Lucid Group is accelerating its presence in Arizona after acquiring key facilities from bankrupt electric truck maker Nikola Corporation. The $30-million deal, announced April 10, includes Nikola’s Coolidge manufacturing plant and a Phoenix facility formerly used for headquarters and R&D. With it, Lucid gains more than 884,000 square feet of space, along with high-end development equipment like battery testing chambers and chassis dynamometers. Lucid is planning to offer jobs to more than 300 former Nikola employees across roles in engineering, assembly, software and testing.
The acquisition gives Lucid room to scale — and fast.
Today’s electric vehicles are powered by semiconductors; today’s EVs can require more than 2,000 chips per vehicle. These chips manage everything from power flow and battery systems to self-driving features and over-the-air updates. As demand for features like autonomous driving and real-time connectivity increases, so does the need for cutting-edge semiconductors.
This deal arrives amid a broader shakeout in the EV market, where rising interest rates and tighter capital have challenged even the most-hyped players. Lucid’s expansion rather than contraction offers a reassuring signal: Not all EV stories are cooling. Some are consolidating, investing and moving forward.
That’s good news for Arizona’s semiconductor ecosystem.
From fab investments by TSMC and Intel to advanced packaging and prototyping hubs at ASU, Arizona is building an ecosystem stretching from silicon to steering wheels. Lucid’s continued presence helps close the loop, bringing the state one step closer to a full-stack innovation economy, with everything needed to design, build and test advanced tech under one skyline.
For Arizona, it’s a reminder: Semiconductors don’t just power the digital world. They’re also steering the future of transportation — and that future increasingly runs through the desert.
