Bernard Tse

Bernard Tse is a veteran power electronics engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Atieva in 2007. With deep expertise in battery chemistry and energy storage systems, Tse provided the foundational technical vision for the company's early focus on stationary battery storage and advanced battery management systems. His engineering acumen and understanding of the electrical grid's limitations laid the groundwork for the company's eventual pivot to electric vehicle powertrains.

Bernard Tse stands as a crucial, foundational figure in the genesis of the Lucid Group empire, bringing essential technical expertise and a deep understanding of power electronics to the partnership that would eventually revolutionize the automotive industry. As a veteran engineer with extensive experience in battery chemistry and energy storage, Tse possessed a unique insight into the fundamental bottlenecks of the renewable energy transition. In 2007, recognizing the immense potential of advanced lithium-ion technology, he co-founded Atieva with the initial vision of commercializing stationary battery storage systems for the electrical grid. The early years of the company were defined by the grueling realities of hardware startups: the constant struggle to secure venture capital, the intense competition from established Asian battery manufacturers, and the technical nightmare of scaling cell production. Tse's leadership during this formative period was characterized by a relentless focus on the underlying chemistry and the sophisticated software required to manage complex battery arrays. He established rigorous standards for the battery management systems, ensuring that the company's technology could handle the extreme thermal and electrical loads required for grid-scale storage. While the company initially operated as a B2B component supplier, it was Tse's willingness to explore adjacent applications of their battery technology that allowed the business to survive the intense competition of the early clean-tech boom. Although Tse eventually transitioned to a different role within the company as it pivoted toward automotive manufacturing, his foundational work in establishing the core battery management and power electronics infrastructure provided the essential technological bedrock upon which the Lucid Air's industry-leading range and efficiency would eventually be built. His legacy is not just in the physical battery packs the company produced, but in the entrepreneurial resilience and electrical engineering mastery that allowed the startup to evolve from a grid-storage concept into a global automotive powerhouse.