Lucid Motors is still just a few months away from launching its electric SUV, and now the company has announced He says The upcoming car — dubbed Gravity — will feature Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), making an adapter unnecessary.
Lucid announced the news ahead of a planned “Technology and Manufacturing Day” event at its Arizona factory, where the company will talk in more detail about how it designed and built the Gravity. Previously announced It will begin offering adapters for its current electric car, the Air, in 2025 and plans to integrate NACS charging into future vehicles.
Making Gravity as appealing as possible is crucial for Lucid, which has struggled to grow sales of its Air sedan at a time when SUVs dominate North America. The company has repeatedly turned to Saudi Arabia, which it owns, for fresh funding to jump-start production of Gravity. Lucid most recently announced in August that it would receive up to $1.5 billion more from the kingdom.
The integration of NACS into Gravity is another sign of how the auto industry is embracing Tesla’s charging standard.
Tesla first announced its plans to open up the technology — which grants access to the vast Supercharger network — in 2022. Since then, every major automaker and EV startup has announced plans to either offer their customers adapters that will allow their vehicles to connect to the grid, or to build the technology directly into future vehicles.
Rivian, one of Lucid’s closest competitors in the emerging electric vehicle world, announced earlier this year that its upcoming mass-market R2 SUV would come with a NACS port. But that vehicle won’t be ready until 2026. Meanwhile, owners of Rivian’s R1T and R1S pickup trucks will have to use adapters, just like other traditional automakers. That process has been slow, as a recent New York Times article noted. He pointed outfollowing Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s decision to fire nearly all members of the company’s Supercharger team earlier this year amid a broader restructuring.