Lucid Air Deliveries Almost Quadrupled In Q1 2023

Lucid Group revealed that its vehicle production and deliveries, during the first quarter of 2023, significantly increased year-over-year.

Production in Q1 2023 amounted to 2,314 Lucid Air cars, which is 235 percent more than a year ago. Meanwhile, customer deliveries amounted to 1,406 (up 290 percent year-over-year).

Such results bring mixed feelings because while quadrupling deliveries is a very positive outcome, we must remember that it’s from a relatively low base. More importantly, both results are lower than during the fourth quarter of 2022 and marginally higher than in Q3 2022.

Lucid Q1 2023 results:

• Production: 2,314 (up 235% year-over-year)
• Deliveries: 1,406 (up 290% year-over-year)

Let’s also note the difference between production and deliveries – in Q1 2023, it was over 900 cars, while over the last five quarters (from Q1 2022), it accumulated to 3,719 units. As we understand, those are vehicles in transit (between the factory and customers).

For reference, in 2022, Lucid delivered 4,369 electric cars and produced 7,180. Cumulatively, Lucid delivered 5,900 electric cars.

In its Q4 2022 financial report, Lucid announced a production volume guidance for 2023 of 10,000-14,000 vehicles (2,500-3,500 per quarter on average).

We might get a future update on that on May 8, 2023, when the company will release its first quarter of 2023 financial results. Unfortunately, considering the recent news about layoffs of 1,300 people, or 18 percent of the total number, we are not so sure whether the initial forecast will be maintained.

Let’s recall that in the beginning, Lucid hoped to reach a level of 20,000 units in 2022 (later reduced to 12,000-14,000 and 6,000-7,000).

The recent results are also quite worrying compared to the competition. Aside from Tesla (which reduced prices on the Model S/Model X), Mercedes-Benz recently increased its BEV sales to 7,341 units in Q1 in the US alone (including 3,391 EQS – Sedan and SUV).

The Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV is locally produced, while the upcoming Lucid Gravity SUV is not yet introduced.

It seems that those few years of delay, needed to secure financing for the plant, cost the company precious time and now it will have to compete with luxury BEVs from other brands, instead of entering the mostly empty space.

The number of Lucid EV reservations (as of 21 February 2023) was more than 28,000, compared to 37,000 reported in Q2, and 34,000 in Q3 2022.