Lucid Motors delivered more electric vehicles in the first quarter of 2024 than in any other quarter, although it set the record by a very small margin.
The California-based, Saudi-backed electric vehicle company said Tuesday morning that it shipped 1,967 luxury sedans during the quarter. That’s just a bit more than it shipped in the fourth quarter of 2022, when it set its previous record of 1,932 deliveries. The company, however, said it built only 1,728 sedans in the first quarter, meaning it will need to increase production in coming quarters if it intends to meet its modest goal of making 9,000 electric vehicles this year.
Lucid’s new delivery record comes as the company struggles to find consistent demand for its pricey luxury sedan, the Air. The company is still a few months away from starting production of its upcoming Gravity SUV. So it’s banking on discounts, increased marketing efforts and a more affordable version of the Air to keep things going until it can ship this new model. Meanwhile, it recently turned to Saudi Arabia to raise an additional $1 billion to finance what would otherwise still be a loss-making business.
Lucid is not alone in his struggles. Rivian also started 2024 on an even keel, building and shipping roughly the same number of vehicles in the first quarter as in the last quarter of 2024. These companies are trying to establish themselves in a rapidly changing market, where Tesla Prices have constantly been reduced and major automakers have scaled back their most ambitious plans for the mass marketing of fully electric vehicles.
Although Lucid set a new record in the first quarter, it did not say how many deliveries were for the more affordable version of the Air sedan, which it began shipping late last year. The company also announced last year that it had begun shipping the first vehicles to Saudi Arabia for final assembly – the first step in a plan to sell up to 100,000 vehicles to its majority owner. But he did not specify how many Air sedans have arrived in the Kingdom so far. The company will only have the capacity to assemble, at most, 5,000 vehicles in Saudi Arabia until a full production plant comes online in a few years.
techcrunch
