want performance. They don't really care how far they can get on a gallon of gas.
Peter Rawlinson also believes that this is why the Lucid Air can impress. According to the now former director, it does not lose performance even though the power gradually disappears from the battery.
– It turns electrons into burnt rubber and can blow everyone away because it's 'fuel efficient'. That's what gives electric cars their performance.
To make the picture even clearer, Peter Rawlinson explains his point by saying that it is equivalent to driving 42 kilometers per liter in a Mercedes S-Class instead of a Volkswagen Golf Bluemotion.
– No one wrote about it when I said three years ago that we want to build cars that can drive 800 kilometers on a single charge. People said I was lying.
– But when it turned out to be true, everyone said I had just stuffed the cars with batteries, says Rawlinson.
It's one thing to think that the former Lucid CEO thinks the entire automotive industry is doing wrong, but it's another to think about how things are actually going in his own business. Or rather, his former business.
Because Lucid is losing money. A terrible amount of money. Most recently, the brand announced that it is actually dreaming of selling spare parts. Read more about it here .
