July 19th, 2019 by Steve Hanley
Lucid is one company that would be happy to eat the lunch of the major manufacturers who can’t be bothered to make electric cars. This week, it finally broke ground on its factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. David Salguero of Lucid Motors says the plant is on track to begin production of the Lucid Air electric car by late 2020, according to a report by the Houston Chronicle.
Lucid originally planned to begin production of its electric cars in 2018, but its plans got pushed back while it got all of its building permits and funding in order. Last fall, the company obtained $1 billion in financing from Saudi Arabia. That must have helped.
CleanTechnica correspondent Nicholas Zart is one of a handful of people who have ridden in a prototype of the Lucid Air, and he came away suitably impressed. It may be a truly compelling electric car, such as Elon Musk has been begging other manufacturers to make for several years.
No doubt there will be bumps in the road ahead for Lucid, but the fact that it has broken ground for its new factory 45 miles south of Phoenix is very encouraging news. What are your thoughts? Will Lucid grow big and strong like Tesla, or is the shaky ground of startup life in the auto industry too challenging now?
All images courtesy Lucid Motors
About the Author
Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island and anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. His motto is, “Life is not measured by how many breaths we take but by the number of moments that take our breath away!” You can follow him on Google + and on Twitter.