Lucid buys Nikola’s factory at bankruptcy auction

Californian EV maker Lucid Motors announced last Friday it has “reached an agreement to acquire select facilities and assets in Arizona previously belonging to Nikola Corporation, subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.”

But that doesn’t mean it takes over the business: “The transaction does not include the acquisition of Nikola’s business, customer base, or technology related to Nikola’s hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks.”

Actually, Lucid is acquiring Nikola’s former Coolidge manufacturing facility in Arizona and the Phoenix facility, which was previously Nikola’s headquarters and product development center.

Keeping 300 Nikola employees

Lucid added that it plans to employ more than 300 former Nikola employees in various roles (manufacturing engineering, software, assembly, vehicle testing, etc.) across its Arizona facilities.

It, in particular, welcomes profiles with experience in EV technology as it ramps up production of the Lucid Gravity SUV and prepares for its upcoming midsize platform vehicles.

Marc Winterhoff, Interim CEO at Lucid, says, “We are delighted to extend employment offers to more than 300 former employees. They bring valuable industry experience and, together with our outstanding teams, will continue powering Lucid’s industry-leading innovation.”

Best paid auto-boss

At the end of February, Peter Rawlinson, founder, CEO, and CTO of Lucid and the ex-engineer who once stood at the cradle of the Tesla Model S, stepped down after more than a decade to pass the baton to a new, yet-to-be-found manager. So far, Winterhoff has stepped in as Interim CEO.

Peter Rawlinson also made the news earlier, as he topped the ranking of the best-paid bosses among car brands based on the numbers from 2023. With a wage of 30.2 million dollars, he earned 3.6 million dollars more than Mary Barra from General Motors—though his paycheck plummeted from a staggering 380 million dollars the year before.

While the executive shakeups made headlines, the start-up of luxury EVs achieved a new production milestone. In July, after pre-production models were built for its Gravity electric SUV, Lucid confirmed that the first customer-ready models rolled off the production line at its Casa Grande facility in Arizona. The first delivery of its first electric SUV was in December 2024.

State-of-the-art factory

With the acquisition of Nikola’s Arizona facilities, Lucid gets a state-of-the-art factory. Under Michael Lohscheller, then Nikola Corporations President and CEO and now boss at Polestar, the truck maker moved in 2023 its battery manufacturing from Cypress, California, to Coolidge.

The move, which the company wanted to complete by early Q3, brought Nikola’s truck assembly, fuel cell power module assembly, battery module, and pack production under one roof, including battery line automation.

Fragile health all the way

The story of Nikola and its founder and first CEO, Trevor Milton, is less successful. Reports on Nikola’s fragile health have been constants in the history of the young start-up company that uses Nikola Tesla’s first name to develop class 8 heavy trucks running on hydrogen or batteries.

End of December 2024, the company confirmed another round of layoffs while warning in filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it does not have enough cash to sustain operations through the first quarter of 2025.

Once valued at $34 billion, more than Ford, Nikola’s market capitalization has plummeted to around $100 million. The company is hemorrhaging approximately $200 million each quarter—roughly equivalent to its cash reserves at the end of the third quarter.

Nikola finally celebrated the commercial launch of its hydrogen fuel cell electric truck at its manufacturing facility in Arizona in October 2023, more than a year after announcing it and facing a scandal whereby its founder and CEO, Trevor Milton, had to step down.

The fairy tale of the hydrogen truckmaker burst like a soap bubble when short seller firm Hindenburg Research released a report accusing Nikola of being “an intricate fraud.” As a result, several investors gradually pulled out.

Full pardon by Trump

The straw that breaks the camel’s back would be a Nikola One ‘hydrogen’ truck shown in a promotional video driving down a hill. This truck turned out to be a mock-up with no drive train at all. Ironically, it’s a perfect image of what’s happening to the company today. Nikola’s founder and then-CEO Trevor Milton’s ‘lies’ eventually brought him down.

He stepped down as CEO on September 21st and was convicted in October 2022 by a federal court for four fraud accounts during his tenure. He was sentenced to four years in prison. Nikola Corporation itself got off scot-free.

However, President Donald Trump decided to pardon Milton at the end of March 2025. ” Today, I was issued a full and unconditional pardon by Donald Trump himself. He called me personally to tell me,” Milton said on social media.