RIYADH: Lucid is on track to launch its midsize electric SUV in 2026, company executives said on Tuesday, as the EV maker looks to tap an increasingly competitive segment dominated by rival Tesla’s bestselling Model Y crossover. 

“There are a lot of crazy things going on in the world that can affect that (timeline). But currently we are on track,” said Derek Jenkins, senior vice president at Lucid. 

The company targets a $50,000 price point, which will pit the model against contenders such as the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the upcoming Rivian R2. 

Teams at Lucid have been preparing assembly lines and working with vendors to move ahead with the launch, said Emad Dlala, senior vice-president at the electric-vehicle maker. 

TARIFF IMPACT 

Lucid is not immune to the Trump administration’s tariffs but is working to mitigate its effects, interim CEO Marc Winterhoff told Reuters. 

While the EV maker does not plan any price hikes, it has signed agreements with battery cell and graphite suppliers to bring production to the US, Winterhoff said. 

“We have those agreements already. The plants are being built right now, so it’s not something that we can switch on today, but it's in the near future,” he said. 

Former Tesla engineer Peter Rawlinson, who was the CEO of Lucid for more than five years, resigned in February. 

The company, backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, plans to launch the less-expensive Touring variant of the Gravity SUV later this year, starting at $79,900. It expects strong demand for the premium model to help double its 2025 vehicle production to around 20,000 units. 

Lucid started producing its Gravity SUV at its Arizona factory last year, with customer orders for the Grand Touring trim opening in November. 

RIYADH: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered a probe into potential new tariffs on all US critical minerals imports, a major escalation in his dispute with global trade partners and an attempt to push back on industry leader China. 

The order lays bare what manufacturers, industry consultants, academics and others have long warned Washington about: that the US is overly reliant on Beijing and others for processed versions of the minerals that power its entire economy. 

China is a top global producer of 30 of the 50 minerals considered critical by the US Geological Survey, for example, and has been curtailing exports in recent months. 

Trump signed an order directing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to begin a national security review under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. That is the same law Trump used in his first term to impose 25 percent global tariffs on steel and aluminum and one he used in February to launch a probe into potential copper tariffs. 

US dependency on minerals imports “raises the potential for risks to national security, defense readiness, price stability, and economic prosperity and resilience,” Trump said in the order. 

Within 180 days, Lutnick is required to report his findings to the president, including whether to impose tariffs. Were Trump to then impose a tariff on a nation's critical minerals, the rate would supersede the reciprocal tariffs Trump imposed earlier this month, according to the White House. 

The review will assess US vulnerabilities for the processing of all critical minerals — including cobalt, nickel and the 17 rare earths, as well as uranium — how foreign actors could be distorting markets, and what steps could be taken to boost domestic supply and recycling, according to the order.  

The US currently extracts and processes scant amounts of lithium, has only one nickel mine but no nickel smelter, and has no cobalt mine or refinery. While it has several copper mines, the US has only two copper smelters and is reliant on other nations to process that key red metal. 

The order takes a broad view of processing as all the steps after rock is taken out of the ground and where they are done. It also directs a review of US capabilities to produce so-called semi-finished goods, including battery cathodes and wind turbines. 

The move is the latest in Trump’s effort to jumpstart US minerals production and processing. The president last month signed an order directing federal agencies to create a list of US mines that could be quickly approved and federal lands that could be used for minerals processing. 

Still, it takes years to build a new mine and processing facility, a timeline that has sparked concern about where the US could procure minerals were tariffs broadly imposed. 

“Ultimately the US gets certain minerals from China because there are not alternative supplies elsewhere,” said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

‘FULL SCOPE’ 

Beijing earlier this month placed export restrictions on rare earths in response to Trump’s tariffs, a move that further exacerbated supply concerns amongst Trump officials. 

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements used across the defense, electric vehicle, energy and electronics industries. The US has only one rare earths mine and most of its processed supply comes from China. 

The restrictions from China were seen as the latest demonstration of the country’s ability to weaponize its dominance over the mining and processing of critical minerals after it put outright bans on the export of three other metals last year to the US and slapped export controls on others. 

Chinese mining companies across the globe have been flooding markets with cheap supplies of many critical minerals in recent years, fueling calls from industry and investors for Washington to support US projects. 

The White House also said Trump is focused on closing tariff loopholes. As with other products, the supply chain for critical minerals processing involves multiple countries. 

“An effective policy should take into account the full scope of the supply chain to level the global playing field,” said Abigail Hunter, executive director of SAFE’s Center for Critical Minerals Strategy.