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Land for Lucid Motors Arizona factory will reportedly be paid by tax payers

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8 years ago

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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.

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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?

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.

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Tesla’s Giga Texas vehicles now drive themselves to outbound lot

Tesla is gearing up for Unsupervised Full Self-Driving in Texas with freshly produced vehicles at the factory.

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10 hours ago

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April 7, 2025

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Credit: Joe Tegtmeyer | X

Just a couple of months after Tesla announced that vehicles produced at its California factory were driving themselves to the outbound lot, it appears that the company’s Gigafactory in Texas has now followed suit.

In a post on X on Monday, longtime Giga Texas observer and drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer shared video footage of multiple new Model Y and Cybertruck units autonomously driving to the outbound lot. The news comes ahead of Tesla’s aim to launch Unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) around the Austin area in the coming weeks, alongside the launch of a commercial robotaxi launch.

“I saw this happening constantly, with Model Ys exiting and immediately driving away on their own from the factory,” Tegtmeyer said in the post. “This is a huge accomplishment for Tesla as now Giga Texas joins Fremont as FSD improves overall efficiency!”

READ MORE ON TESLA AUTONOMY: Tesla employees are performing autonomous FSD trials, CEO Elon Musk says

Tesla announced in January that its vehicles at the factory in Fremont, California were driving themselves to the outbound lot, though this appears to be the first time they’ve done so at Giga Texas. The automaker is expected to launch Unsupervised FSD in Austin in June, just as Google-owned company Waymo has been rolling out robotaxi services in the area through a partnership with Uber in recent months.

In December, a Bloomberg report suggested that Tesla had already been in regular discussion with Austin officials about robotaxi services, ahead of the company’s announcement of plans to launch in 2025. Along with rolling out commercial robotaxi services in Austin, the company has said that it aims to do so in California sometime this year as well, before deploying the service in other U.S. cities.

Tesla updates its “FSD” branding in China

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Tesla adding new safety features for improved emergency detection

Emergency vehicle detection is about to get a little more intuitive, according to one keen observer.

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12 hours ago

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April 7, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is set to add a few upcoming features to make it easier to detect emergency vehicles while driving, as highlighted by one code sleuth from the firmware in a recent update.

Last week, Tesla code sleuth and hacker greentheonly posted on X that firmwares from software update 2025.8.x includes updated warning functionality for emergency vehicle siren detection. The feature will display an alert when a siren is detected, and it will also lower the driver’s media volume automatically to make it easier to hear.

Green also says that the alerts will require microphone permissions to turned on in order for the feature to work. They’re currently expected to be debuted in a future update, despite being detailed in the firmware for the recent update branch.

You can read the help text for the feature below, as was also shared by green.

Automatically detects and alerts the driver to nearby sirens, helping you or Autopilot recognize and yield to approaching emergency vehicles. When a siren is detected, the media volume lowers, and an alert appears on the display. Sound detection data stays within the car and is not saved or transmitted unless data sharing is enabled.

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READ MORE ON TESLA SAFETY FEATURES: Tesla implemented this little-known feature to make its cars even safer

With the exception of the new Model Y, Tesla’s vehicles only include one internal microphone and they don’t have an external microphone. Still, emergency vehicle detection is expected to be aided by the vehicles’ many cameras, and the upcoming feature is expected to be active whether or not Supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Autopilot are active.

Green has long been a reliable source for reporting these features weeks or months ahead of them going live. One recent example includes when green pointed out in December that internal code detailed an upcoming improvement to towing range estimates through an intuitive “trailer profile” option.

Tesla also regularly adds and improves safety and other features in its vehicles through software updates, with one engineer just this week sharing plans to correct a small Cybertruck display quirk in response to owner criticism.

Tesla rolls out latest Safety Score update—Here’s what’s new

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Tesla is correcting a minor, annoying Cybertruck display quirk

Tesla Cybertrucks would soon be able to properly recognize and display trailers on their infotainment displays.

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13 hours ago

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April 7, 2025

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Credit: The Boring Company/X

Tesla is working on addressing a minor but annoying Cybertruck quirk in an upcoming update. With the update in place, Tesla Cybertrucks would be able to properly recognize and render trailers in their displays.

The Quirk

As observed by Tesla owners on social media platform X, the Cybertruck at its current state is unable to recognize other Cybertrucks on the road. Instead of a Cybertruck avatar, the all-electric pickup truck’s infotainment system simply displays a regular vehicle like a pickup truck on its UI.

This is quite annoying as the Cybertruck is the most technologically advanced Tesla in the market today, and it is extremely recognizable. It is also doubly annoying since CEO Elon Musk mentioned that Teslas should be able to recognize and render other Teslas on their displays several years ago.

An Upcoming Update

In response to a Cybertruck owner’s post, Tesla Lead Engineer Wes Morrill noted that the capability to render other Cybertrucks on the all-electric pickup truck’s UI is on the list. For now, however, Tesla is working on an update that should fix the way the Cybertruck renders trailers on its UI.

“Will put it on the list. Right after making it recognize trailers instead of looking like a semi truck is trying to mate with Cybertruck,” the Cybertruck Lead Engineer lightly wrote in a post on X.

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Elon Musk’s Past Promise

Back in 2020, CEO Elon Musk mentioned on X that Teslas will soon be able to render other Teslas, including their model and color, on their displays. Musk noted that such a feature could even be a game of sorts. “Display will also soon render Teslas specifically as their model & color instead of as a generic sedan/SUV. Has potential for a fun punch buggy sort of game,” Musk wrote back in July 2020.

While Musk stated that the feature will soon be available, its rollout has been subjected to a severe case of “Elon Time” until today.

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