CNET: Inside the Luxury Robotaxi Uber, Lucid and Nuro Are Testing

[illopp00]

It is from their 1st quarter earnings release. It is simple, standard math, illustrated a couple posts above. They reported 3,093 vehicles delivered in the Financial Highlights on page 3. They reported $285.5M revenue and $594.2M Cost of Revenue in their statement of operations on page 15. Cost of Revenue (COGS) / Vehicles Sold = cost per car. Loss per car is (Revenue - Cost of Revenue) / Vehicles Sold.

Maybe that is it... maybe depreciation and costs from an unused factory accounts for an additional $100K cost per vehicle. On the other hand... if the factory is not online yet, would it count under cost of revenue? Probably not, because it would just be a capital expenditure at that point.

Delivered is not production, but yes the company still bears the cost of completed inventory sitting in the lot.

 

[Bdr100]

Gravity taxi will be run by Uber which already has Uber Black and Uber XL that the Gravity will fall into. Then Cosmos will fill in the normal Uber category. Waymo and Cybercab will not have similar options. No family of 4 (with luggage) is going to take a Cybercab from airport to hotel.

 

[exxxviii]

Delivered is not production, but yes the company still bears the cost of completed inventory sitting in the lot.

Delivered is the correct number, because it aligns in the costs in Cost of Revenue. Produced is a different number and accounted for separately until the produced units are either sold or disposed. (I think a built vehicle that is disposed would hit impairment, but not sure there.)

Read the just-posted Q2 financial release linked above. It is very informative. They have a three-pronged strategy to get on track. And they specifically call out that they are dialing back production to align with deliveries through the remainder of the year.

 

[illopp00]

Delivered is the correct number, because it aligns in the costs in Cost of Revenue. Produced is a different number and accounted for separately until the produced units are either sold or disposed. (I think a built vehicle that is disposed would hit impairment, but not sure there.)

Read the just-posted Q2 financial release linked above. It is very informative. They have a three-pronged strategy to get on track. And they specifically call out that they are dialing back production to align with deliveries through the remainder of the year.

So, you are saying they aren't booking COGS on a vehicle produced in Q2 and sitting on a lot? That doesn't make sense, they can't get revenue but they spent the money. That does sound like the majority of the 1.4B cash flow gap they found to close. CFO just said they had to take an inventory impairment charge....

 

[RandomDesign]

Gravity taxi will be run by Uber which already has Uber Black and Uber XL that the Gravity will fall into. Then Cosmos will fill in the normal Uber category. Waymo and Cybercab will not have similar options. No family of 4 (with luggage) is going to take a Cybercab from airport to hotel.

Not to mention the growing number of women uncomfortable taking rideshares with male drivers (that forced both Uber and Lyft to add women driver preferences for riders).

 

[exxxviii]

So, you are saying they aren't booking COGS on a vehicle produced in Q2 and sitting on a lot? That doesn't make sense, they can't get revenue but they spent the money. That does sound like the majority of the 1.4B cash flow gap they found to close. CFO just said they had to take an inventory impairment charge....

Correct. GAAP seeks to align revenue and cost and transactions. For example, if they produce 2,000 cars, but sell 1,500 this quarter and then the remaining 500 the next quarter, the first quarter will have Cost of Revenue of the 1,500 cars. Then, the next quarter will have the remaining Cost of Revenue for the 500 cars. That way, the operational numbers line up top to bottom.

And yes, no company can book revenue until they deliver the product. They have been making massive inventory impairment charges for many quarters. I have not seen what they actually are. It does make me wonder if they have to scrap every third or forth car they build, and that is the impairment. That would certainly account for the very large cost of revenue numbers they are posting.

Lucid lost $1.035B in Q2 2026. But only $426M of that was related to making the actual cars. The other $600B was running the business - SG&A and R&D. Also, they had capital expenditures and other operating cash that depleted free cash flow by another $441M to $1.476.

 

[hwy17er]

I bet this market is tiny. Fine if you want to go after a tiny market but be realistic about how many people are going to pay $100 for a 15 minute ride to the airport because the interior is nicer when there are options do it for $20. Uber Black already exists but way more people pick UberX or Comfort because of the cost.

Right, my point is they'll be able to carve out premium demand for themselves while they scale and work towards release of cheaper robotoaxi options. The market is small, but their fleet will also be small for the first couple of years.

Not so sure it's that much of a niche thing; might be an unmet need. 4 ppl and all their luggage won't even fit in most cars ...usually requiring 2 Ubers

 

[illopp00]

Not so sure it's that much of a niche thing; might be an unmet need. 4 ppl and all their luggage won't even fit in most cars ...usually requiring 2 Ubers

Yeah my family of 4 and Dad just did a summer vacation, we used UberXXL 4 times each with a minivan for about 80 bucks. I usually also take limo services for business and those are all the luxury 3-row US Full-size SUVs, for $250 now, and they get 12 miles a gallon. Gravity can eliminate all these. It has the luxury of the Escalades, space of Van and operating costs less than both....