Lucid Motors completes $ 700 million plant to produce its first electric vehicles – Heaven32

Electric automaker Lucid Motors has completed the initial phase of its $ 700 million plant, a step necessary to begin production of its first all-electric luxury Air sedan this spring.

The plant, located midway between Tucson and Phoenix, along Interstate 10, has the capacity to produce 30,000 vehicles per year. If Lucid, led by CEO Peter Rawlinson, is successful in his attempt to attract buyers, this plant will grow from its current 999,000 square feet to over 5 million square feet. When fully built, the plant will have the capacity to build 400,000 vehicles per year.

It’s an ambitious plan for a company that has yet to deliver a single vehicle. However, Rawlinson remained optimistic about EVs and Lucid’s future. Lucid is already preparing to resume construction of the next phase of the plant early next year which will be used to produce its next vehicle, an all-electric SUV in 2023.

The company plans to build the plant, which spans 590 acres, in four phases through 2028.

The completion of the first phase comes about four years since Lucid Motors first announced its intention to produce electric vehicles. It is a milestone that has barely arrived. As the company consumed capital, it struggled to find new investors. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund finally stepped up in September 2018 and pledged to invest $ 1 billion in the company.

The all-electric luxury Air sedan, launched in September, has a range of up to 517 miles, depending on the variant, and a design that puts technology and understated luxury at the center of its concerns.

Two of the four variants, the $ 169,000 flagship Dream Edition and a $ 139,000 Grand Touring model, will go into production for the first time at their new plant this year. Deliveries of these variants are expected to begin in spring 2021. Two other variants, a Touring model priced at $ 95,000 and a base model of just under $ 80,000, are expected by the end of 2021 to 2022. . , respectively. (All prices are before the posting of the $ 7,500 federal tax credit.)

The Air is the electric alternative to the Mercedes Benz S-Class. This means that performance matters as much as design. and it comes with incredible performance specifications. For example, the Dream Edition has 1,080 horsepower and can go from zero to 60 mph under acceleration in 2.5 seconds. Due to the horsepower, the Dream Edition has a range of 465 miles. Meanwhile, the Grand Touring has 800 horsepower and can achieve the same acceleration in 3 seconds, but it has the longest range of 517 miles.

The Air will also be loaded with 32 sensors, a driver monitoring system and an Ethernet-based architecture, all for your advanced driver assistance system, designed to allow hands-free driving on the roads. Inside, a 34-inch curved glass 5K display sits in front of the driver and appears to float above the dashboard. Another central touchscreen is retractable, revealing more storage space. Meanwhile, some physical controls remain on the steering wheel and just above the center display to control volume and activate ADAS and Amazon Alexa, which is built into the vehicle. Underneath that central touchscreen and moving to the console is a place for inductive charging, cup holders and USB-C ports, as well as additional storage.

To achieve all of this, Lucid touted its design approach, as well as its advanced manufacturing process. Lucid says he uses a glued and riveted unibody body structure instead of spot welds. Most of today’s modern vehicles have a unibody design, which means the frame, floor, and chassis are made up of a single structure. A unibody design is typically seen in motorsports with the frame acting like a skin that draws its strength by distributing tension and compression.