Shaunte Tench

"I like some of these streamlined aesthetics, kind of goes back to this Porsche thing," Jenkins said [ in Part 1, Jenkins refers to his favorite car designs of all time ]. "If you think about the 356, 911, Porsche 928—I just love that car, with all the glass, it’s such a cool car, it’s so modern. When I think about Lucid Air, it is this streamlined, aircraft, it’s not based on these hard lines or facets. It’s meant to be super clean and elegant. And to me, those cars age really we Just to get the hypercar performance numbers out of the way, Lucid claims the top-spec Air will have over 1,000 horsepower, all-wheel drive, a minuscule 0.21 coefficient of drag, and that it can achieve a top speed of over 200 miles per hour in production form. All with an estimated industry-best range of 517 mi Everyone in the automotive industry knows that electrification is the way of the future. Just look at the Ford Mustang Mach-E with 1,400 horsepower screaming through some drifts or Elon Musk's Tesla models as they dominate drag strips. Lucid's VP of Design Derek Jenkins even said that the Saudi Monetary Wealth Fund is hedging its bets with a $1 billion investment into the EV market, a serious sign of the changing times. Now, Chevrolet has announced a new pilot program for a potential electric conversion crate engine that will be revealed for the first time in a restomodded K5 Blazer at the upcoming virtual SEMA360 eve Having covered most of the inspiration and background that went into the Air's evolution from 2015 onward, the conversation turned to what role Lucid might play in changing the world's perspective on what a luxury sedan can be—and should "We really approached it like the components are miniaturized, we pushed them away from the occupants, maximized interior space. That became an immediate opportunity. And then keeping the outside compact, agile, and sporty so it’s still like a sport sedan on the outside, full-sized luxury on the inside, with hypercar performance—and the cargo capacity of an SUV. So you have this really unique combination of attributes that doesn’t exist in the marketplace tod Tesla as a brand didn't get to where it is by making distinctly average vehicles, and it is indeed true that they're the industry standard when it comes to electric technology. But it's a fallacy to assume the Tesla aesthetic isn't part of their appeal. The simple, elegant design is all part of the brand. Polestar, therefore, have done exactly the right thing by making sure the design is also on point. On this evidence, they have a worthy challenger to Telsa's Model 3. Not bad for a company that's only been in the game since 2 But getting to the production model definitely took some time. With core concepts in mind, Jenkins said, "We really focused, from that point, building this brand around those attributes, building a core DNA to the brand. And then that, of course, leads to actually designing the car and building an aesthet Volvo spinoff Polestar sure has its newest product making the rounds these days. Last month, Matt Farah of The Smoking Tire got a chance to drive a Polestar 2 around Malibu —where he was passed by another tester doing the very same thing in an identical car. Now, the Polestar 2 has made its way northward to Canada, where the YouTube channel Throttle House has pitted it in a compare-and-contrast against its main competitor, the established Tesla Model 3. Farah came away from his Polestar test drive incredibly impressed, thinking the car was a significant improvement over the Model 3, but he's only one data point. Now, we've got a pair of testers putting the two (relatively) affordable EVs head to h The first thing to establish is that, if electric cars are going to have a hope of resonating and becoming more ubiquitous in society, the pricetags will surely have to be slashed. The original Polestar was $140,000, understandable given its tech specs, but hardly accessible to most consumers. The Polestar 2 however, is a step in the right direction, coming in at a more than reasonable $59,000 . Future incarnations are also likely to be open to modifications, which could reduce the fee further for stripped-back models. While it's true that the Polestar 2 somewhat lags behind the Model 3 in terms of driving range, in every other department it's a worthy challenger - making the pricetag a more than respectable In 2015, Jenkins told me, he met Peter Rawlinson, the former Chief Engineer who served under Musk on the Tesla Model S. "I had watched the EV transition from afar, with a lot of friends working at Tesla," Jenkins said. "The opportunity with Lucid came along and Suggested Website I took the opportunity. And I’ve been here pushing like crazy ever sin This 1977 K5 Blazer has received a conversion to an entirely electric drivetrain, replacing its original 400ci V8, which produced an anemic 175 horsepower from the factory that was routed through a three-speed automatic. Now, under the hood lurks a Bolt EV motor, providing 200 ponies and 266 lb-ft of torque to a four-speed automatic. The transfer case, driveshaft, and axles remain in factory f