LUCID MOTORS.

Here’s what Lucid Motors’ $700 million EV factory will look like

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The Saudi-backed startup is expected to break ground this year

By Sean O'Kane@sokane1  Sep 27, 2019, 5:51pm EDT

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Images: Lucid Motors

Lucid Motors spent the last few years waiting to break ground on a brand-new factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, and the EV startup was finally able put things in motion late last year after it locked down a $1 billion funding round from Saudi Arabia. Now, The Verge has obtained the first images of what that factory will look like, after they were filed with Casa Grande’s Planning and Developing Department this week.

It’s... big! And white! Perhaps unsurprisingly it... looks like a factory!

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In all seriousness, though, Lucid Motors looks has some 21 million square feet to play with, according to the master site plan filed with the city. But it will start off at this site with 820,000 square feet of factory space. And instead of a gleaming tourist attraction, like Faraday Future once hoped to build outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, this building looks far more appropriate to the needs of a cash-hungry automotive startup that’s trying to get a luxury electric sedan (the Lucid Air) into production by late next year.

Lucid Motors doesn’t own the land it will build on; instead, Pinal County bought the nearly 500-acre site and will lease it to the EV startup, with the goal of eventually handing it over. Pinal County raised $29.94 million through bonds to buy the land, and Lucid Motors will pay $1.8 million each year in rent, before being given the opportunity to buy the land in five years.

Pinal County and the city of Casa Grande are counting on the factory to provide 3,230 direct and indirect construction jobs over the first five years, according to a third-party economic analysis commissioned in late 2018. Over 20 years, the factory’s expected to generate 4,800 direct and indirect jobs, $33.5 million in tax revenue to the city and county, and $22.2 million in tax revenue to local school districts.

Casa Grande’s economic development director said he expects the company to break ground before the end of this year, according to the Casa Grande Dispatch. Lucid Motors marketing manager David Salguero said the company has started grading the land, but declined to comment any further.