As demand for its premium cars drops, Lucid Motors aims to manufacture just 9,000 electric vehicles in 2024, 500 to 1,000 more than in 2023. If Lucid keeps to that estimate, it will construct 10% of the 90,000 EVs it planned to create and sell in 2024 when it went public three years ago.
The discrepancy between the current data and those early projections shows how much flexibility Lucid had to promote reverse mergers, which helped so many go public. It shows Lucid’s harsh reality: it’s still struggling to find consumers and losing money on every EV it manufactures.
Lucid published its 2024 production objectives on Wednesday with its 2023 financial results, which showed a $2.8 billion loss. The modest prediction comes days after the business cut its Air sedan pricing by $8,000.
Over the last year, CEO Peter Rawlinson has stressed the need to improve sales and marketing, citing the incoming Gravity SUV as a possible boost. Gravity is one reason Lucid predicted making and shipping 90,000 cars in a few years. Lucid claimed the Gravity will outsell the Air Car in 2024 in its 2021 merger presentation.
However, Lucid faced supply chain and manufacturing issues in the early days of the Air and had to delay the Gravity debut in 2022. In November 2023, the business debuted the SUV and aims to begin production by year’s end.
Lucid awarded Rawlinson a $6 million cash incentive last week for revealing the gravity, which is important for its future. The mid-size platform Lucid is developing to compete with Tesla’s Model Y won’t be ready until late 2026.
Other factors might benefit the firm. It just began offering a rear-wheel-drive Air Pure, which currently costs around $70,000 after a price reduction. Lucid had technical issues with early Air Pure manufacturing, but Rawlinson said it is already scaled up.
Lucid sold some EV technologies to Aston Martin last year. Rawlinson said on a teleconference Wednesday that Lucid is still in talks to license and provide technology to other firms, both automotive and non-automotive. He said Lucid is “seeing interest in our technology for use in hybrid electric vehicles.”
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which owns most of Lucid Motors, will buy 100,000 EVs from Lucid over the next decade. Lucid began exporting Air sedans to the Kingdom late last year, but Rawlinson said “different market dynamics and intricacies unique to that market” hindered the deployment. He added that Lucid “expects good growth in the region this year.”
