Lucid was founded in 2007 under the name Atieva and originally focused on building electric vehicle batteries and powertrains for other vehicle manufacturers.
Lucid's CEO and CTO, Peter Rawlinson, formerly served as VP of Engineering and Chief Engineer of the Model S at Tesla, Inc., and Vice President Derek Jenkins previously worked as Head of Design at Mazda North American Operations. The company has seen investments from Tsing Capital, Mitsui, Venrock, JAFCO, and others.
The company rebranded to Lucid Motors in October 2016 and officially announced its intent to develop an all-electric, high-performance luxury vehicle.
On November 29, 2016, state and company officials announced the planned construction of Lucid's US$700 million manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, which was projected to employ up to 2,000 workers by the mid-2020s, initially building 20,000 cars and expanding up to 130,000 cars per year. The factory was then to be designed to support a maximum capacity of 380,000 cars per year. As of November 2016, the company had planned to break ground in 2017, and have cars in production by early 2019. The first vehicles began rolling off the assembly line on September 28, 2021.
