Lucid is running out of flashlights. He continues to burn cash, losing 16 billion per quarter. When will the owners run out of patience?

Who is doing well with electric cars these days? That’s a million dollar question, but the word “Lucid” is not the answer. The manufacturer of electric cars is reducing stock, but only thanks to discounts. His turnover thus falls, losses remain unbearable and he gradually runs out of money.

Lucid Motors was founded in 2007, but it did not produce its first car – the electric sedan Air – until fourteen years later. At that time, it also had the highest market value, one share was sold for 55 dollars (approx. 1,300 CZK). At the same time, the company mentioned that once its factory reaches full capacity, it will produce 400,000 cars a year. That is, a larger number of cars than the number of orders at that time. But at that time, some naively believed that the internal combustion engine would be over in a short time and people would enthusiastically switch to the electric one.

Today, it is perhaps clear even to the former optimists that those forecasts were spewed out of a green finger and had nothing to do with the reality of laundromats. The first wave of customers already has an electric car at home, while the rest of the audience is hesitant or not interested at all. That’s bad news for the established brands, but they still have a burning program to keep them afloat. Lucid has “only” a Saudi investment fund at its disposal in this regard, which controls 60 percent of the company.

But even his accounts are not bottomless, and it is a question of how long the sheikhs will be willing to keep the car company afloat. She would not be able to hold on to it for long, as the results for the first quarter of this year show. In the process, Lucid was able to reduce inventory slightly. 1,728 cars were produced, but 1,967 were delivered to customers. This is a significantly better balance than in the last quarter of last year, when the automaker had 2,391 cars produced, but only 1,734 cars sold. But it’s still a handful of cars, and last year alone, the company produced 2,427 cars for storage, i.e. more than it currently sells for the entire quarter.

Stocks are therefore still considerable, but the brand has nevertheless stated that it will produce another nine thousand cars this year. This is a really significant drop compared to the originally planned 400,000, but we still have to wonder if it is not a big bite after all. If Lucid were to end this year with empty warehouses, it would have to sell over 11,000 cars. That doesn’t seem likely, however the Air sedan is set to get a boost in the second half of the year in the form of the Gravity electric SUV.

However, can this news change anything? We don’t think too much of it, if only because it’s a competitor to the Model X, which is Tesla’s worst-selling model. In addition, Lucid cannot boast of such a reputation, so it may be even worse in the finals. But then what should save the car company? We can’t think of anything, if only because the market is crowded today. In essence, range and dynamics are no longer decisive, they are more or less the same everywhere, the price has become a key parameter.

At the same time, Tesla unleashed a price war, in which Lucid has already joined. And thanks to the fact that the Air sedan became cheaper, he managed to partially empty the warehouses. But as a result, the company reported a lower turnover, instead of the expected 182 million dollars (4.2 billion CZK) for the first quarter, it was 172 million USD (4 billion CZK). Although the car company reduced its loss from last year’s 780 million USD (over 18 billion CZK) to 684 million USD (almost 16 billion CZK), this is not something to drink champagne for, considering the size of the company, it is still a brutal loss.

Lucid’s shares continue to fall, and now you can buy one for just $2 and 80 cents (CZK 70). So it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months. Indeed, the car company has 4.62 billion dollars (107.43 billion CZK) in cash and other liquid assets at its disposal, which is said to last it until the second quarter of next year, but how much can you console yourself with something like that? We have to wonder when the patience of the Saudi Arabian owners will run out, such a moment may not be far away.

There are already enough good-looking SUVs on the market, but the upcoming Lucid Gravity has nothing to impress in terms of technology – it does not differ that much from the competition. It might sell better than the Air sedan, but the automaker can forget about the previously considered 400,000 cars per year. Photo: Lucid Motors

Source: Lucid Motors

Petr Prokopec

All articles on Autoforum.cz are comments expressing the editor’s or author’s opinion. Except for articles marked as advertising, the content is not sponsored or similarly influenced by third parties.