Lucid Motors is launching three new midsize battery-electric vehicles, expanding its retail presence in the US, Europe, and the Middle East, planning an aggressive push into robotaxis (pictured above), and is eager to conquest Tesla customers when they need to replace their Model S and X EVs.Designed to be affordable (starting below $50,000) and selling at much higher volumes than the current Air sedan and Gravity SUV, the new midsize vehicles will be called Cosmos and Earth, while the third vehicle will be named later, company officials disclosed this morning during a meeting with investors in New York City. Production of the Cosmos is slated for late 2026, with Earth to follow a year later. The midsize vehicles will use a new electric drive unit, named Atlas, which Lucid said has 30 percent fewer parts and has a 37 percent cost advantage over the Zeus motors in the Air and Gravity. Atlas drive units will be commonized for packaging at the front and rear, with only changes to the rotor and stator.The Cosmos – and likely the two others – will use an all-new battery pack that requires a manufacturing footprint that is 40 percent smaller than what's necessary for the Air and Gravity batteries, and requiring half the labor and overhead expense. 69 kWh Battery = 300 Miles Lucid The company did not disclose the actual size of the new battery but said the Cosmos needs 69 kilowatt-hours of battery capacity to drive 300 miles. "This is not our overall range," Chief Engineer Zach Walker said as he showed a slide saying similar US, German, and Chinese EVs need larger and more expensive batteries to drive the same 300 miles.Radical efficiency leads to product superiority, because we can give the customer more for less," Walker said. "But it doesn't stop there. Let's keep going."Lucid Beyond the benefits for consumers, Lucid executives say the Lucid Cosmos will deliver best-in-class efficiency for robotaxi applications (Lunar two-seat robotaxi concept pictured above at Investor Day), with up to 4.5 miles per kWh and capable of adding 200 miles of range in 14 minutes. On the software front, the midsize EVs will consolidate functions into three electronic control units, while the Gravity has 12.Walker explains why the new EVs will be software-defined vehicles, benefiting from a 40 percent reduction in wiring harnesses. "It means changing the entire architecture, centralizing as much as you can, into a couple ECUs so that you don't have to go and update the software for tons of things," he said at today's conference. "Make the communications, make the connections. It means replacing components with virtual components, so reducing the amount of parts, but not reducing the customer experience." Targeting 10X More Shoppers Lucid Lucid has not yet said when customers will take delivery of the first new midsize EVs. But the automaker sees these less expensive vehicles reaching 10 times more shoppers than the current accessible market for the Air and Gravity. This means competing not only with Tesla but with mainstream brands. Whether Lucid can compete with the $30,000 starting points for EVs like the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf remains to be seen, but for now the automaker is only talking about a starting price below $50,000.With these three new midsize EVs, Lucid sees the Cosmos appealing to "upscale nurturers" with a median age of 41 who view the vehicle as a "family hub." The Lucid Earth will target "trendsetting achievers" (median age 39) who seek bold, high-tech design. Finally, the EV to be named later will be for "active explorers" (median age 49) who love the outdoors and want to make the most of every journey.Lucid A slide of these three vehicles under tarps suggests the third vehicle is taller and more boxy than the other two, with what appears to be a squared-off liftgate. The Cosmos appears to be the smallest of the three, with a coupe-like rear roofline. From the A-pillar forward, all three vehicles appear to be similar. Production of the Cosmos will begin in the Middle East, then follow in Arizona. Once the Cosmos launches, the Earth will follow about a year later.Lucid executives did not mention the Tesla Model 3 or Model Y as their obvious targets with the midsize EVs, but Erwin Raphael, senior vice president of global revenue, noted the end of production for the Model S and Model X."There's 350,000 of those [Tesla] vehicles in the car park in the United States. We're going to help those people learn about Lucid and learn that they can upgrade... from their Tesla into a Lucid."-Erwin Raphael, Lucid MotorsRaphael said it's already happening. "For people trading in their Tesla Model X, Lucid Air is the number one vehicle they go to, and not by a little bit by a factor of 2x versus their next choice," he said. "We are the obvious choice, and Gravity is following in precisely the same footsteps. Gravity is also the number one choice of customers trading out of a Model X. So we're already there. We're confident that we're going to get more than our fair share of that car park. In order to do that, we have to scale production."