Dive Brief:
- Lucid Group raised $1 billion in Q1 from Ayar Third Investment Company, an affiliate of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the luxury electric vehicle maker announced as part of its quarterly earnings last week.
- The company has received a total of $6.4 billion in funding from the PIF since 2018, which has helped support its operations. Lucid closed on its first $1 billion investment from the PIF in September 2018, followed by a second $1 billion investment from the fund in April 2019.
- "I believe there are two factors that set Lucid apart — our superior, in-house technology and the partnership with the PIF," said Lucid CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson, in a press release. "Our sales momentum is building, our focus upon cost remains relentless.”
Dive Insight:
Despite a Q1 loss of $681 million and a decline in production, Lucid is well-funded and has over $5 billion in cash on hand. The company believes that funding will provide a “sufficient runway” for the production and launch of its lower-priced Gravity SUV and support the company’s operations through the second quarter of 2025.
The multi-billion dollars of funding supported the construction of Lucid’s EV factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, as well as a second production facility in Saudi Arabia to serve emerging markets in the Middle East.
The factory in Arizona was the first dedicated EV factory built in the U.S. at the time of its construction, and Lucid’s second factory in Saudi Arabia is the country’s first-ever auto manufacturing plant.
Production of the Lucid Air began last September in Saudi Arabia. The factory has an initial production capacity to build up to 5,000 vehicles a year but is expected to expand to 155,000 electric vehicles a year. The government of Saudi Arabia has also agreed to purchase up to 100,000 Lucid vehicles over a 10-year period.
In January, Lucid announced it was expanding its Arizona EV factory from approximately 3 million square feet to nearly 4 million. The expansion will accommodate production of the Lucid Gravity later this year, as well as seek to improve quality processes, provide manufacturing flexibility and increase efficiency, according to Lucid.
"We continue to make significant progress on our cost optimization programs," said Gagan Dhingra, interim CFO at Lucid, in a press release. "We're focused on significant growth as we enter the next transformational phase of Lucid's end markets while simultaneously driving cost discipline."
Lucid’s new Gravity SUV, its second EV, is expected to go into production in late 2024. When launched, it will enter the highly competitive luxury SUV and crossover market. The company also plans to launch a new mid-size EV platform in late 2026.
Deliveries of the Lucid Air sedan, its first and only model offered for right now, are currently underway in the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Middle East. The company produced 1,728 Lucid Air sedans in Q1 and delivered 1,967 of them to customers, indicating that some of the vehicles were built last year.
