Tesla's Ex Chief Engineer is Taking on Elon Musk

**Lucid Motors Revolutionizes Electric Vehicles with High-Voltage Design Architecture**

In an industry where electric vehicles (EVs) are constantly evolving, Lucid Motors is pushing the boundaries of innovation with its high-voltage design architecture. By leveraging this technology, they've been able to create a vehicle that not only offers exceptional range but also unparalleled efficiency.

The secret to Lucid's success lies in their use of 22 battery modules, each producing 42 volts for a total of 924 volts and weighing approximately 1100 pounds. This configuration allows for a complete pack that weighs just over 1 ton, yet provides an impressive 517 miles on a full charge – equivalent to around 4.6 miles per kilowatt hour.

This high-voltage design is inspired by the technology used in Formula E, where teams are constantly seeking ways to improve efficiency and range. By stripping away unnecessary complexity and focusing on mechanical engineering, Lucid's team has developed a system that allows for smaller, lighter batteries – a crucial aspect of EV development.

The benefits of this approach extend beyond just battery size and weight. With high-voltage systems, the inverter and electronics controlling the motor become more efficient, which is essential for electric vehicles. The heart of any electric vehicle's electrical system is the power inverter, which converts direct current from the battery to alternating current, the type required by most motors.

Lucid's use of Silicon carbide MOSFETs, specifically designed for high-voltage applications, has revolutionized the way they approach this challenge. These advanced components allow the inverter to operate more efficiently, making it possible to achieve unparalleled range and performance.

"I could go deep into the nerd details," says an insider, "but let's just say that these little suckers are better." The result of years of research and development is a vehicle that truly sets a new standard for electric vehicles. With its exceptional range, impressive acceleration, and cutting-edge technology, the Lucid air is poised to leave competitors in its wake.

As we look to the future of the automotive industry, it's clear that battles between manufacturers like Lucid and Tesla will only serve to drive innovation forward. With each new generation of electric vehicles, we can expect even more impressive technologies and designs to emerge. One thing is certain, however: this competition is only going to be good for consumers.

**Special Thanks**

We'd like to extend our gratitude to Lucid Motors for bringing us down to meet their CEO and sharing their vision with us. It's a rare opportunity for fans of electric vehicles to learn from the minds behind some of the most advanced EVs on the market.

Stay tuned for more episodes of Bumper to Bumper, where we delve into the world of cars, technology, and innovation. Follow us on Instagram at @donutmedia and me, Jeremiah Burton, on my personal account. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more content like this!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- About a month ago,Lucid Automotive released theirnew luxury four door sedanto the world, the Lucid Airwith the 517 mile range.The air is the longestrange EV in the world.And the day before they launched the air,Mr. Elan Musk himself tooka jab at the CEO of Lucid,his own former chief engineerof the model S program,Peter Rawlinson.Elan said that Peter left Teslajust when things got tough,adding that he didn't makeany contributions to thepowertrain, the batteryor the electronics.I find all that pretty interesting.So I went straight tothe source and spoke withPeter Rawlinson in person.And what I've found out isthat it's Lucid's powertrain,battery and electronics thatset them apart from Tesla.And today we're going tofigure out how they did it.Let's go.(upbeat music)Thanks to Skillshare forsponsoring today's episode ofBumper to Bumper.And I think we can all agreeit's been a weird year.So I've been trying out a bunchof new creative activitiesto break up my day.And Skillshare has made iteasy to try and learn all thesenew things.Does anyone else see thispiece of garbage over here?I've also been learning to act.Now's the time to learn.Skillshare is an online learningcommunity for creatives,with thousands of classes in illustration,photography, film.- Cut!Actor Jerry, baby, you forgotthe most important part.And that's at Skillshare cost $10 a month.I mean, look at me.I took a class in low budgetfilmmaking by Maddie Brown,and I turned out to bea pretty good director.Wow, Thanks director Jerry.Don't mentioned it actor Jerry.And better yet the firstthousand of you to clickthe link in the descriptionbelow and sign up,get two free months of premiumservice, absolutely free.So head on over to skillshare.comor click the link in the description.Okay people back to B to B, let's go.So first off, I know a lotof electric car technologyand the lingo that goes withit can be foreign to people.So I'm going to be usingthe model S to help,better understand andappreciate what Lucid is doing.Now having said that, thereis no one magic componenton the air that helps itachieve its 517 mile range.It's a combination ofadvancing the technologyin multiple departments.And one of the less obviousparts of the air that helpsit go further is the motors.Now there's a variety ofelectric motors out there,but Lucid went with a permanentmagnet, synchronous motor,and they did that becausethey're super efficient comparedto, say, the moretraditional induction motor.And that's what Tesla was using up untilthe model three came out.Now, there are two partsto all electric motors.You've got a Stator, thatis the stationary partof the motor.And then you have the rotor.That's the part thatrotates and produces torqueto move your wheels.And you have coils made outof a conductive wire runningthrough the state or housing.And when current from abattery is supplied to them,those coils produce a magnetic field.And we phase that currentgoing into the coils,you create a rotating magnetic field.And that is basically theprinciple that allows all theseelectric motors to work.Now, with a permanentmagnet synchronous motorits rotor has permanentmagnets affixed to it.So the rotating magnetic fieldof the stator will interactwith the permanent magnets on the rotor.It's like a donkey carrot situation.To get the donkey movingyou gotta dangle that carrotjust ahead of him.And then once he getsrunning, you let him eat it,and now he's on full sprint.So when a permanent magnet starts off,the magnets on the rotor arejust behind the magnetic field,created by the courts.Then once they lock intoplace, they become synchronous.Hence the name permanentmagnet, synchronous motor,and this is a super efficienttype of electric motor.One of the reasons they aremore efficient is because theyhave less loss due toresistance compared toan induction motor.Induction motors, theydon't have permanent magnetson their rotors.They use coils that areinduced by the magnetic fieldof the stator.And because there'smore wires in the motor,there's more resistance.And when you have moreresistance, you have more heat.And when you have more heat,your motors are less efficient.Not only are the Lucidair motors more efficient,they have a smaller form factor.So in fact, because theytake up such little space,they can combine theinverter, the transmission,the differential, and themotor into a single package.That's right under 164 pounds.Now I weigh 185 pounds so justimagine, take my arms off.They're pretty weak;they're about 10 pounds eachso that's right about 165 pounds.And squish me down into aboutthis size of a roller bagthat you could carry on a flight.That's how tiny they are; pretty small.Now each drive unit on theLucid produces 670 horsepowerwith a density at around23 horsepower per liter.Because these units are sosmall, they have the abilityto put three of them insidethe chassis of the air,but permanent magnetmotors, they're nothing new,they've been around for awhile.Lucid pushed the technologyto increase their efficiencyeven more by cooling downthe windings in the Stator.Like I mentioned, the wirescarrying current in the motors,they get hot and a hilarious thing happenswhen you heat up a wire,the resistance in that wirealso increases and a greaterresistance mean it'sharder for those electronsto do their job; it reduces efficiency.When we apply a voltage toa copper wire, for example,the electrons move through the wireand that's called current.Now, if we look at just a single electron,as it moves through the wire,each time it hits a copperion, it loses energy.And this energy is transferredto that ion it just hit,causing the ion to vibrate.If we multiply this bythe billions of electrons,hitting those billions of ions,those vibrating ions makeit hard for the electronsto flow through it.A byproduct of all thoseions vibrating is heat.So the more current and morevibrations, which is one heat,the harder it is forelectrons to pass through,that's more resistance.And you can think of it like this, okay?You're in the club and you wantto get from the VIP sectionto the dance floor, got DJ Philippe.He's got a shaggy tune on,so naturally, no one's on the dance floor.It's an easy stroll foryou to get out there.But once you get on thefloor, DJ Phil switches it up,plays some Juvenile Back That Ass Up.So naturally the dance floor gets crowded.The DJ, he turned up the heat.You look over at your bros over at BFPand you tell 'em to comeon over, but it's hard now.There's a ton of asses vibrating,making it pretty difficultfor them to push through.That is exactly what ishappening in that copper wire.So Lucid, they did something cool.They developed a specialway to cool the partthat gets the hottestand that's the coils.And there are a few ways youcan cool electric motors.You can just wrap the motor insome sort of cooling jacket.You can put passages insidethe metal housing and pumpcooling through that,but no one has been ableto do what Lucid does.They developed an axial jetcooling manifold that butts upto the copper wire windingsand allows for an almost directcontact to the wire.And by cooling the wiresas directly as possible,they're able to reduce the amount of heat,thereby decreasing the resistanceand the wire increasing their efficiency,but permanent magnets,they're not perfect.They're not like Zach Jobe andhis perfect baby blue eyes.They got a couple of little flaws,and one of them is called cogging torque.A cogging torque is the resistanceof the motor when you'renot putting power to it.If you take an inductionmotor and you spin it by hand,it'll freely spin for a long time,because there are no permanentmagnets interacting with theiron Stator.Doing the same experimentwith a permanent magnet motor,and the rotor will quickly come to a stop.That is what's called cogging torque.So engineers, they get fancy.And they try to battle this phenomena.They use a combo of inductionmotors in PM motors to get thebest of both worlds interms of performanceand energy efficiency.But what Lucid did was tacklethe problem at the source.They developed a permanentmagnet motor with very littlecogging torque; about a thirdof what you'd normally seein a similar design.So how did they do that?Well, Peter Rawlinson wouldn't tell me.we're buds and all, but he'sgot to keep his secrets,You know, I've got to keep mine.You better tell me, Pete!So if they gain so muchefficiency in the motors, well,what about the part of thecar that most people associatebeing able to go furtheron a single charge?The battery, a quick and dirtyway to increase your rangewould be to simply add more batteries.Peter calls it dumbrange because it's dumbto add more weight, but Lucidhas a bunch of smarties,so they focused on taking the technologyand making it more efficient.And one of the ways theydid that was by usinga high voltage battery.Now, quick little refresher tohelp remember the differencebetween voltage and current andhow it relates to that poweris look at water in a pipe.A voltage is likepressure that pushes waterthrough the pipe.And current on the other hand,that's the electrical flow.And in our water pipe analogy,it's related to the diameter of the pipe.The larger the diameter,the more water can flow.So you can have a smallpipe with a lot of pressure,or a large pipe with alittle bit of pressure.Lucid took advantage of thisbecause when you use largervoltages to deliver thesame amount of power,you need less current.You use more pressure in a smaller pipe.A Tesla in their long rangemodel S uses a batterythat's 350 volts.So if they were to try anddeliver the same amount of poweras Lucid, they would haveto have almost three timesas much current.And like when we talk about the motors,the more current you have, themore losses you're incurred,double the current, youmultiply your losses by four,it's called I squared R losses.And with this high voltagedesign architecture,it means they can use lower currents,which means smaller cables and wires,which means less resistance,less massive material,which in the end of the dayequals a more efficient vehicle.A Lucid uses 22 batterymodules to make a complete packfor the air.Each module produces 42 voltsfor a sum total of 924 volts,and a package that weighsjust about 1100 pounds.Each module makes a smudgeover five kilowatt hours.And when you get 22 of them,you get your 113 kilowatt hour battery.And this is the batteryconfiguration that gets you 517miles on a full charge,which comes out to around4.6 miles per kilowatt hour.That's like miles pergallon in the EV worldThis is how Lucid stuffacts up to a bunch of EVsout there right now.And as you can see, it topsthe chart at maximizing rangewith its high voltagebattery configuration.This technology is strippedright from Formula E.When you buy a Lucid, you'regetting formula E battery tech.All 24 cars on the gridrun a Lucid battery packmade right here in the good old USA atLucid's headquarters in Silicon Valley.Peter told me that the batterypack on the Lucid is 85%mechanical engineeringproblem and a 15% electricalengineering problem.So instead of focusing ondeveloping a new lithium ionchemistry to prove efficiency,they focused on designing apack in a mechanical sensethat allows for it to besmaller and therefore lighter.But one of the main reasonsfor Lucid using a high voltagesystem is greater efficiencyof the inverter and theelectronics that control the motor.Now at the heart of allthese moving electrons isthe power inverter.And an inverter, itdoes a bunch of things,but its main function isto turn direct currentinto alternating current.The type of current usedto power your house,that's alternating current andthat's the type of current,the motors in the Lucidair need to operate.And it's called alternatingcurrent because the flow ofelectricity alternates direction.Now the battery on the other hand,it supplies direct current,the type of current thatruns your Xbox controlleror power drill.Direct current, it onlyflows in one direction.So the inverter can take directcurrent from the battery andturn it into alternating currentby switching the current onand off really, really fast,faster than humanly possible.And the specific electricalpieces responsible for doingall that are these; they'recalled Silicon carbide MOSFETs.Now inside the Lucid airare a bunch of these Siliconcarbide MOSFETs working togetherto take that 900 plus voltsfrom the battery andsupply it to the motors.And more traditional MOSFETsare just made out of siliconand aren't all that great orefficient under high voltages.But Silicon carbide, man,you freaking loves voltage.Like I love French toast andsome smart person out there wasable to figure out that it'sbetter than plain old Siliconfor high voltage applications.It's not a coincidence thatthis is why Lucid uses them intheir inverter.Now I could go Def con nerdstage three right now and talkabout breakdown fieldand thermal conductivityand wider band gap.But that might bore theabsolute (beep) out of you.So I'll just say that theselittle suckers are better.I did a lot of research onthem and unless you're reallyinto MOSFETs, I'll spareyou the nerdy detailsand summarize it.They allowed the inverterto operate more efficiently.I know I'm a broken record here,but that's all that Lucid caresabout is being as efficientas possible, and they havedone that with the Lucid air.Now, just yesterday fromus filming this episode,Tesla had their shareholdersmeeting and they came outwith a new model S plaid sayingthat it's going to have arange of 520 miles, it'sgoing to go 200 miles an hour.It's going to do the quartermile in less than nine seconds.So who knows what's tocome with all of this,but I do know this.Them battling it out is onlygoing to be good for us.Thank you guys so muchfor watching this episodeof Bumper to Bumper.Thanks for Lucid for bringingus down and having the CEO.I got to talk to the CEO of a car company.Dude, that was crazy.Not everyone gets to do that.So thank you guys so much.Follow us here at donut onInstagram at donut media.Follow me at Jeremiah Burton.Thank you guys so much for watching.We'll be back next week.Bye for now.