EV start-up Lucid says production of its first cars for customers is underway, with deliveries scheduled to begin late next month.
Lucid told investors in July that it expects to produce 20,000 Lucid Air sedans in 2022, generating more than $2.2 billion in revenue, according to an investor presentation. That's a slower ramp-up than other EV start-ups.
"Our emphasis is upon quality, delivering an awesome car, a car that our customers will really love, and delivering a luxury customer experience.," Rawlinson said Tuesday on CNBC's "Closing Bell." "That takes precedent upon rushing the ramp up of production in the immediate future, but clearly next year we're going to ramp things up on an S curve of production.
Lucid is manufacturing the Air at a new factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. It's building what's expected to be a multibillion-dollar facility, which is the first greenfield EV plant in the U.S., in phases on a 590-acre site. The facility is expected to produce an SUV called the Gravity in 2023.Lucid was founded in 2007 as Atieva, a name it now uses for its engineering and tech arm that supplies batteries to electric racing circuit Formula E.
Lucid had some difficulty obtaining capital to fund its plans until September 2018 when it received $1 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. It remains the largest shareholder of the company with about 62% of outstanding shares, according to FactSet. The automaker is among a group of EV start-ups to go public in the past year or so. Others have included