Arizona's very own electric vehicle (EV) maker, Lucid, is poised to see a silver lining in this policy shift. The Trump administration's tariffs may just turn out to bolster the company’s fortunes, as it prepares to release its inaugural SUV, the Gravity. According to FOX Business, Karl Brauer of iseecars.com said, "Tariffs are certainly going to help every domestically produced vehicle and that includes Lucid."
With tariffs set to impact virtually all car manufacturers, those not producing domestically are bound to face increased costs. However, Lucid’s strategy to vertically integrate production within its Arizona plant aims to avoid such a fate. As Marc Winterhoff, Lucid's new CEO, announced in an interview with FOX Business, "We have the e-motor, the drive train is fully vertically integrated in our plant in Arizona." The company is also taking steps to move cell production to the United States, signaling a deeper investment in domestic manufacturing.
Lucid’s connection to the current EV market is further complicated by Elon Musk's Tesla. According to Winterhoff, 50% of new Lucid buyers this year transitioned from Tesla ownership, which may be rooted in recent reactions to Musk and Trump's policies, as reported by FOX Business. This customer transition suggests a broader shift in the EV market could be underway.
Local industry events like the Electrify Expo, occurring at State Farm Stadium this April, present opportunities for consumers to engage in a dialogue about these major shifts in the EV landscape. Organizers like BJ Birtwell see the tariffs as a hot topic, as he told FOX Business, "Certainly the tariffs are taking over the headlines and causing quite a bit of curiosity about how that's going to impact electric vehicles." Yet despite the optimistic view for Lucid, challenges loom large, with the automaker needing to contend with a difficult and competitive environment that has seen other EV startups fail.
The broader context of these developments is Trump's vision to reboot the manufacturing sector in the United States. Intending to re-establish the country as a manufacturing superpower, the imposition of tariffs aims a decades-long decline in manufacturing jobs. As reported by the New York Times, in the president's own words, “With today’s action we are finally going to be able to make America great again — greater than ever before."
