People test drive Dream Edition P and Dream Edition R electric vehicles at the Lucid Motors plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, September 28, 2021.
Caitlin O’Hara | Reuters
Luxury electric vehicle maker Lucid appears to have a demand problem.
The company said during its fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday that it had “over 28,000” reservations for its Air sedan as of Feb. 21. That was a surprise, given that the company had claimed “over 34,000” reservations in November and delivered fewer than 2,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter.
Even more surprising: Lucid said it plans to build just 10,000 to 14,000 vehicles in 2023, far fewer than the roughly 27,000 Wall Street analysts had expected — and than the roughly 34,000 vehicles per year that Lucid’s factory is set up to build.
Shares of the company have sold off almost 17% since the Wednesday report.
Lucid faced a rough road getting the Air into production. The company spent much of the first half of 2022 scrambling to secure key components and untangling logistics snags. Now, with production running more or less smoothly, it seems to be facing a new problem: not enough of those reservations are converting to orders.
CEO Peter Rawlinson acknowledged as much during the earnings call when he reminded listeners that reservations aren’t binding.
“We’ve solved production. That is not the gating issue here now,” Rawlinson said. “My focus is on sales. And here’s the thing. We’ve got what I believe to be the very best product in the world. … Too few people are aware of not just the car, but even the company.”
Rawlinson went on to say that he believes that to be an “entirely solvable problem” and plans to focus on “amplifying customer awareness” in 2023.
More marketing might help. But clearly demand for Lucid’s vehicles isn’t materializing as quickly as the company expected, which raises some tough questions for investors.
First, how big is Lucid’s potential market? Any estimate of how much Lucid could grow has to start with an…
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