Lucid Motor announced that it completed the first phase of construction at its EV factory in Arizona.
Eventually, they plan to produce up to 400,000 electric cars per year at the facility after future expansions.
The electric car startup impressed many earlier this year with the unveiling of the Air electric sedan, the company’s first car with a range of up to 517 miles on a single charge.
But the vehicle has been delayed twice before and now the market is looking for them to deliver this time with serious production capacity being deployed.
The Air is going to be built at Lucid’s factory, called ‘Lucid AMP-1 factory‘, in Casa Grande, Arizona.
After delays due to the lack of financing, Lucid finally broke ground on the project last year and now they are announcing today that they completed construction.
Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO of Lucid Motors, commented on the accomplishment:
“We broke ground on the 590-acre Lucid AMP-1 site in Casa Grande, Arizona, on December 2, 2019, and slightly less than a year later we have completed the first purpose-built EV factory in North America. The effort and agility demonstrated by this team is truly astounding, as we’re already commissioning equipment compatible with the Lucid manufacturing system to start production of the next-generation EV, the Lucid Air, in just a few months.
They shared some pictures from the factory today:
While we see some machinery deployed at the factory already, there is still a lot of work to be done inside in order to reach production.
They are currently “transitioning to the construction of a final series of production-representative versions of the Lucid Air.”
At first, Lucid is planning for a capacity of 30,000 vehicles per year, but they are planning future expansions up to 400,000 electric vehicles per year.
Peter Hochholdinger, VP of Manufacturing at Lucid Motors and former head of manufacturing at Tesla, commented on the company’s manufacturing effort:
“In building this factory, we adhered to several important manufacturing philosophies, including the tenets of ‘Future Ready’ and ‘On Time,’ together which have allowed us to effectively manage our investment and build a brand new factory from the ground up. As we add new platforms and vehicles to our lineup, the planning that went into this facility ensures that we will always be able to keep up with growing customer demand for advanced electric vehicles.”
The first vehicles are expected to roll off the line at Lucid AMP-1 factory in the Spring of 2021.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
