Lucid’s Major Failure
Lucid's new CEO made one public promise after taking over, and investors responded by sending the stock deeper into penny-stock territory. What exactly is happening inside this troubled EV maker, and how much longer can it survive?
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Lucid (NASDAQ: LCID | LCID Price Prediction), the troubled EV company, produced 2,954 vehicles and delivered 3,806 vehicles during the third quarter. As an afterthought, management also gave a long list of excuses for delivering only 63 cars a day over the period. BNP Paribas looked at the figures and said Lucid has a “long and difficult journey” to fix itself.
Investors have been repeatedly reminded that Lucid cannot make the case that it will survive as an independent company. It might be bought for its technology or its products. But that seems an unlikely stretch. Its stock has crashed 60% this year. It is down 37% in the last three months.
Silvio Napoli has been CEO since early June. Investors have already voted on whether this was a good choice. The answer is a resounding “no”. He has not uttered a single convincing sentence about any plan that might turn Lucid around.
Instead of improvement, it has fallen to $4.16, into penny-stock territory. Napoli’s primary contribution so far was, in July, to tell the world that Lucid would not declare bankruptcy. The fact that he had to do so says a lot.
Rather than listening to Napoli’s restructuring plan, investors have focused on financial results. In the most recent quarter, Lucid had a net loss of $1.26 billion, on revenue of $405 million. It is hard to imagine how many cars Lucid would need to sell to break even.
Among the worst decisions Lucid made early in its history was its car pricing. The Lucid Air is priced between $70,000 and $115,000. The Lucid Gravity is priced between $76,000 and $126,000. There is no market for EVs priced that high.
Lucid’s market cap has fallen to $1.6 billion. That remains well above where it should be.
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