Lucid Motors wins bankruptcy auction for Nikola’s Arizona factory and other assets

I like it.

30M is a cheap price to pay. Pennies on the dollar as they say.

I imagine this type of opportunity doesn't come around all too often. Might as well snatch it up vs build it later.
$33/ sq ft. maybe only 2X the cost of a high quality concrete slab (just the slab). An entire mfg. building with HVAC, plumbing, electrical offices, is likely $150- $200/ sq ft or better - even more if you build new. Quite a deal. And the ability to have dedicated lines by vehicle type as they flush out their model lines. Brilliant !
 
More from Adrian on what is included.

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Wow what a bonanza!

I was at Casa Grande last november and this is basically down the street (well in desert terms). Lots of things they could do with the space now that they have it. While AMP-1 has a planned out growth path through mid size I'm sure this can alleviate some pressure. What a luxury to have extra space during a build out.
 
Not sure why this is funny. Fisker didn’t fail because the employees sucked or weren’t good at their job.
I agree, I think it’s important for them to connect the community as well. These people have jobs and connections in Arizona, as well as expertise with the plant and its current function and operations. I think it’s strategically and economically brilliant to acquire this at such a bargain. I’m surprised a commercial real estate house didn’t buy it up for more and lease it to Lucid.

But seeing as how Lucid likes to own their strategic buildings I can see how that might have been a risky bet.

Excited to see this plan and strategic execution go into full scale integration. It will also be exciting to see how this effects further investment by the PIF and other possible sources of funding (if Lucid becomes even more alluring to firms looking to invest in companies with solid assets and advanced technology IP)
 
Agreed. Great deal for Lucid. They acquired a facility worth $80 to $160 million for $30 million and a bunch of skilled workers they can hire reasonably. I wonder how long it will take for Lucid to modify the facility for their needs.
 
Agreed. Great deal for Lucid. They acquired a facility worth $80 to $160 million for $30 million and a bunch of skilled workers they can hire reasonably. I wonder how long it will take for Lucid to modify the facility for their needs.
I’m guessing 3 years, that would be 2028- coinciding with the 3 midsize model full ramp up. It also has testing facilities, so another reason they bought it.
 
It's definitely a good sign that the Saudi overlords are continuing to feel strongly enough about Lucid that they're green-lighting significant infrastructure investments that are still pretty far out there beyond the next few curves. The fact that they got such a significant deal on it vs. constructing from new is pretty great. That said, it will still take a lot of $$$ to properly outfit the space for themselves, and the low price it commanded at auction tells you how little demand there is for space like this. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know.
 
It's definitely a good sign that the Saudi overlords are continuing to feel strongly enough about Lucid that they're green-lighting significant infrastructure investments that are still pretty far out there beyond the next few curves. The fact that they got such a significant deal on it vs. constructing from new is pretty great. That said, it will still take a lot of $$$ to properly outfit the space for themselves, and the low price it commanded at auction tells you how little demand there is for space like this. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know.
I agree with you that it is a bullish signal that the Saudis are investing in expanding Lucid's infrastructure in Arizona. I think that it is good. I agree with you that the payoff from this aquisition is a few years into the future. It is better for Lucid that they have this factory rather than an EV competitor.
 
I doubt the space would be in much demand by an ev competitor. None of them have a manufacturing or large engineering presence nearby. Likely other heavy manufacturing companies would be the only people interested in the space. Which is likely why it went so cheap. Probably a good move by Lucid.
 
When Amazon was building its business everyone was frantic about the company burning cash, when Tesla was ramping, same deal. Building a successful, capital-intensive business is a very long-term proposition. Lucid's owners are not in this for next quarter or even next year. They seem focussed on building a solid, long-term EV powerhouse so "burning" an extra $30 million to take advantage of what amounts to a "fire sale" makes a heckuva lot of sense. Between this move and the recent restructuring of $1.1 billion in debt, Lucid Management is making some very, very shrewd moves that speak to their focus on being long term players and NOT simply trying to pump the stock. I personally LOVE the approach.

Amazon was running into new markets of undetermined but likely vast size and was disrupting at a giant scale. And it was growing revenue like crazy all throughout. Same with many other tech companies (like in AI space right now). Tesla is a bit of a puzzlement - it developed with a lot of hype during a massive asset bubble (that likely is continuing today) but was running into a market that in the USA at least is remarkably static. New car sales is a zero sum game over a 30-40 year period; there's almost no overall market unit growth. Its stock price has never made much sense from a fundamentals standpoint; even now its PE is by far the highest of the Mag 7. Now that its growth story is kind of played out (and hampered by its CEO's slipping grip on reality) the stock is taking a beating, even as they try to reposition it as more than a car company (AI, robots, self-driving, batteries, solar, etc) so that it looks a little bit more like an Amazon. LCID can't even pretend to be anything other than a car company yet.

I think Tesla was a unique story in the car market. I'm afraid that if everyone thinks Lucid can be the next Tesla that that's not a realistic expectation. And Amazon is a completely different ball of wax entirely.

It does help that LCID is a fairly perfect hedge against fossil fuels, but only to an extent - selling the vehicles is very different than selling the fuel. So it's likely to continue to get love from the Saudi PIF for some time to come, but I think it's crazy to suggest that shilling cars is ever going to come remotely close to matching their importance in fossil fuels.

Just an opinion.
 
Amazon was running into new markets of undetermined but likely vast size and was disrupting at a giant scale. And it was growing revenue like crazy all throughout. Same with many other tech companies (like in AI space right now). Tesla is a bit of a puzzlement - it developed with a lot of hype during a massive asset bubble (that likely is continuing today) but was running into a market that in the USA at least is remarkably static. New car sales is a zero sum game over a 30-40 year period; there's almost no overall market unit growth. Its stock price has never made much sense from a fundamentals standpoint; even now its PE is by far the highest of the Mag 7. Now that its growth story is kind of played out (and hampered by its CEO's slipping grip on reality) the stock is taking a beating, even as they try to reposition it as more than a car company (AI, robots, self-driving, batteries, solar, etc) so that it looks a little bit more like an Amazon. LCID can't even pretend to be anything other than a car company yet.

I think Tesla was a unique story in the car market. I'm afraid that if everyone thinks Lucid can be the next Tesla that that's not a realistic expectation. And Amazon is a completely different ball of wax entirely.

It does help that LCID is a fairly perfect hedge against fossil fuels, but only to an extent - selling the vehicles is very different than selling the fuel. So it's likely to continue to get love from the Saudi PIF for some time to come, but I think it's crazy to suggest that shilling cars is ever going to come remotely close to matching their importance in fossil fuels.

Just an opinion.
Considerr that Lucid does not need to become the next Tesla in terms of market cap to have a huge upside from the current stock price. Even if Lucid peaks at 1/10th of Tesla's current market cap, there is STILL a 10x upside for Lucid investors at the current price. Tesla is currently 100x Lucid market cap. Ah, but imagine if Lucid became a 1/4 of Tesla or 1/2 a Tesla...
 
This was (IMHO) a good purchase by Lucid. With the tariff lunacy that is going on right now, these assets might have been very attractive to a foreign automaker who wanted a quick footprint on US soil.
 
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