This article was published on November 30, 2020

Lucid has the most beautiful car configurator I’ve ever seen

This is better than a video game


Lucid has the most beautiful car configurator I’ve ever seen

Buying a car can be quite an exciting affair. The test drives, looking through swatches to pick a paint scheme, browsing pictures of wheels, picking optional add-ons, and oh, that new car smell.

We live in a 21st century world, and an increasing number of cars are being bought online. Sadly, the experience of buying a car from a website just isn’t the same as getting hands on with the real thing.

At least that was the case until now, because the car configurator from Lucid — the Californian EV company setup up by former Tesla engineers — is so goddamn beautiful it comes as close to the real thing I think most of us will ever get.

lucid, air, car, configurator
You can also change the backdrops too. There’s the Golden Gate bridge and the Lucid studio, among others.
lucid, air, car, future, configurator
From the outside, the car looks as life like as the real thing. And you can explore it as you wish, use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out, and click and rotate to spin your view.
ev, lucid, air, car, future
There are white spots on the car, which you can click to make the lights flash, open doors, and explore the car in even more granular detail.
car, lucid, air, future, configurator
You can also explore the interior of the car. The level of detail is outstanding.

The premise is simple, but the execution is just exceptional. Honestly, the pictures don’t do it justice, you need to check it out for yourself.

If you’ve ever played driving sim games like Gran Turismo, Project Cars, or DiRT, the appearance and functionality of the Lucid configurator should feel familiar. If you ask me, this feels and looks better than even the best driving sim “garages.”

[Read: Why this security engineer loves working in infosec]

As it turns out, the configurator was made by ZeroLight, a Newcastle, UK-based company that specializes in this kind of 3D visualization tech.

To bring the Lucid Air to life, ZeroLight has used ray-tracing technology, the same thing that helps AAA games look as realistic as possible. The visualization is powered by a cloud-based system that has more computing power than 6,500 iPhone 11s.

It’s more than just a pretty interactive picture, though. Lucid says that customers who used the 3D configurator spent 10% more on their vehicles than those that used the 2D tick-box configurator.

Indeed, it’s easy to see why. The Lucid car configurator does an amazing job of showing off the vehicle. Just a shame we don’t have smell-o-vision — yet.


SHIFT is brought to you by Polestar. It’s time to accelerate the shift to sustainable mobility. That is why Polestar combines electric driving with cutting-edge design and thrilling performance. Find out how.

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