Tesla rivaling luxury electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors to go public

Lucid Motor, luxury electric vehicle maker and a rival to Tesla on Monday announced that it has agreed to go public by merging with blank-check firm Churchill Capital IV Corp. The deal with the blank-check firm valued the combined company at $11.75 billion.

Lucid Motor, headed by an ex-Tesla engineer, is the latest EV firm to tap the initial public offering market since investors are flooding the EV sector, motivated by the expansion of Tesla and tightening noose around the traditional cars due to the emissions regulations in Europe and elsewhere.

Other market rivals to Tesla and Lucid Motor went public through mergers with so-called special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) in 2020. While some deals such as Nikola have given up short-term gains, others such as Fisker have delivered considerably well.

Lucid announced that it is planning to start production and deliveries of Lucid Air (its first luxury sedan) in North America in the second half of 2021. The plans have been delayed by some time as the EV maker has previously announced plans to start deliveries in the spring of 2021.

The company also aims to deliver 20,000 vehicles in 2022 and 251,000 in 2026 by adding other models like an electric SUV. It plans to add manufacturing at its plant in Arizona. The Lucid Air electric sedan has a starting price of $77,400 and is slated to be the first to achieve a 500-mile (805 km) driving range.

After the price announcement of the Lucid sedan, Elon Musk lowered the price of its flagship Model S. "The gauntlet has been thrown down!" he tweeted.