Lucid Motors, Inc. (formerly known as Atieva)[3] is an American automotive company specializing in electric cars. The company was founded in 2007, and is based in Newark, California.[4] As of 2020 its first car, Lucid Air, is in development.

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, the first-phase was completed in December 2020.[19][20] The second-phase construction is ongoing and will increase production capacity from 34,000 to 90,000 vehicles a year. The completed factory (4 phases) will have a combined manufacturing capacity of about 400,000 cars per year.[21]

In February 2021, Lucid Motors announced a deal valued at $11.75 billion to merge with Churchill Capital Corp IV (ticker CCIV), a publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company.[22] CEO Rawlinson announced Lucid's intention to produce its Project Gravity SUV by 2023, then offer a competitor to Tesla's Model 3 by 2024 or 2025.

(Wikipedia)