October 15, 2018

Arizona Local Governments Weigh Incentives for Electric Car Company

Casa Grande and Pinal County are discussing incentives for Lucid Motors, a Saudi-backed California startup.

Lucid Motors Air Lucid Motors' Air.
Courtesy of Lucid Motors

CASA GRANDE — Local governments are discussing proposals to provide incentives to a Saudi-backed California startup electric car maker that plans to build a plant in south-central Arizona.

The Casa Grande Dispatch reports that the city of Casa Grande and Pinal County officials on Thursday discussed proposals to offer $8.2 million in incentives to Newark, California-based Lucid Motors.

Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund in September invested more than $1 billion in Lucid.

Lucid plans to build its factory in Casa Grande, where it has pledged to employ 2,000 workers by 2022 while making 130,000 vehicles annually.

Under proposed agreements, the incentives could include reimbursements for construction sales taxes, rebates on air-quality permit fees, a 500-acre purchase of land to lease to Lucid and money for workforce training, utility hookups, employee relocations and road improvements.

By posting comments, you agree to our
AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information, threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
The University of Arizona