05.08.23
LCID reported Q1 earnings.
$149m revenue, down from $257m in Q4, up from $57m in Q1 2022 at the start of production.
This $149m figure is much lower than the estimated $210m revenue.
Lucid produced 2300 cars in Q1, delivered only 1400. This is a very big drop from Q4 when they produced 3500 and delivered 1900.
Losses both per share and net income are almost x10 from Q1, 2022, $.043 loss per share, $779m net loss. Cash on hand is down to $3.4B.
Up to May 2022, Lucid 2022 guidance was 20k production.
In May they reduced guidance to 12-14k for 2022.
In August they reduced guidance to 6-7k for 2022.
In February 2023 due to "production difficulty", they reduced 2023 guidance to 10-14k.
In May 2023, guidance is now half of the previous year's guidance up to 1 year ago, at 10k, which could also be a stretch from 1400 per Q1, a 5600 annual delivery run rate.
Due to Lucid high prices, lack of Rebate eligibility, and the Early stage of the company with high expenses and difficult Macro conditions, they are in a very bad place financially.
Although their IP is impressive and their product is compelling, financial problems tend to bring down the best when at fragile stages.
I believe Due to Lucid current prices, they did hit a demand Ceiling. Due to these Macro conditions, rebates, and Tesla's aggressive price cuts, Lucid definitely departed from the Production constraint and arrived at the Demand constraint.
As I stated before, if in some magical way, Lucid could drop their prices significantly they could fix this, however, losses will increase drastically.
Not sure if the Saudis will continue funding this situation.
Lucid managed to produce 7180 cars in 2022 but only delivered 4369 which indicates actually a huge gap that cannot be explained only by logistics.
Honestly, I am not sure where they are hiding nearly 3.5k of accumulated undelivered inventory.🤔 (Near 80% of 2022 deliveries).
Given this Inventory, you might have expected a ramp-up in deliveries, but this is not happening, although Lucid does technically have 28k reservations still.
It is likely that a $100k+ car, as good as it is, is not forming lines of buyers in this economy and with Tesla's so-called price war.
Stock is down 9% to $7 after hours, 87% off 2021 ATH of $55, near an all-time low of $6.36 in 01.08.23 after disappointing Q4 deliveries were out.
Production is definitely not easy, and starting a car company has never been easy.
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