California-based EV maker Lucid Group LCID is looking to expand its total addressable market with a range of offerings at lower price points than its initial Air sedan versions and closer to rivaling Tesla models.
What Happened: Lucid started production of its Air Pure in September with a starting price of $69,900. This is a lower price point than the other versions of the Air Sedan. The Lucid Air Grand Touring, for instance, starts at $109,900, while its Sapphire version starts at $249,000.
The company also plans to start production of its Gravity SUV later this year. Gravity was unveiled in November and is expected to start under $80,000, a price point closer to Tesla’s premium Model X SUV. The Gravity, company CEO Peter Rawlinson said, is on track to become the “world’s best SUV.”
Following the start of production of Gravity, the company also plans to start production of its high volume, midsize vehicle in late 2026, which is expected to start at around $48,000, Rawlinson said on Monday. The price point of $48,000 will put the vehicle in direct competition with the more premium versions of Tesla’s mass-market offerings Model 3 and Model Y.
Competing With Tesla: Lucid is already making affordable cars to compete with Tesla in the form of its Air Pure version, Rawlinson said in response to a question at the company’s first-quarter earnings call. “But wait until our midsize comes out in late 2026. That’s when we’ll have a car at $48,000, and that is the big one, the one that’s going to be really exciting,” he said.
He also noted that the Gravity SUV has a “significant opportunity” that the Model X did not capture. While the Model X is a bit car-like, the Gravity is a proper three-row SUV, he said.
While Lucid’s first-quarter deliveries jumped nearly 40% from a year earlier to 1,967 vehicles, Tesla Model S sales dipped “very very considerably,” the CEO added. The Tesla Model S, like the Lucid Air, is a premium electric sedan.
According to data from automotive research company Kelley Blue Book, Model S sales dropped 13.3% to 4,206 units in the U.S. in the first quarter. However, the numbers are still higher than Lucid Air’s delivery numbers.
Lucid’s Financials: For the first quarter, Lucid reported a net loss of $680.9 million and a revenue of just $172.7 million. The company accumulated a net loss of over $346,000 for every vehicle it delivered.
However, as of the end of the first quarter, Lucid had total liquidity of about $5.03 billion, which the company expects will be enough to sustain it through the start of production of the Gravity SUV and into the second quarter of 2025.
Check out more of Benzinga's Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.
Image created using photos via Shutterstock and Lucid
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Comments
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
