As the automotive industry, electric vehicles (EVs) especially, face a myriad of business-threatening challenges, including tariffs, inflation, and rising production costs, the little guys are the ones that are feeling the most pressure. I am talking, of course, of younger, more upstart carmakers who can’t rely on the might of a world-conquering industrial and financial machine to back them up if the situation goes south.
Lucid Motors is one such automaker, one that, although backed by what appears to be a solid Saudi Public Investment Fund, remains vulnerable to the industry’s rapidly changing obstacles. I have some good news, though, as 2024 was a great year for Lucid as sales have been steady and even climbing after the carmaker launched its first-ever SUV, the Gravity. But, Lucid isn’t a profitable automaker yet.
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Hot Take: I’m Finally Living With A Lucid Air
And, I’ll be driving it in frigid cold conditions, too.
Lucid Motors Met Its 9,000-Vehicle Yearly Target
Lucid will officially confirm its 2024 Q4 earnings today during its earnings call with investors. It will also presumably announce more news, like the development of its confirmed “Mid-Sized” program, which will allow it to introduce new, more affordable models to attract new buyers into its showrooms.
But Lucid ended 2024 with a bang as it saw a 79-percent increase in sales over the previous year, with no less than 3,099 vehicles sold during the fourth quarter alone. Some of these sales were bumped by the introduction of the Gravity at the end of the year. This performance has allowed Lucid to meet its original yearly production target of 9,000 vehicles.
The strong sales were spearheaded by an aggressive lease and financing program, with incentives reaching $15,561 per vehicle, a $5,000 increase over the previous year’s incentive program. Leasing was also introduced in Canada last year, which, according to the folks at Lucid Montreal, who loaned me a Lucid Air press unit last week for me to review, has helped secure new transactions.
Lucid Wants To Licence Its EV Technology To More Automakers
But while sales are healthy at Lucid, mostly due to the company’s unique and sort of left-field vision of commercializing luxury electric vehicles, the automaker is still bleeding money. For reference, it has been burning through billions of dollars every year since the launch of the Air more than three years ago. During Q4 2024, Lucid reported a net loss of $950 million.
To help mitigate this, the California-based automaker has been reaching out to other car companies to have them purchase its EV technology. Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson said earlier this month that he would love to see his company become both an automaker and a supplier at the rate of about 20-percent cars and 80-percent licensing.
So, while Lucid is selling strongly, it still needs to find ways of being more profitable. This should be made possible with its upcoming Mid-Size platform, which aims at scaling down production and increasing profitability. Seen as the “non-Tesla” carmaker, Lucid has already built itself a reputation for focusing on the general quality of its vehicles and, above all, their efficiency.
A week spent behind the wheel of a 2025 Lucid Air Touring (review coming soon) had me truly impressed by how well Lucid executes certain luxury elements, some of which have recently been challenged at big-name luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW. We’ll be on the Lucid earnings call later today, and we’ll report back here with more details about what’s coming next at Lucid Motors.