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Ok I thought about it, and I'm just to lazy to make a new thread.I would love to hear your thoughts. I think I could benefit from your perspective. If you don’t want to post, would you mind sending a DM or starting a thread in the off-topic section?
I'm going to post and just ask for forgiveness. *Dear mighty overloads of Lucidowners.com, please do not hit me with a ban hammer. I'm not trying to be an armchair CEO or COO*
My big question resolves around operations. I'm not an expert in manufacturing, but I've worked at a company that does manufacturing and I've also worked for a big ERP/MRP company; enough to kind of have an idea of what is roughly going on at a very VERY high level.
If Lucid is capable of forecasting 20K, and its not some bullshit number they are pulling out of thin air, then they should be doing everything possible to prepare manufacturing for that production level. This should include reviewing all build of materials, and the necessary components to produce them, and more than likely setting up purchasing agreements to insure these items arrive in correct quantities and at the correct time. An argument can be made that due to different configuration possibilities, edge case configuration might be more difficult to predict for and therefore maintain raw materials for. But lets be honest, the order book for the Gravity has been well known for awhile now.
When I hear that, the HUD doesn't have enough components, or that the magnets for the motors are having supply chain issues. I definitely pause. 450 complete HUDs is a KNOWN number, and have shouldn't be difficult to have prepared for well in advance. Magnets in a motor for a vehicle that has been on preorder for a very long time, shouldn't have been difficult to stockpile; especially when Lucid isn't pumping out thousands of Gravity per month. If the Gravity was beginning production in Dec of 2024, I'd imagine that raw materials and components should have should have arrived prior to this. Even if Dec start of production was a fluff I would assume materials should have started to arrive in Q1 of 2025 because Marc said in the Q1 call they'd have Gravities for delivery by end of March/early April.
So was the 20K number a bluff, and they never prepared themselves to produce 20K? Did someone in demand planning just drop the ball and completely forecast incorrect part requirements? Did someone in purchasing completely whiff supplier contracts?
All of it seems like a huge mess. It's sad, because the engineers really seem to be delivering but operationally, from the outside looking in, it seems like a mess. Is it really delay after delay? Or just a serious of ball drops from the operational side of the business?
All of this is speculative, and I'm just a person on the outside putting pieces together and coming up with a theory. I also own a lot of shares, and obviously own a Gravity.