Luxury EV Startup Lucid Looking To Raise Up To $8 Billion To Build Out Operations

Lucid Group, a maker of high-end electric sedans, filed a shelf registration to raise as much as $8 billion in multiple offerings that would be used to build out operations as it expands a plant in Arizona and prepares to build a second assembly facility in Saudi Arabia.

The Newark, California-based company that began delivering its luxury Air sedan this year announced the potential fundraising move in an SEC filing on Tuesday, noting that the funds could come from offerings of common or preferred shares, warrants or other types of debt over the next three years. Lucid isn’t immediately moving forward with a new offering but wants to have the option to do so.

Led by CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson, a former Tesla chief engineer who was key to creating that company’s Model S sedan, Lucid seeks to become the leading producer of premium, high-powered, long-range electric vehicles. The cheapest version of the Air starts at $87,400, while the recently added 1,200 hp Air Sapphire grade, which can go more than 200 mph and goes into production next year, is priced from $249,000.

Like other automakers, Lucid had headaches launching production owing to global supply chain challenges and expects to deliver between 6,000 and 7,000 EVs this year. The company’s new Casa Grande, Arizona, plant can build up to 34,000 vehicles per year. Currently, it’s adding a second assembly line to handle production of the Gravity SUV, which is due in 2024. The expansion will raise the factory’s total capacity to 90,000 vehicles per year.

Lucid has also signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia, a major stakeholder in the company, to build a plant there that will be able to produce up to 155,000 vehicles per year and ultimately cost up to $3.4 billion. It hasn’t said when construction of that facility, the first auto plant in the country, will begin.

Shares of Lucid were down 6%, to $15.17, in late-afternoon trading on Tuesday.