Automotive Strategy

After Tesla’s 2024 Sales Decline, Luxury EV Giants Lucid and Rivian Bank on SUVs To Take Them To New Heights

By Noah Weidner
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The winds might be turning against electric vehicles, but for these instant-torque machines, it’s business as usual — or rather, bitter competition as usual. Luxury EV staples Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid are speeding into 2025 with new production models — turning the EV market into a Battle of the EV SUVs.

No small fry: Tesla’s sales declined 1.1% in 2024, marking the company’s first decline in 12 years. All is not lost, but to avoid a repeat of that decline in 2025, the EV disruptor will have to fend off challenges from luxury EV-first names like Lucid and Rivian — which are beginning to offer products that threaten Tesla’s differentiated pricing, range, and technology offerings. To start the year, the first front in that defense is all about SUVs.

  • In recent weeks, Lucid began shipping its first-ever SUV, Lucid Gravity, a mid-size boasting a 450-mile range, available to order now for $94.9K — with a base model priced at $79K coming later this year.
  • Rivian is also in the early stages of rolling out its refreshed SUV, the 2025 R1S, which offers up to 410 miles of range and starts at $75.9K.

All About the Y

Those new challengers could create problems for Tesla — even without promising new entrants from legacy automakers like Volvo, Kia, and BMW. But Tesla is responding, banking on its mid-size Model Y SUV to win over international buyers and more cost-sensitive ones.

  • Just in time for Lucid’s big debut, Tesla is rolling out a refreshed 2025 Tesla Model Y, which can achieve 73 more miles (447-mile range) on its top spec than the 2024 model.
  • Only available in Asia for now, the Model Y “Juniper” is expected to roll out in Europe and later the US, where it could retail for just over $60K.

Bitter rivalry: Side-by-side, the Lucid Gravity and Rivian R1S are more similar to Tesla’s full-size Model X. However, with both companies rolling out cheaper base models, the Model Y will still have a handy advantage in the form of cost and range. Hopefully that’ll buy Tesla some time to get that cost down before Lucid launches “SUV War II” with a mid-size of its own in 2028.