Lucid has finally published their Q3 2023 production and delivery figures on Tuesday. The release comes several days later than typical, and as expected, the figures are not good.
Lucid first started selling its luxury electric vehicles (EVs) late in 2021, starting off with their highest priced trims. They started out 2022, their first full year of operation, with the goal of building as many as 20,000 EVs. As the months wore on the fledgling automaker cut their production guidance several times, eventually landing on well less than half of their original target, between 6,000 and 7,000 units, a target which they barely ended up exceeding.
Their second year started out much like their first, with Lucid revising their initial target of 10,000 to 14,000 cars built down to “more than 10,000.” With three quarters of the year now in the rearview mirror, it looks like they will not only miss their target, but end the year with a substantial amount of unsold inventory.
From July to September Lucid says it produced 1,550 Air sedans, bringing their total for the first nine months of the year to 6,037. In addition to the cars produced at their facility in Arizona, AMP-1, Lucid said it had “over 700 additional vehicles in transit to Saudi Arabia for final assembly.” Lucid opened their new manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia this month, AMP-2, which will re-assembles Air vehicle ‘kits’ that are pre-manufactured at AMP-1.
That means the company will have to produce 3,963 cars at AMP-1 and AMP-2 in the final three months of the year to meet their lowered target, a figure which would be nearly triple their production output over the last couple of quarters.
Adding to their woes is that Lucid is still struggling to sell whatever cars they are able to build. In Q3 the automaker reported 1,457 deliveries, a slight increase compared to the 1,406 and 1,404 it delivered in Q1 and Q2 respectively, for a nine month total of 4,267.
That leaves them with 1,770 Air sedans that have been built this year, but are sitting in a lot somewhere without an owner, despite substantial discounts and promotional lease offerings that come with priority status for the upcoming Gravity SUV. This also doesn’t include the 2,811 cars it had in inventory at the end of 2022 (4,369 sold vs. 7,180 produced).
While these are just the production and delivery figures, there is still more news to come when Lucid reports its Q3 financials, which are set to be released on November 7, 2023. However, based on estimates that they are losing $338,000 per vehicle built, the financials likely won’t be improving from the net loss of $764.2 million it reported in Q2.
