Lucid Motors

Lucid was founded in 2007 under the name Atieva and originally focused on building electric vehicle batteries and powertrains for other vehicle manufacturers.[5]

Some of Lucid's 500 employees as of 2016 had previously worked at other car companies such as Tesla and Mazda, including Peter Rawlinson, the former VP of Engineering at Tesla,[3] and Derek Jenkins, the former Head of Design at Mazda North America Operations.[6] The company has seen investments from Tsing Capital, Mitsui, Venrock, JAFCO, and others,[6][7] providing an estimated US$131 million by 2016.[8] Venrock, Mitsui, and JAFCO are still current investors in the company.[9]

The company rebranded to Lucid Motors in October 2016 and officially announced its intent to develop an all-electric, high-performance luxury vehicle.[5]

On November 29, 2016, state and company officials announced the planned construction of Lucid's US$700 million manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, which was projected to employ up to 2,000 workers by the mid-2020s,[10][11][12] initially building 20,000 cars and expanding up to 130,000 cars per year. The factory was then to be designed to support a maximum capacity of 380,000 cars per year.[13] As of November 2016, the company had planned to break ground in 2017, and have cars in production by early 2019.[14]

On September 17, 2018, Lucid Motors announced that they were in talks with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia for a funding valued at over $1 billion.[15][16] The investment was completed in April 2019.[17] The investment will fund: the final engineering and testing of the Lucid Air model; the first-phase construction of its manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Arizona;[16] the commercial production of the Lucid Air; and Lucid's worldwide retail strategy, beginning in North America.[15][16][18] Construction of the plant began in late 2019.[19]

Lucid mainly developed battery technology in its early years, but began development of its first car in 2014.[7]

The Lucid Air will debut with a 900V+ electrical architecture, custom lithium-ion battery cells.[27]

Lucid's car uses the 2170[6] standard for its lithium-ion battery[28] cells, and supply agreements have been signed with both Samsung SDI[29] and LG Chem.[30]

Lucid has designed, developed, manufactured and supplied battery packs for all race teams in the 2018–19 Formula E season,[31] and will continue to do so for the 2019–20 season,[3] in collaboration with McLaren Applied Technologies and Sony.[32][33] The Formula E specification[34] calls for a battery weight of 250 kg (550 lb), 54 kWh energy, and peak power of up to 250 kW.[35]

In December of 2019, Lucid broke ground on a factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, the first greenfield facility for EV manufacturing in the United States.[39] On December 1, 2020, Lucid completed factory construction, dubbed AMP-1, and "aims to ramp up to 400,000 electric cars per year."[40]

The $700 million facility is expected to begin producing the Lucid Air by Spring 2021. The initial phase includes an initial 999,000 square feet, but Lucid has intentions to expand this to 5.1 million square feet by 2028. Phase 2 of construction is expected to begin at some point in early 2021. Lucid also wishes to begin producing their SUV, currently referred to as "Project Gravity", at this same facility by 2023. The land upon which this facility is built is not owned by Lucid, but rather by Pinal County, who will be leasing the 500-acre plot to Lucid. Pinal County plans to relinquish ownership of the land to Lucid in the future. The land was bought by Pinal County for $29.94 million, which was financed by issuing bonds. Lucid will pay annual rent of $1.8 million. [41]

• CNET, Lucid Motors first car appearance in LA Auto Show