Hey Guys,
Lucid has a factory in Casa Grande, AZ. They had an invite only event for the press and local government.
I work for an organization that supports manufacturers. I have seen countless manufacturing operations, Aerospace & Defense, High-Tech, Start-ups, Multi-Billion Dollar operations. I've seen some pretty cool stuff. I have a few manufacturers that I support that are in the automotive space, but being in Arizona, there are no auto manufacturers.... well until now.
My expert take on Lucid's operations.... F*&CKING AMAZING.
I was also there for the ground breaking ceremony, which was just a tent in the middle of nowhere... That was only a two years ago.
There facility, nothing really to look at from the outside, but as soon as you go in the doors your realize this is far from a half arsed operation.
I wish I could have taken pictures of the manufacturing process but obviously we were not allowed.
I saw everything from the aluminum panels first being fitted to each to via spot welding, adhesive, and state of the art laser welding. Huge robots moving parts around at each station. Robot transport from station to station. The first building was where they put together the body and it was spotless, super organized, with quality control stations every where. When done in the first building a huge robot arm would pick up the entire body and lift it up to the second floor where there was a transport system that took it to the next building.
The second building was for paint and final assembly. Unfortunately, we were not able to see the painting process but we saw everything regarding assembly. Interior installation, dashboard, seats, doors, wheels, suspension, fluid fill up, and people driving them off of the line!
They had huge tunnels full of light tubes for inspections, driving testing stations to set up and check the autonomous driving tech, complete wheel alignment, etc.
I was expecting to see something being covered up, hiding of something. But there was nothing being hidden. Production was happening! And it was high quality production.
After the tour of the second building we went outside and there Lucid Airs lined up for us to drive. I jumped in the back seat, my buddy jumped in the drivers seat, and there was a Lucid employee who was a suspension and brake engineer in the passenger seat explaining to us how the car worked. I thought we were just going to be driving on some closed course. Nope we went on the freeway, and drove for miles, half way through it was my turn. We were in the top model, a gold Lucid Air Dream with 1100 hp! The interior was absolutely beautiful. The materials were of the utmost quality. Alcantara, napa leather, perforated seats, all of the bells and whistles.
Yes, you may not like the way it looks, but you would definitely respect the materials and the quality of the car. It drove amazing. The fastest car I have ever driven. The Lucid guy was super cool. Teaching us everything about the car and letting us take off quick, and corner fast, trying out the breaks etc. I can not get over how instantaneous the power was. I'm sure it is just like a Tesla.
The engineer was telling us all about the electronic suspension, and how it reacts to the road, and he was not joking, seriously, it is crazy smooth. We went over rumble strips and you could feel that the car was reacting to it and cut the vibration by atleast 3/4 compared to a normal car.
Anyway, I can go on and on about the car. I think a few take-aways. Super high quality, no joke production facility, crazy performance, serious range some models over 500 miles, and all over 475 I believe, drives beautifully, super smooth, stays flat in the curves and sticks. Great interior materials, as far as the interior goes they are competing with Mercedes not Tesla.
Some elephant's in the room which I'm sure you guys will all talking about. It is expensive, where is the SUV, will they be able to get customers to buy?
Here are some pics from the event, and a pic of me behind the wheel!
