Luxury electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors is slashing its production forecast for 2022 for the second time this year. The Newark, California-based company announced it was revising its production expectations to between 6,000 and 7,000 vehicles.
Lucid originally said it would make 20,000 vehicles in 2022, but that number was revised in February to 12,000–14,000 vehicles. It was another disappointing turn for the EV maker, which is strongly angling to capture some of Tesla’s market share with its ultra-premium, ultra-long-range Lucid Air sedan. Last quarter, Lucid announced a 10 percent price increase for the single model it has in production.
“Our revised production guidance reflects the extraordinary supply chain and logistics challenges we encountered,” said Peter Rawlinson, Lucid’s CEO and CTO, in a statement. “We’ve identified the primary bottlenecks, and we are taking appropriate measures – bringing our logistics operations in-house, adding key hires to the executive team, and restructuring our logistics and manufacturing organization. We continue to see strong demand for our vehicles, with over 37,000 customer reservations, and I remain confident that we shall overcome these near-term challenges.”
Lucid released its second quarter earnings Wednesday, reporting a $220 million loss on revenue of $97.3 million. The company said it only delivered 679 vehicles to customers over the past three months. Overall, Lucid said it lost $4.8 billion in 2021. The company went public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, last summer.
Lucid also said the number of reservations for its luxury Lucid Air sedan now exceeded 37,000, reflecting $3.5 billion in potential sales. The company had previously said it had received 24,000 reservations.
Lucid previously delayed the launch of its Gravity SUV until the first half of 2024 in order to ensure the best possible production process. The company is entering what is arguably one of the most competitive segments of the EV market, crowded with the likes of the Audi E-tron and E-tron GT, Jaguar I-Pace, Polestar 2, Porsche Taycan, Mercedes-Benz EQS, Cadillac Lyriq, BMW i4, Lexus LF-Z, and Tesla Model S Plaid, which started rolling out to customers last year.
Source: The Verge