Lucid has announced a fresh round of layoffs, with the latest restructuring plan seeing approximately 400 employees laid off, representing about 6% of its total workforce, as the automaker struggles with high costs and low sales.
According to a regulatory filing on Friday, Lucid says the job cuts and restructuring will be complete by the end of the third quarter of 2024, and will cost the company between $21 million and $25 million. This cost will largely be made up of severance payments, employee benefits, employee transition, and stock-based compensation, the company explains.
In an email to employees addressing the job cuts, Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson said they will affect all levels, including leadership and mid-level management. The layoffs will not impact the hourly manufacturing and logistics workforce however, as the automaker works to launch its next electric vehicle, the Gravity SUV, next year.
“I’m confident Lucid will deliver the world’s best SUV and dramatically expand our total addressable market, but we aren’t generating revenue from the program yet. As always we must remain vigilant about costs. We are optimizing our resources in a way we believe will best position the company for future success and growth opportunities as we focus on achieving our ambitious goals,” Rawlinson said.
Lucid recently reported a wider than expected loss for the first quarter of 2024, losing nearly $350,000 on every vehicle it sold. However, it continues to receive substantial backing from its largest investor, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which holds more than a 60% stake in the company, and provided another $1 billion cash infusion earlier this year.
This financial support is critical as Lucid says it only has around $5 billion in liquidity at the end of Q1 2024, which is about enough cash to see it through only until early 2025.
This is not the first time Lucid has cut jobs in an effort to save money. A little over one year ago Lucid cut 18% of its global workforce, or nearly 1,300 employees worldwide. At the time Lucid said the job cuts were necessary to reduce expenses as the automaker couldn’t survive on cost optimization efforts alone.
