The winners of AUTO Connected Car News Tech CARS Awards show some fascinating trends in the connected car industry. When we look at the nominees and the winners in each category we can see trends about what people believe to be important for connected cars. We can also see how good publicity and bad publicity change the images of each company nominated.
A new category this year is for “Luxury Electric Car from a New Automaker.” A quote from one of our readers showed a very important perception of what is going on in the market. Because Chinese investors have heavily invested in this area and there have been many foibles associated with these companies trying to make it in the United States, their mistakes are overshadowing whether the automobiles are well-designed or worthwhile
The media likes to report on what goes wrong and unfortunately there was a major snafu with the unveiling of the Le Eco car where the car crashed on its way to San Francisco. There are problems with financing with the Faraday Future plant in Nevada and all of these affected the voting.
A comment from one of our readers was really helpful to understand car buying first impressions, consumers have to like the name of the vehicle. He voted for, Karma Revero because he liked the name. Karma Revero came in second place.
Karma Revero was formerly the Karma Fisker which had a very good start off but was not continue operation. A unique feature for the Karma Revero is that it has solar panels on its roof which can get the car to go 1.5 miles. Wanxiang Motors from China bought the assets of Fisker Karma and researched for two years how to improve the vehicles. The company has an 11 year lease in Moreno Valley, California. The car is expected in late in 2017 and is being shown cities where they will be sold and at auto shows such as the Philadelphia show. Karma’s vision is to inspire. To offer timeless design with technology that creates an ecologically sensitive product; so distinct that it forms an emotional connection between buyer and brand. They have had special events and mostly good media attention.
Lucid Air is a case where most of the information about the company is positive. It started out as a Ateiva to make better batteries. Their marketing and presentations have been good. Lucid will launch its first car, the Lucid Air, with a complete sensor set for autonomous driving from the start including camera, radar and LiDAR sensors. Mobileye was chosen to provide the primary computing platform, full 8-camera surround view processing, sensor fusion software and Road Experience Management (REM). The vehicle‘s battery packs will use a new lithium-ion battery cell developed by the Samsung SDI that is expected to have “break-through” battery life. The car will “executive seating” with plush reclining rear seats that offer comfort and legroom like first-class airline seats. A 29-speaker audio system offer active noise cancellation to make sure the passengers have peace and quiet.
The Lucid Air is has been called “a private jet on wheels,” by chief technology officer Peter Rawlinson. The Lucid Air has a thousand horsepower motor. The buyer for this car is more of a classic Mercedes type. The company was founded in 2007 and was backed China Environmental fund, Japanese investment firm Jafco Life Science and Silicon Valley VC Venrock. It is interesting to note that Lucid’s Chief Technology officer Rawlinson was the chief engineer for the Tesla Model S and also worked for Audi, Volkswagen and Mazda.
Lucid claims to be a new kind of luxury experience and will travel from to 0 to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds. The Lucid Air is designed in one of the most automotive focused places in the world–California . The Lucid Air gets 12% more if percent efficiency out of the electric powertrain because of artificial intelligence to optimize the car’s Cooling .The Lucid Air is expected to sell for $160,000.
So far there has been no negative publicity for this vehicle. The Lucid Motors Factory will be based in Chandler Arizona which will bodes well if there are any excise taxes placed on imported vehicles.
Lucid Air wins AUTO Connected Car News’ Tech CARS Award for Best New Luxury EV, BHEV, Hybrid from a New Automaker with 29% of the vote.
The Lucid team recently took alpha development prototypes to northern Minnesota for winter testing, to hone many vehicle attributes. Temperatures as low as -18F (-28C) are tough on just about every element of a vehicle. This extreme environment allows enginneers to build upon extensive simulations and climate chamber development, and to perform grueling real-world cold-driving testing and validation of our powertrain, battery, thermal, body, and chassis systems. The Lucid Air was able to effortlessly handle a wide variety of road conditions and use cases, even at -18F in Minnesota, wrote David Lickfold, Engineering Manager, Steering Systems and Chassis Digital Dynamics.
When we just look at the names of the cars if we were voting for the best name we would also rate Lucid Air as first followed by Karma Revero and then the name Faraday Future gets very confusing if you don’t know who Faraday was and Le Eco is sort of French but not really so we know it’s Eco but we don’t know much about it. Elon Musk used Nikola Tesla’s name to create a feeling of advanced science features and also Tesla was known for his work with electricity.
According to Jalopnik, Faraday Future bought the domain for FF.com from Bank of America for 1.5 million dollars and now is involved in a lawsuit from broker who was negotiating the deal. Faraday Future is cutting back on the number of cars it plans to produce and size of its factory. Lucid Air with its slow approach and advanced technology show great promise which is why it we believe it garnered the most votes.
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