We do need a corporate accountant to chime in. These 7% of vehicles subject to lease accounting could also be a company->employee car fleet. Maybe it'll be covered in the earnings call.
hiiiiiiii! wow
the one time it’s useful for me to be an accounting nerd haha
so general sentiment in the thread is correct: “traditional” leases people are entering into are not included in the 7% number; now, unfortunately LCID doesn’t talk much about what gives rise to their vehicles subject to operating lease accounting (which is fine); however, i don’t think loaners/demo units fit the technical requirements here.
like you mentioned, these are probably vehicles leased to employees under some type of corporate program (and not through a separate financing institution). because it’s through corporate, Lucid would be the one retaining ownership which is why they are considered the “lessor” here.
the 7% for Q4 was 217 vehicles and 8% in Q3 was 222. that’s roughly 2% of their total workforce. if they offer anything like what i’ve heard about from friends at Toyota corporate or Honda corporate, it’s wildly accessible for employees to get into expensive vehicles. also, if the leases are subject to operating lease accounting, then the lease payments aren’t enough to cover the market value (“fair value”) of the vehicle - which makes sense if it’s an employee benefit/perk. so, assuming we’re all correct here, 222 employees/quarter (
could also likely include spouses, aka employees leasing multiple vehicles) doesn’t sound unreasonable.
