Lucid has launched an employee purchase program which gives employees a discount on the Lucid Air sedan. The new program is only available until the end of the year and appears to be another attempt to boost sales in what has so far been a disappointing year for the fledgling automaker.
The employee purchase program launched this week and offers U.S. based employees an $18,000 discount to purchase and take delivery of the Air Grand Touring variant before December 31, 2022, according to internal emails seen by Business Insider.
The Air Grand Touring starts at $154,000 USD.
The discount won’t be applied at the time of purchase however, and will instead be a stipend which will see employees receive $500 every pay period until they have been paid out $18,000. The payments will only take place if they continue to be employed by Lucid.
A company spokesperson confirmed the existence of the program, who said it was about rewarding employees who have been asking for such an incentive.
“We have always wanted to find the right time to help reward our employees who were interested in driving a Lucid Air every day. With our recent ramp up, we have been able to honor this request from our team,” said Lucid spokesperson Nat Lingo. (via Insider)
However, it could be more about increasing sales before the end of the year. As we first reported in November, the automaker is now selling inventory vehicles available for immediate delivery, despite having over 34,000 outstanding reservations.
That number of reservations actually dropped by more than the number of cars that were delivered in the third quarter, indicating Lucid is seeing more reservations cancelled than vehicles that are being delivered.
Through the first three quarters of the year Lucid has produced just 3,687 Air sedans, and will need to build almost as many in the final quarter to meet their annual guidance of between 6,000 and 7,000 vehicles produced.
That number was originally targeted to be 20,000 at the beginning of the year.
