It is no secret that Lucid has been struggling through a difficult production ramp since rolling the first Lucid Air luxury electric sedans off the production line last year.
The problems keep getting worse for Lucid, as a new report says six high-level manufacturing executives have departed the company in the last few weeks.
Citing anonymous current and former Lucid employees, Business Insider reports that the six executives were responsible for strengthening production at the company’s manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, Arizona.
Among those who departed was Peter Hochholdinger, the VP of global manufacturing, who earlier this year in a shuffle of executive responsibilities lost his duty of overseeing manufacturing quality.
According to the sources, others to depart include VP of programs Ralph Jakobs; Head of Arizona operations Mike Boike; Head of new product introduction, program management David Peel; Senior manager, logistics engineering Chris Barber; and Director of operational excellence Keith Champion.
When reached for comment by Business Insider, only Champion confirmed he is no longer with Lucid. Peel is now working for Nikola as their Director of Advanced Manufacturing according to his Linkedin profile, and the publication was able to confirm the other departures after reviewing internal memos.
After initially hoping to deliver 20,000 Lucid Air sedans this year, the automaker has successively cut its production targets, now estimating it will only hand over between 6,000 and 7,000 cars this year.
Even without these departures that number might be difficult to achieve. In the first six months of the year Lucid has only been able to deliver just 1,405 vehicles to new customers.
