By Steven Symes 
During WWI, Russian soldiers were sent to the battlefield without guns and told to strip them off their fallen comrades who were armed. While Lucid buying up many of Nikola Motors’ assets at a bankruptcy auction isn’t quite the same thing, it is interesting to watch as certain EV startups fall and another gobbles up what’s left of them, hopeful it will have bulked up enough to escape a similar fate.
Automakers might get a reprieve from tariffs.
It helps that both companies have been operating out of Arizona, allowing Lucid to push beyond its factory located in cosmopolitan center Casa Grande (that’s a joke, by the way). If everything is approved by the bankruptcy court, Lucid will acquire the Nikola factory in Coolidge, which isn’t too far from Casa Grande and is just about as fashionable a place.
The EV company would also get the Nikola facility in Phoenix, which served as the company’s headquarters and development center. It remains to be seen what Lucid will do with the property or what it will manufacture in Coolidge.
For now, Lucid offers its Air sedan, the EV that launched the brand into the market, as well as the Gravity crossover. Likely it will produce the Earth, the brand’s Tesla Model Y competitor, as well as its future midsize sedan that will go head-to-head with the Model 3.
Considering Lucid has signaled it plans on expanding its product lineup rather rapidly after a conservative, slow launch into the market, it will need the extra assets and employees to make that happen. In other words, stripping the dead for supplies can be a viable strategy.
Lucid announced in an official press release it’s offering employment to over 300 former Nikola employees. With 855 Nikola employees in Arizona laid off as the company entered bankruptcy, that’s a pretty good chunk of them getting hired by Lucid.
Image via Lucid