The halo continues to fade on electric vehicle startups as Lucid has hinted at a disappointing first quarter.
While the automaker isn’t slated to discuss their financial results until May 8th, they revealed production and delivery statistics that alarmed investors. Through March 31st, the company built 2,314 vehicles but only delivered 1,406 of them.
That’s not a good sign as it could hint at a lack of demand since the company is producing far more vehicles than they are delivering. If that wasn’t bad enough, CNBC noted the company boasted about having “over 28,000” reservations in February. If people were converting those reservations into orders, you’d expect to see deliveries running much closer to production numbers.
More: Lucid Stock Takes A Hit On Weak 2022 Results And 2023 Production Targets
We’ll learn more in May, but Lucid built 7,180 vehicles in 2022 and only delivered 4,369 of them. This suggests there are at least 3,720 Air EVs sitting around waiting for purchase or delivery.
The disappointing numbers come shortly after Lucid revealed plans to eliminate approximately 18% of its workforce. At the time, CEO Peter Rawlinson said “We have been reviewing and implementing several other ways to optimize our cost structure, but unfortunately these measures alone won’t achieve our objectives. Consequently, we’ve made the painful but necessary decision to let some of our talented team members go.”
While Lucid has certainly seen some bad days, the Air was recently named 2023 World Luxury Car. Lucid has also been expanding their presence and is slated to launch the Gravity SUV next year.
