Lucid Electric Vehicle is working on the Lucid Air, a high-quality electric sedan, reminiscent of the Tesla Model S, and it is scheduled to officially unveil the car in September, And it starts selling next year.
Although the American company does not like to call the "Tesla killer" the new car, it is difficult to avoid comparison, especially after the company collected a billion dollars from Saudi Arabia two years ago to compete with Tesla.
One area in which Lucid looks to differentiate herself from her more established electric competitor; It is the system of advanced driver assistance called "Dream Drive", which the company hopes to compete with "Tesla's Autopilot" or the automated driver.
Tesla struggled to achieve Elon Musk's ambitious goals of "Tesla Auto Pilot" technology; Musk has ruled out using "Lidar", a sensor widely used by companies trying to develop fully driverless cars.
"Anyone who relies on lead is doomed to failure," Musk said at an event last year to showcase Tesla's progress in self-driving technology.
Musk believes that cameras and radar will be sufficient to achieve full autonomy, and that the "lead" is a crutch that diverts companies from pursuing more fundamental breakthroughs.
Lucid disagrees with this approach, and the company announced this week that its first car would have a long-range and precision "Lidar" sensor. The company hopes that the new vehicle will help make Dream Drive technology a leader in the industry.
When the company launches the "Lucid Air" car next year, it is expected that it will have the feature of adaptive control of the stability of speed and positioning capabilities in the path designated for it on the street, which had been "Auto Pilot" for many years. Initially, the car will not have some of the more advanced features of Auto Pilot, such as automatic lane change.
Lucid Air will have a driver facing camera, and when the driver assistance feature is active, the car will monitor the driver’s eyes to make sure they are focusing on the road, and if the driver looks away for a long time, the car will issue a warning.
Lucid also has 5 radars (while Tesla cars only have one front radar), they provide 360 ° coverage. This should make Lucide's traffic alert feature more powerful.
Lidar technology can help Dream Drive better drive driving than Tesla automated driver technology to avoid collision.
It is reported that two Tesla drivers were killed after the driver failed to respond quickly enough to avoid collision. A third died when his car hit a concrete barrier. Many other Tesla owners have suffered non-fatal accidents when the robot drove them to crash into parked vehicles.
This problem is not limited to Tesla; Radar-dependent "ADAS" systems usually ignore fixed objects because the radar lacks the accuracy to distinguish a stationary vehicle in the lane of a vehicle parked by the road or a metal sign hanging over it. Detection of images using cameras depends on machine learning algorithms that can be confused in unusual situations.
Lucid will not be the only car company to sell high-quality "LED" sensors in the next few years, as Volvo announced in May that it would start shipping high-quality "LED" from Luminar in 2022.
Cars may not need such a powerful technology to get basic ADAS functionality, but the sensor can give these companies more space. Lucid hopes to add more sophisticated capabilities by updating the program over the next few years.
The upgrade will also allow drivers to keep their hands out of the steering wheel in certain conditions, relying on eye tracking technology.
Will Lucid be able to compete with Tesla by focusing more on safety than on self-driving? Or does the table man turn his opponent by developing a fully effective and safe self-driving system?