The Lucid display will be seen at the New York International Auto Show on April 16, 2025.
Daniel DeVries | CNBC
lucid group The company announced Tuesday that it is aiming for a new goal: to become the first automaker to equip its vehicles with advanced self-driving features in the coming years.
The all-electric car maker expects to launch what it calls “mind-off” driving. This basically allows the car to drive itself under normal circumstances without human supervision or intervention, unless there are changes in conditions such as bad weather. This is like having a passenger play a card game or watch TV while driving.
Lucid on Tuesday announced plans to leverage the company. Nvidia’s “Drive AV” platform and a multi-sensor suite including cameras, radar and lidar, or light detection and sensing that allows the vehicle to better “see” its surroundings, will be included in the upcoming system.
Marc Winterhoff, Lucid’s interim CEO, said the company plans to debut the new system “definitely within the next few years,” but declined to say exactly when, other than to say it won’t be in 2026. He said the system is first planned for Lucid’s next mid-size car and will later be rolled out to other models.
“We want to be able to deliver this to our customers within a deadline that I think is very ambitious, but also realistic,” Winterhoff told CNBC. “The main reason I decided to do it ourselves instead of starting from scratch was simply because it was time to bring it to market. … It also costs a lot of money.”
Winterhoff said Nvidia’s technology will be the catalyst for the system, while Lucid plans to actually implement the self-driving technology.
Meanwhile, Winterhoff said Lucid plans to partner with Nvidia to continue enhancing the automation technology in its current vehicles (Air sedan and Gravity SUV).
Lucid provided a teaser image of the upcoming mid-size car behind the current Gravity SUV.
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“This will be a stepping stone,” said Winterhoff, who has been interim CEO since founder Peter Rawlinson stepped down in February.
including many companies, general motors and teslawhich promised to make self-driving personal cars a reality, but failed to deliver. Automakers have invested billions of dollars in recent years to develop self-driving cars, but most have backed away from spending after years of trying to deploy the technology.
Lucid is aiming to launch what the industry calls “Level 4: Advanced Driving Automation.” As defined by SAE International (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers), Level 4 technologies should not require monitoring or human intervention under certain, but not all, conditions.
There are a limited number of Level 4 vehicles currently on U.S. roads. Most notably, alphabetWaymo operates robotaxis in various cities. Lucid says it is the first consumer car to be launched.
Achieving such a system with Lucid would be challenging, especially given its track record in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
By its own admission, the company is not meeting customer expectations. There have been delays in releasing systems that allow hands-free driving, such as those offered by many companies, or that compete with well-known Level 2 technologies such as GM’s Super Cruise and Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD.
Meanwhile, this year is expected to be a record year for EV sales, but demand for all-electric vehicles is expected to decline as federal incentives of up to $7,500 end.
Lucid announced its self-driving technology plans and other initiatives in conjunction with the Nvidia GTC Global Artificial Intelligence Conference this week in Washington, DC.
