Luxury electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors is cutting its 2022 production forecast for the second time this year. The Newark, California-based company announced that it will revise its production expectations to between 6,000 and 7,000 vehicles.
Lucid initially said it would make 20,000 vehicles by 2022, but that number was revised in February to 12,000-14,000 vehicles. It was another disappointing turn for the electric vehicle maker, which is keen 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.
“We have identified the main bottlenecks”
“Our revised production guidance reflects the extraordinary supply chain and logistics challenges we encountered,” Lucid CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson said in a statement. “We have identified the major bottlenecks and are taking appropriate action: 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 bookings, and I am confident that we will overcome these challenges in the short term.”
Lucid posted its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, with a loss of $220 million on revenue of $97.3 million. The company said it delivered only 679 vehicles to customers in 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 reservations for its Lucid Air luxury sedan now exceed 37,000, reflecting $3.5 billion in potential sales. The company had previously said it had received 24,000 bookings.
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 probably one of the most competitive segments of the electric vehicle market, filled with 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.