Lucid Motors expands in new headquarters, still no word on electric car factory

Last time we heard about Lucid Motors, a US-based startup developing electric vehicles, they were having difficulties raising a round of financing to start building their factory in Arizona.

Today, the startup announced that it outgrew its headquarters in Menlo Park and it is expanding to new headquarters in Newark, California.

The company wrote in a press release:

“As we move closer to realizing our vision for the future of luxury mobility, we are outgrowing our Menlo Park headquarters and are in need of a new location that will allow for expansion. We are excited to announce that in late 2017 we will begin moving into the Pacific Research Center. The new facility, located just east of the Dumbarton Bridge in Newark, California, is twice the size of our current location. It is also just a few blocks from Lucid’s prototype shop, where the Lucid Air was first revealed at a private event in late 2016.”

Here are a few renderings of the new headquarters that Lucid released today:

They released a video of all their Lucid Air prototypes moving to the new location:

https://player.vimeo.com/video/244124744

Electrek’s Take

While we are glad to see Lucid still alive and kicking, we are more interested in them making a reality of their $700 million EV factory to bring the Lucid Air to production than new headquarters.

By all accounts, the Lucid Air is a solid electric vehicle with impressive performance and they are trying to bring it to market at an attractive price point. It would be nice to see it in the hands of customers.

A Lucid Motors spokesperson told Electrek that the start of construction at the factory is still dependent on the closing of their Series D, which they have reportedly been trying to raise since April.

It’s hard to gauge to odds of the startup finally closing the round at this point, but we sure hope they do.

This summer, there were also rumors that Lucid was in talks with Ford for a takeover of the EV startup, which could potentially also be an option.