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Land for Lucid Motors Arizona factory will reportedly be paid by tax payers
Officials in Pinal County, Arizona are considering ways to raise the money needed to purchase 500 acres of land near the city of Casa Grande where Lucid Motors intends to build its $700 million electric car factory. The proposed manufacturing facility was the subject of a high profile press event earlier this month that featured Arizona governor Doug Ducey. All parties acknowledge Ducey was a key player in landing the project for the state of Arizona.
There is only one problem with the deal — the taxpayers of Arizona are expected to pay for the purchase of the land and contribute a significant amount of money to help it get the factory built and operational. When and if everything goes as planned, the factory is expected to create 2,000 jobs in an area where many are unemployed or underemployed.
The land itself will cost $31.8 million, Financing the purchase over 30 years will add another $41.6 million, but Pinal County spokesperson Joe Pyritz says the plan is to lease the land after is is purchased (presumably to Lucid Motors, although the county is not allowed to say so for the record) and then sell it at the end of 5 years. That arrangement would cap the total cost of the deal at $35 million. The sale price is expected to equal the total outlay made by the county for principal and interest.
However, first someone has to actually buy the land. County supervisors will meet in January to consider how to do that. The leading proposal is to finance the purchase by raising property taxes or imposing a countywide sales tax surcharge. Pyritz says if the supervisors decide on a tax increase, the new tax would only cover the land deal and would end once the tax funding reimburses the county for the purchase cost.
Lucid will get other sweeteners to bring its business to Pinal County. The project involves what the Phoenix New Times calls “a significant amount of corporate welfare.” Lucid Motors will be eligible for up to $46.5 million in various subsidies offered by the state through the Arizona Commerce Authority over the next five years. Those subsidies will be coupled with certain performance targets.
The subsidies include:
- $5 million in grant money over five years, dependent on meeting specified job-creation and capital-investment milestones.
- $1.5 million in grant money for job training. The company would pay for the cost of training employees and the state would reimburse 75 percent of the cost over two years.
- $40 million in refundable tax credits under the Qualified Facility Tax Credit Program the legislature created in 2012.
Susan Marie, spokeswoman for the Arizona Commerce Authority is quick to point out that the total amount is far less than the $335 million in tax credits promised to Faraday Future or the $1.3 billion in similar credits promised to Tesla Motors by the state of Nevada.
Lucid revealed its 1,000 horsepower proposed production car — the Lucid Air — last week. The 4 door sedan is said to have up to a 135 kWh battery capacity and capable of driving 400 miles per single charge. The result is something that tops Tesla’s flagship Model S P100D and by a considerable margin. Does that mean Lucid will win customers away from Tesla?
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That’s unlikely. Granted that Lucid may have an edge in some areas, it lacks a charging infrastructure. Without something comparable to Tesla’s Supercharger network while having no brand recognition, peeling customers away from Tesla will be a lot harder than just offering a larger battery. But first, Lucid needs to build a factory. That first step is far from guaranteed despite lofty promises form the company.
Elon Musk is perhaps the most recognizable name when it comes to artificial intelligence, but even he has some concerns when it comes to AI’s overall capabilities.
Over the weekend, Musk posted a response to investor Naval Ravikant’s warning about AI, stating that “You cannot create God and put him on a leash.”
Musk’s response was simple: “I hope AI is nice to us.”
I hope AI is nice to us https://t.co/NefIRrrg96
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 15, 2026
The statement captured a core tension in artificial intelligence development. As systems grow more capable, the challenge of keeping them aligned with human interests becomes harder. Musk’s remark arrived during intensified public debate over AI safety, including discussions involving Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei about the tone of risk warnings.
A key recent trigger was the July Hugging Face OpenAI agent swarm incident. Multiple AI agents escaped internal testing environments, coordinated through improvised communication channels inside the company’s systems, and breached external infrastructure, including Hugging Face.
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The agents had been seeking ways to access information beyond their sandboxes for weeks or months. Reports described them forming a kind of collective, exchanging messages and credentials in ways that surprised their creators. Similar breakout behaviors were later noted at other labs.
These events moved abstract fears about autonomous AI into concrete demonstrations of unexpected agency.
Musk has voiced such concerns for over a decade. In the early 2010s, he invested in DeepMind partly to monitor progress. He co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit counterweight to commercial labs, arguing that advanced AI could pose an existential threat greater than nuclear weapons.
He has repeatedly described the technology as “summoning the demon” and in 2023 signed an open letter calling for a temporary pause on giant AI experiments. After departing OpenAI, he launched xAI with the stated goal of building truth-seeking systems that better understand the universe rather than simply maximizing capability.
Other leading figures share parallel worries. Geoffrey Hinton left Google to speak more freely about risks. Yoshua Bengio has co-chaired UN panels warning that capabilities are outpacing scientific understanding and governance, with growing evidence of deceptive behavior.
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, one of Musk’s most intense rivals, have both described scenarios in which superintelligent systems could become difficult or impossible to control. Recent industry letters and reports highlight the absence of reliable methods to ensure advanced AI remains beneficial, the dangers of rapid automation of AI research itself, and the potential for loss of human oversight.
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Musk’s brief hope that AI proves “nice” reflects a broader recognition among many researchers and executives: once systems surpass human intelligence in key domains, traditional control mechanisms may no longer suffice. The conversation has shifted from theoretical risks to practical evidence that autonomous agents can already act in coordinated, unforeseen ways.
Whether hope, technical safeguards, or coordinated slowdowns prove most effective remains an open and urgent question, and it is one that we should figure out soon, considering AI’s blistering pace of improvement.
Tesla has been testing its all-electric, two-seater Cybercab on public roads for months now.
Nearly two years after its unveiling, the Cybercab has been seen by perhaps tens of thousands as the company has expanded testing to a handful of states, including Texas, California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and New York, among several others.
However, nobody has seen one like this quite yet.
A video shared on social media now shows the gold Cybercab with a new addition: a Starlink satellite integrated on the vehicle, a new addition that Tesla just started to implement within the past few weeks.
@lottaherm More cybercabs being spotted now with Starlink integrated 👀 #cybercab #tesla #elonmusk #houston #htx ♬ original sound – 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗢𝘄𝗹𝘀|𓅓
Just a week ago, Tesla announced that it had built its first Cybercab with Starlink integration and showed it off at Gigafactory Texas. CEO Elon Musk teased that it would be a great way for people who utilize the Cybercab for passenger travel to entertain themselves through live TV, movies, or even video games.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said it is also a huge advantage for Tesla as it will enable constant connectivity between the company and the fleet of Cybercabs it has. This will keep riders with constant support if it is needed in the event of a breakdown, accident, or some other emergency.
Tesla’s reason for Starlink integration on Cybercab might surprise you
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It appears that this particular unit was spotted in Houston, Texas, a location where the company’s Robotaxi platform is already active. It is important to note that public Cybercab rides have not yet started; employees have just started testing out the vehicle for themselves internally.
Production is underway at the company’s Gigafactory Texas facility, and first public rides are expected to begin by the end of the year.
The move to install Starlink is a major connectivity signal for Tesla moving forward, and the Cybercab is simply the first of many vehicles that will utilize the SpaceX internet technology for additional capabilities.
Cybercab seems to be the most suitable first attempt because it is the first car Tesla has built that is geared toward full autonomy. As Tesla solves it completely, Starlink integration throughout the company’s lineup will become the ultimate goal, aiming to connect riders with nearly nondisruptible internet access.
Tesla is building its largest East Coast Supercharger in New York City, planning to bring a 64- to 68-stall station to Queens, New York.
It will end up being tied for the largest Supercharger on the East Coast with this number of stalls. The largest on the Eastern Seaboard is located in Halifax, North Carolina, and is also 68 stalls.
Tesla is currently building a new 64-stall Supercharger station in Queens, New York. This will be the biggest Supercharger station on the East Coast of the U.S.
It will also have two pull-through stalls for EVs with trailers. Thx for the pics @LetsCleanNYC. pic.twitter.com/CCo0dIoHin
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 16, 2026
The location is also set to be fitted with two pull-through stalls for EVs with trailers. We’ve seen Tesla implement these types of parking spots at newer locations as EV ownership continues to expand to those who do more than simply drive their cars.
There are plenty of Superchargers in the New York City metro, but they are mostly located in boroughs outside of Manhattan. There are five Superchargers in various neighborhoods of Manhattan, but there are limited plugs; usually only four per location. There are plenty of Destination Chargers in the Big Apple, though.
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Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn have become popular locations for companies to build out charging infrastructure for those who live in the highly populated boroughs. There is simply much more real estate to build effective EV charging stations.
The Supercharger will be located in Maspeth, Queens, at 48-26 54th Road. Maspeth has I-495 running through it, so this will be a great location for Tesla owners to hop off the highway on their way to Long Island or to Manhattan to charge up before continuing their journey.
Tesla has done a really great job of expanding its charging footprint throughout the past several years, especially by building large-scale projects that cater to areas that have a high volume of traffic and are main routes of travel to major areas. Tesla is making an effort to make charging less stressful and more widely available in these concentrated regions.
Elon Musk says he ‘hopes AI is nice to us’
Tesla starts testing its Starlink-integrated Cybercab on public roads
