When Lucid Motors broke floor on its first meeting plant in North America on the finish of 2019, the upstart electrical automaker was frugal with the restricted money it had.
That yr, Lucid had obtained a $1 billion-plus funding from the Public Funding Fund of Saudi Arabia. However these funds would wish to cowl not simply constructing the primary part of its Arizona plant and launch of manufacturing, but in addition the ultimate engineering and testing of its product — the posh Lucid Air sedan — in addition to the rollout of its retail technique.
“It is not like we have got cash to burn,” Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson informed Automotive Information final October. “We have been tremendous cautious with it.”
Constructing the Casa Grande, Ariz., manufacturing facility alone might have simply eaten up $1 billion or extra, provided that Lucid is vertically built-in from powertrain manufacturing to last meeting, firm executives stated. As a substitute, the primary part that was accomplished in December value solely about $700 million.
Lucid’s frugal strategy was to construct solely the items of the manufacturing facility it wanted to succeed in 34,000 items of annual capability for the primary part — and to attenuate development prices by constructing it rapidly over the course of a yr.
“Everybody’s acquainted with just-in-time logistics,” Rawlinson stated. “I’ve obtained a just-in-time manufacturing facility as a result of I did not need my capital expenditure mendacity round for a yr or two” earlier than the automotive was prepared for manufacturing.
Lucid’s manufacturing facility crew determined early on that it might maintain off on establishing a common meeting constructing till part two and focus as a substitute on a extra inventive strategy to establishing its paint store.
Peter Hochholdinger, Lucid’s vice chairman of worldwide manufacturing, stated the paint store can be constructed to accommodate future wants, with a two-floor construction with managed temperature and airflow.
However as a result of Lucid solely wanted restricted portray capability to begin, it designated the second flooring for paint and outfitted the primary flooring as its common meeting store.
“We saved some huge cash on that,” Hochholdinger stated. “We made the footprint of the paint store for the ultimate stage of manufacturing, however with solely the gear that we would have liked for part one.”
Earlier than becoming a member of the startup, Hochholdinger was vice chairman of manufacturing at Tesla’s plant in Fremont, Calif. He additionally beforehand labored for Audi in Germany.
As Lucid grows, it would keep away from the headache and expense of constructing a second paint store, he defined.
“It’s important to take into consideration your footprint very properly,” he stated, and “what you wish to do within the subsequent 10 years.”
Hochholdinger stated that Lucid has been capable of construct a customized plant on undeveloped land for lower than the price of refurbishing and modernizing an deserted manufacturing facility.
“With the greenfield, you may dial in your processes very properly,” he stated. “You may construct your manufacturing facility precisely to the form, the scale, to all of the stuff you want. And you too can construct it very value effectively.”
Lucid has grander plans forward. The Arizona plant is designed for 4 phases.
The primary is about 1 million sq. ft, however its last footprint shall be 5 million sq. ft, with a capability to supply 400,000 autos a yr.
However now, due to the enterprise’s deliberate merger with publicly traded Churchill Capital Corp. IV — introduced in February — Lucid expects to safe about $4.4 billion in money. That may permit it to construct out the second part of manufacturing, including a crossover and transferring to capability of 90,000 autos by 2023.