Lucid Motors, an Arizona-based EV company, announced a major facility expansion in Casa Grande and an SUV it describes as “the most advanced electric SUV in the world that’s ever been.”
After a sometimes turbulent year, Lucid Motors had a lot to celebrate on Wednesday.
Just a few years after their first car came off the line, the facility expanded and Lucid announced its next move: an SUV.
This is our first look at what’s called phase 2. A quadrupling of the factory.
Just moments after the ribbon was cut, the employees got back to work building Arizona-made electric vehicles in Casa Grande.
Lucid’s newest facility increases its square footage from 800,000 to nearly 4 million.
“Just like Intel is the anchor for chips that brought in TSMC, we’re looking at Lucid as almost being an automotive anchor here in Arizona, a starting point to grow, grow the automotive space, grow tier 1 suppliers, grow the technology going into it. So, for me, where we are located here, it’s absolutely beautiful,” said Steven David, Senior Vice President of Operations at Lucid.
Lucid’s new SUV, named Gravity, touts three rows and goes from 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds.
“It’s going to be the most advanced electric SUV in the world that’s ever been,” Peter Rawlinson, Lucid’s CEO said. “With over 440 miles range.”
Gravity’s exact price is unknown for now and is expected to go on sale sometime by the end of the year.
Lucid has had tough moments in the last year – between layoffs and slower-than-expected production.
When David was asked if Lucid employees feel good about their job security, he said, “Yes, they do.”
When asked if he was concerned about future layoffs, he shook his head no. David says they’ve solved a lot of the issues the company was facing.
“There’s no reason to be concerned. Again, our focus is looking at each problem and how we go solve each problem. When I was brought in here, we started looking at bottlenecks. We started to look at why we were not making the through point or production we wanted to make, so we focused on man method material machine at each station, and we solved those problems,” David said.
Governor Katie Hobbs spoke in support of Arizona’s EV manufacturer.
When she was asked what she needs to see out of Lucid in the next few years to know if it is a good investment, she said, “Well, I think this is a testament to that. There are 2,500 people working here today that weren’t 5 years ago.”
Lucid also hinted at work on their cheapest vehicle yet and simply referred to it as “project midsize.”
“You can kind of see expansion on the horizon,” David said. “The upside is all possible.”
Lucid is clear this isn’t the final expansion, and they want more in the future.
