Emad Dlala out

[babylou66]

What if Mr. Dlala wanted the CEO position and left because he did not get it?

 

[hmp10]

What if Mr. Dlala wanted the CEO position and left because he did not get it?

Napoli's appointment was announced some time ago. Nothing I or anyone else here has seen in his behavior has since reflected anything but determination to get the Gravity software in hand and keep the Cosmos moving toward production.

In fact the day I got a text message a couple of weeks ago from him at 4:30 a.m. his time, he was at the plant in Arizona working on the Cosmos software with his team. Even just last week when I casually asked him about torque steer in the Gravity Dreams -- something common in high-powered vehicles with front-driven wheels and nothing I expected to see corrected -- he immediately dived in and set up a conference call with the chassis team.

At no point has he seemed a man with one foot out the door or a man harboring a grudge.

 

[BS8899]

As an engineer by trade, I can understand the sentiments about Emad, his personality, his passion, and his contributions to Lucid and the EV industry. I never met the guy. But I watched many of his videos with Rawlinson.

That said, Lucid is not an academic institution that advances EV technology for the benefit of mankind. It is a money-making business.

Sentiments aside, the onus now falls on Silvio. He should clearly articulate Lucid's mission, what is working, what is not, and what he is doing about it to right the ship.

Obviously, like many of you, I am not privy to the circumstances of Emad's departure. like it or not, that's a done deal! Silvio should come out soon and state clearly what his action plans are for Lucid to get healthy.

 

[nashvillelucid]

As an engineer by trade, I can understand the sentiments about Emad, his personality, his passion, and his contributions to Lucid and the EV industry. I never met the guy. But I watched many of his videos with Rawlinson.

That said, Lucid is not an academic institution that advances EV technology for the benefit of mankind. It is a money-making business.

Sentiments aside, the onus now falls on Silvio. He should clearly articulate Lucid's mission, what is working, what is not, and what he is doing about it to right the ship.

Obviously, like many of you, I am not privy to the circumstances of Emad's departure. like it or not, that's a done deal! Silvio should come out soon and state clearly what his action plans are for Lucid to get healthy.

Absolutely.

 

[bicycleguy]

What if Mr. Dlala wanted the CEO position and left because he did not get it?

Come on! As Spock said about Captain James T. Kirk.. being an engineer was his "first best destiny". Any kind a management would be a waste of his talents.

 

[BS8899]

Come on! As Captain James T. Kirk would say being an engineer was his "last best desiny". Any kind a management was a waste of his talents.

and Kirk said that as the Enterprise sailed into the unkonwn!

 

[socktucker]

-- he immediately dived in and set up a conference call with the chassis team.

I mean that’s cool and all…but is that what the chassis team needs to be doing? It’s kinda weird.

 

[gaskiller]

I disagree. They're investing appropriately for building vehicles. The problem is that they've had too many quality and production challenges. The spending would be entirely reasonable if their quality and production problems weren't biting them, and reducing spending will do them little good if they can't address the two fundamental problems.

These problems exacerbated the negative margins. Even if they didn’t have these issues, I don’t think they would have been in gross profit. But agree, those issues did not help. Hopefully going forwards, things will be different.

 

[erigion]

Didn’t some YouTubers see a prototype during Investor day a few months ago?

With Lucid habit of releasing good and bad news, maybe they will release and then dilute again

Kyle from OOS says he saw a body in white version on Investor Day. I don't think he said anything about the screens being on or, if they were, he was not allowed to say what he saw. He didn't mention it having any kind of power at all. But that was just a couple of months ago, I'm sure they were already building prototypes by then to get some on-road testing, which we just saw.

Right I just checked, Throttle House's first drive of the Gravity video was released in Nov 2023 right after the LA Auto Show. It actually was in real production in June 2025. We just saw a prototype Cosmos driving around, although the investor reports indicated it seemed pretty close to ready outside the regular calibration testing. But there is a clear cultural issue in the company of overpromising and underdelivering, and then not surfacing early and pro-actively any critical issues, and then doing fire-fighting and perpetually rinse and repeating....

If Lucid's timeline for the Cosmos matches what they did for Gravity and what Rivian is doing for the R2 and meaningful production doesn't happen until 2028/2029...yikes

 

[Erjackson104]

I want Lucid to succeed, but I'm always leery when a company hires an outsider to become their CEO. What does a CEO that makes elevators know about electric vehicles? Remember when Apple fired Steve Jobs and they hired a CEO from Pepsi to replace him? Emad Dlala is a brilliant engineer and has made significant contributions to the company. I will miss his passion and technological problem solving.

​

 

[gaskiller]

They haven't learned that doesn't work, no amount of 'news' can fluff a stock nobody wants...

Yeah, wonder why they keep doing that?

 

[borski]

As an engineer by trade, I can understand the sentiments about Emad, his personality, his passion, and his contributions to Lucid and the EV industry. I never met the guy. But I watched many of his videos with Rawlinson.

That said, Lucid is not an academic institution that advances EV technology for the benefit of mankind. It is a money-making business.

Sentiments aside, the onus now falls on Silvio. He should clearly articulate Lucid's mission, what is working, what is not, and what he is doing about it to right the ship.

Obviously, like many of you, I am not privy to the circumstances of Emad's departure. like it or not, that's a done deal! Silvio should come out soon and state clearly what his action plans are for Lucid to get healthy.

I have met him. More than a few times. He is very pragmatic, and not an “academic” in the sense you mean it.

I agree on the rest.

It being a “done deal” doesn’t mean we can’t think it’s a bad deal, though. Or a good one; to each their own.

 

[socktucker]

Kyle from OOS says he saw a body in white version on Investor Day. I don't think he said anything about the screens being on or, if they were, he was not allowed to say what he saw. He didn't mention it having any kind of power at all. But that was just a couple of months ago, I'm sure they were already building prototypes by then to get some on-road testing, which we just saw.



If Lucid's timeline for the Cosmos matches what they did for Gravity and what Rivian is doing for the R2 and meaningful production doesn't happen until 2028/2029...yikes

a protoype was seen on a test drive a few weeks ago

 

[Macrocosmcwh]

I mean that’s cool and all…but is that what the chassis team needs to be doing? It’s kinda weird.

truth.... Might even be a reason to let someone go.... Like dont they have bigger fish to fry? Very kind.... but odd....

 

[Need4Sleep]

There's a lot of worry in the thread and understandably so.

Instead, I'll take a more charitable speculation, my only ask is that you hear me out on this and be charitable to the thought as well. It is also important to understand we may never get the full story of Emad's departure.

Ever since hmp10's phone call with Emad, I can't help but wonder if Emad's been thinking about this leave a while. Don't get me wrong. I have endless respect for Emad. He's been at Lucid for 10 years and pushed the company's tech from ideas on paper to full-on production of luxury vehicles that are on the road, then set the foundation for broader more affordable markets. He's proven himself again and again, especially with his role as SVP of Engineering & Software. He's given more than anyone could've asked for, and then some, and then even more than that.

But working with all cylinders firing 7 days a week, even through holidays, can only be done for so long. He's been fire fighting and having to balance his responsibilities with Powertrain, Vehicle, and Digital. All that stress will come back eventually and costly.

No amount of self-help motivation guru pep talk will help when the stress has impacted your life so much you're passed out on the ground after vomiting from all the stress-induced damage your body has taken. I know that from personal experience. I've had friends rushed to the ER because stress destroyed their bodies. Some of them even had colleagues walk in to find their manager dead on the office floor because they overworked themselves to death.

And it is in those dark moments that you get a sense of clarity on what matters to you in life.

What I'm saying is, 10 years of building Lucid from a scrappy startup to company full-steam-ahead on production takes a toll on you both physically or mentally. And it's important to know when it's time to say you've done as much as you could, to trust someone to handle the reigns, and to leave behind a culture you've set up in the hopes it's ready to do so independently.

Bringing it back to Emad, my personal speculation is that he's been hard at work for the past several months getting Lucid's software culture up to speed. And once Silvio Napoli has demonstrated that he's personally ready to take responsibility by having the VP of vehicle engineering Vivek Attaluri and VP of software Marc Solsona Palomar report directly to him, Emad saw that he was ready to pass the torch and of that responsibility. And if done right, the culture he'll leave behind will become self-sustaining and ready to tackle the launch and scale-up of midsize.

What's next for Emad? I don't know. Maybe he'll spend some time off to be with his family. Maybe he might go back to doing research for motor design and other hardware. But wherever he goes, I wish him all the best and a lot of rest because he's more than earned it.

And for Lucid? I'm at the point of wait-and-see for the next 12 months at the least. Do I wish Silvio had more automotive industry experience? Sure, understandably so. But you'll never find a perfect candidate. On the flip side, Napoli has a history of working with an international logistics lens, and working experience as an engineer has a lot of transferable skills regardless of industry. I've met all sorts of engineers who came from other engineering fields completely different from their current position, and it is because of that experience (not despite) that they excelled in their new roles thanks to those transferrable problem solving skills.

So in the meantime, I suggest everyone take as step back, leave the phone behind, and go for a walk. We all know we need something to clear our minds.

 

[borski]

There's a lot of worry in the thread and understandably so.

Instead, I'll take a more charitable speculation, my only ask is that you hear me out on this and be charitable to the thought as well. It is also important to understand we may never get the full story of Emad's departure.

Ever since hmp10's phone call with Emad, I can't help but wonder if Emad's been thinking about this leave a while. Don't get me wrong. I have endless respect for Emad. He's been at Lucid for 10 years and pushed the company's tech from ideas on paper to full-on production of luxury vehicles that are on the road, then set the foundation for broader more affordable markets. He's proven himself again and again, especially with his role as SVP of Engineering & Software. He's given more than anyone could've asked for, and then some, and then even more than that.

But working with all cylinders firing 7 days a week, even through holidays, can only be done for so long. He's been fire fighting and having to balance his responsibilities with Powertrain, Vehicle, and Digital. All that stress will come back eventually and costly.

No amount of self-help motivation guru pep talk will help when the stress has impacted your life so much you're passed out on the ground after vomiting from all the stress-induced damage your body has taken. I know that from personal experience. I've had friends rushed to the ER because stress destroyed their bodies. Some of them even had colleagues walk in to find their manager dead on the office floor because they overworked themselves to death.

And it is in those dark moments that you get a sense of clarity on what matters to you in life.

What I'm saying is, 10 years of building Lucid from a scrappy startup to company full-steam-ahead on production takes a toll on you both physically or mentally. And it's important to know when it's time to say you've done as much as you could, to trust someone to handle the reigns, and to leave behind a culture you've set up in the hopes it's ready to do so independently.

Bringing it back to Emad, my personal speculation is that he's been hard at work for the past several months getting Lucid's software culture up to speed. And once Silvio Napoli has demonstrated that he's personally ready to take responsibility by having the VP of vehicle engineering Vivek Attaluri and VP of software Marc Solsona Palomar report directly to him, Emad saw that he was ready to pass the torch and of that responsibility. And if done right, the culture he'll leave behind will become self-sustaining and ready to tackle the launch and scale-up of midsize.

What's next for Emad? I don't know. Maybe he'll spend some time off to be with his family. Maybe he might go back to doing research for motor design and other hardware. But wherever he goes, I wish him all the best and a lot of rest because he's more than earned it.

And for Lucid? I'm at the point of wait-and-see for the next 12 months at the least. Do I wish Silvio had more automotive industry experience? Sure, understandably so. But you'll never find a perfect candidate. On the flip side, Napoli has a history of working with an international logistics lens, and working experience as an engineer has a lot of transferable skills regardless of industry. I've met all sorts of engineers who came from other engineering fields completely different from their current position, and it is because of that experience (not despite) that they excelled in their new roles thanks to those transferrable problem solving skills.

So in the meantime, I suggest everyone take as step back, leave the phone behind, and go for a walk. We all know we need something to clear our minds.

All of this is a valid theory, and possibly totally right, and I agree with it in concept; logically, it totally holds. And I can confirm the level of horrendous stress your body can be put in when running on all cylinders. I have seen many founder and exec friends get hurt, and many others pass away from not being able to take it anymore. In 2011, that was almost me. It happens all too often, and we don’t discuss health challenges, especially mental health, enough. Startups are hard, and building something from nothing can feel Herculean and exceptionally lonely, especially since you have nearly nobody you can be truly yourself with. Everyone is always “killing it,” except those that are are usually dying while doing it, and most aren’t “killing it” at all. But nobody can say that, so it’s lonely.

My issue is that I had been speaking with Emad (and others at Lucid) for a few months about a potential role, and in that time I was assured (by him) he was going to be around a while. Of course I could be wrong, and there are thousands of things that may have happened between then and now, and we’ll probably never publicly get the real story.

But it is my feeling, though without direct knowledge, that he did not leave because he was tired or “done,” unless something seriously changed in the last month or two.

That is not to say anything negative about anyone else there. Marc, the other folks I met… all very smart and great people. They’ll accomplish a lot.

But, while I don’t have proof, I have a guess Emad did not resign solely because he was tired.

I also do not think Napoli is bad or dumb or anything of the sort; in fact, from everything I’ve heard, he seems very competent and kind, though I’ve not met him myself. He’s probably a fantastic hire.

And all of those things can be true at once.

 

[socktucker]

All of this is a valid theory, and possibly totally right, and I agree with it in concept; logically, it totally holds. And I can confirm the level of horrendous stress your body can be put in when running on all cylinders. I have seen many founder and exec friends get hurt, and many others pass away from not being able to take it anymore. It happens all too often, and we don’t discuss health challenges, especially mental health, enough.

My issue is that I had been speaking with Emad (and others at Lucid) for a few months about a potential role, and in that time I was assured (by him) he was going to be around a while. Of course I could be wrong, and there are thousands of things that may have happened between then and now, and we’ll probably never publicly get the real story.

But it is my feeling, though without direct knowledge, that he did not leave because he was tired or “done,” unless something seriously changed in the last month or two.

That is not to say anything negative about anyone else there. Marc, the other folks I met… all very smart and great people. They’ll accomplish a lot.

But, while I don’t have proof, I have a guess Emad did not resign solely because he was tired.

I also do not think Napoli is bad or dumb or anything of the sort; in fact, from everything I’ve heard, he seems very competent and kind, though I’ve not met him myself. He’s probably a fantastic hire.

And all of those things can be true at once.

We will never know.

But we do know that with Emads credentials, he will have any job he wants, whenever he wants it.

 

[hmp10]

I mean that’s cool and all…but is that what the chassis team needs to be doing? It’s kinda weird.

truth.... Might even be a reason to let someone go.... Like dont they have bigger fish to fry? Very kind.... but odd....

The issue I brought up was one that neither Dlala nor the chassis team had ever heard a customer raise. As I have owned an Air Dream P since late 2021 and now two Gravity Dreams (one for a year), I have had a good bit of time behind the wheels of Lucid's up-powered cars. I have encountered this kind of torque steer under hard acceleration in our Dream P and, to a much greater extent, in our Tesla Model S Plaid. They wanted to talk to me to see if I was observing something in long-term road use that they did not come across in their testing and tuning of the Gravity chassis. They weren't trying to "fix" anything about just my two cars. They were trying to understand if there was some edge-use behavior that they needed to know about because other drivers might encounter it and be less prepared than I am.

The Gravity Dream came into the line-up fairly late in the game and uses a larger front motor than the Gravity GT. Although there was specific tuning work done on the Dream chassis, the bulk of the focus was understandably on the higher-volume GT. The chassis team was simply trying to figure out if another look needed to be taken at the whole Dream run, not just my cars. This wasn't a courtesy nod to a troublesome customer. The call lasted almost an hour, and they really drilled down on the details: which wheels and tires, drives modes and suspension height settings, tire pressures, road surfaces when it happens, differences in accelerating from a stop or from speed, etc.

You have a cynical view of this. I find it to be just the kind of thing that responsible manufacturers should inquire into when they put extremely powerful cars on the road that can perform beyond the limits of most drivers, myself included.

 

[Lycra]

I’m good at business and if I was changing my mission from “developing car company” to “selling assets to recover investments and moving on” I would let Emad go.

Emad was the customer focused, software fixing future of the company. When the company had that vision, he fit.

Doing it 24 hours after launching what is probably the final version of Gravity software is pretty damn cold tho.

Final gravity software? Why do you think that?

 

[BS8899]

I have met him. More than a few times. He is very pragmatic, and not an “academic” in the sense you mean it.

I agree on the rest.

It being a “done deal” doesn’t mean we can’t think it’s a bad deal, though. Or a good one; to each their own.

I don't mean he is "academic". He is clearly a guru on motors, drive trains. What was not apparent to me is whether his working knowledge of technical and business beyond the power train was broad enough or he acted fast enough to change Lucid's errand trajectory (e.g., SW, service, costs, etc.). I am not a Lucid insider, so I don't know more than what I read online.

Regardless, Rawlinson departed 5Qs ago. Emad was the man in charge. This past 5Q was not exactly glorious for Lucid. Gravity problems. Service problems. Continued SW problems. Mid-size schedule is behind competitors.

Do I think Emad was the source of all these calamities at Lucid? Of course not. But he was the man at the center of it.

Whatever the circumstances of his departure, in Silvio's eyes, Emad was not the leadership the CEO wanted. No matter how much lipstick one puts on the pig, that is the message!