LCID stock

[Tesla2.0]

After looking at this, I’m loading tomorrow. Shows you how committed the PIF is to Lucid.

A look at PIF’s ownership of US equities in Q3 2023

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) cut its ownership in US equities from $38.93 billion in Q2 2023 to $36.48 billion in Q3 2023, according to a US Secur

www.argaam.com

Committed is one thing, pissed off may be another. People of Saudi seeing highest % of PIF value evaporate will have public dissent on Lucid business execution.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Agree on all counts. I see the same amount of i7s as the Lucid, slightly more Taycans, and less EQS's(sedans only). However, all the ultra luxe EV SUVs are easily seen as soon as they come out. For example, EQS SUV's are very common, R1S's are somewhat common, and I even saw a literal Fisker Ocean last week. It seems our cities are very similar, although there are less sedans and more SUVs. The Lucid is spotted about twice a month, maybe thrice here.

Model Y's are indeed everywhere, so are threes. I'd estimate about 60 percent of new cars sold here are one of those two.

I really hope Gravity is ahead of schedule, because a lot of people who wouldn't buy the Air here are liking it based on what I have told them.

I saw 3 Fiskr Ocean, a dozen R1T and R1S, one Air during December holidays before I left the states. I think Air is just very niche like MB S-Class. If general public wants to spend Touring or GT price range, they automatically start looking at SUV segment for higher utilization sensibility as in Porsche Cayennes and Macan.

 

[Bobby]

I saw 3 Fiskr Ocean, a dozen R1T and R1S, one Air during December holidays before I left the states. I think Air is just very niche like MB S-Class. If general public wants to spend Touring or GT price range, they automatically start looking at SUV segment for higher utilization sensibility as in Porsche Cayennes and Macan.

Fisker has delivered 4700 cars (source), which is about half of Lucid. On-road observations over a short period do not always translate to generalizations about all buyers.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Except that Rawlinson still talks about moving more into the mass market where EVs can do the most good for the environment, and Lucid is already said to be starting work on a Model Y rival as the follow-on to the Gravity.

Tesla is already showing what it can and will do with price cuts to drive less-established competitors to the wall.

Musk can't seem to get Rawlinson out of his head. But it's high time Rawlinson gets Musk out of his.

Musk couldn’t get Rawlinson out of his head because Rawlinson basically broadcast out Lucid company road map same as Tesla’s road map —start building from high-end to generate profit to use it to build mass market. Rawlinson also was an ex-Tesla which is Musk’s thorn.

Early on, in the person of Peter Rawlinson, Lucid defined its success as using an initial premium product to generate high margins that could then be used to bring less-expensive, high efficiency products to a larger market for the good of people and planet. At the same time, he set aim at large German luxury sedans by defining them as the brand's chief competition in what seemed to be an effort to discourage comparisons with Tesla.

There were conflicts inherent in this dual vision. Using a premium product to generate margins for the real game -- moving into the mass market -- was exactly the path Tesla had earlier taken and was one that would ring familiar bells with EV fans, thus reinforcing comparisons to Tesla. Yet, the also-stated aim to brand Lucid a competitor to luxury German brands created confusion. What was the brand identity to be in the minds of buyers? Were they to think of Lucid as the EV alternative to their S Class and 7 Series cars, or were they biding their time for Lucid to be the alternative to their Model 3s and Ys?

This question has real implications. If becoming a lasting competitor to premium German brands is the long game, the Air will remain the platform that receives the newest technology first, that drives the visual identity of the rest of the product line, and that nurses the caché of what it means to own a Mercedes or BMW.

If moving down into the mass market as Tesla has done is the long game for Lucid, people will take note of what the Model S and the Model X have become: engineering afterthoughts that are periodically throwing new components and minor updates into aging platforms. Will they conclude this is the fate of the Air? There are already the first signs of this, with the Gravity being the platform that introduces UX 3.0, that is first to use the next-generation motors, that brings heat pumps to the cars, that brings air suspensions (not necessarily an improvement), that finally might introduce the long-forgotten "executive" rear seating that was prominent in early Air promotions.

In fact, I wonder if Lucid's own publicizing of the great new features and advances of the Gravity is not one of the brakes on Air sales. Could the whole "we've taken everything we learned from the Air to build an even better SUV" be backfiring?

I love the brand. But even I'm not sure what it is aiming to be . . . or will be.

I really like this segment, but I agree Lucid has to find that product to save company (Gravity) instead of following same Tesla roadmap. 2012 is very different from 2021 when Tesla being market maker didn’t have to face that many market entrants competition. Rawlinson wants to go after German luxury market, that basically woke up German to accelerated and building more EV models than they previously planned.

I also like to use a wild analogy. As everyone know China loves to be world biggest copycat making all kind of bootlegs. Even politically, they are copying Japanese WWII vocabulary and strategies of first-chain and 2nd chain islands in Indo-Pacific. China basically has the fastest Navy ships ramp up speed in the history of mankind passing US in naval ship count and now harassing its neighbors of Indonesia, Philippines, Australia and Taiwan in South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. They are also making diplomatic relation (bribing) with many island nations of South Pacific around Guam with recent nation of Nauru for economic subsidies in order to build harbors and shipyard to boosts its domestic GDP and military strategic locations.

Translation: What worked in 1935 doesn’t necessarily work in 2020 for China to copy Japan as undermining US intelligence surveillance and response. Likewise what worked in 2012 doesn’t work in 2021 as EV market dynamic has changed with many new parameters.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Fisker has delivered 4700 cars (source), which is about half of Lucid. On-road observations over a short period do not always translate to generalizations about all buyers.

Understand it doesn’t translate with small window of sample size. I was responding to @xponents observation in New Jersey with my South Texas observation.

 

[hmp10]

Musk couldn’t get Rawlinson out of his head because Rawlinson basically broadcast out Lucid company road map same as Tesla’s road map —start building from high-end to generate profit to use it to build mass market. Rawlinson also was an ex-Tesla which is Musk’s thorn.

I think there's another reason, too, that Musk can't get Rawlinson out of his head and continues to attack Lucid. Musk knows that Rawlinson is the superb automotive engineer that Musk just claims to be, and the emperor is frightened of having his clothes torn off. (This doesn't mean that Teslas are poorly-engineered cars. Quite the opposite. It's just that they are not really Musk's engineering work.)

Rawlinson was the head of Advanced Engineering at Lotus when Tesla turned to them for help in sorting out bugs in development of the original Roadster. That is why Musk later turned to Rawlinson when the Model S ran into early engineering problems. (Rawlinson's name is on 70 Model S patents. Musk's name is on 0.)

It is also the reason that Musk blatantly lied that Rawlinson was little more than a minor chassis engineer at Tesla -- even though Tesla's own April 2010 press release announced that Rawlinson had joined Tesla as Chief Engineer who was responsible for bringing the Model S to market. (It was also Rawlinson who was on the podium when the original Model S was unveiled at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show and was interviewed by both "Motor Trend" and "Car & Driver" as the Chief Engineer of the car.)

 

[Tesla2.0]

There is also the question of whether automotive giants such as Toyota would be willing to become dependent on licensing for something as core to their product as powertrains.

Business is war, Toyota is slow and reluctant coming in as it was gambling general BEV market fail as they have been advocating general public cannot afford BEV product, and they are focusing on building PHEV and hybrid with anticipation of future solid state battery while spinning out BEV FUD. I’m sure Toyota may be aiming for some attractive techs to acquire for its Lexus division in the future. Recently, Chinese BYD went to Japan Mobility in Tokyo to show off its 360 tank turn of U8 SUV. Chinese also show off how their EVs can control functionalities remotely from mobile phone unlike traditional ICE. Japanese reporters were amazed and flooded to Chinese EV booths. Mazda, Nissan and Honda concept cars were little visited crowd to Chinese BEV. Here is what last year retired CEO Akio Toyoda and his family looking BYD booth from a distance. Clearly they sensed Japanese ICE industry is facing tougher competition ahead in his backyard. The moment of facial disapproval was captured by the media.

 

[Tesla2.0]

I think there's another reason, too, that Musk can't get Rawlinson out of his head and continues to attack Lucid. Musk knows that Rawlinson is the superb automotive engineer that Musk just claims to be, and the emperor is frightened of having his clothes torn off. (This doesn't mean that Teslas are poorly-engineered cars. Quite the opposite. It's just that they are not really Musk's engineering work.)

Rawlinson was the head of Advanced Engineering at Lotus when Tesla turned to them for help in sorting out bugs in development of the original Roadster. That is why Musk later turned to Rawlinson when the Model S ran into early engineering problems. (Rawlinson's name is on 70 Model S patents. Musk's name is on 0.)

It is also the reason that Musk blatantly lied that Rawlinson was little more than a minor chassis engineer at Tesla -- even though Tesla's own April 2010 press release announced that Rawlinson had joined Tesla as Chief Engineer who was responsible for bringing the Model S to market. (It was also Rawlinson who was on the podium when the original Model S was unveiled at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show and was interviewed by both "Motor Trend" and "Car & Driver" as the Chief Engineer of the car.)

Yes, Musk showed concern and his insecurity to the new entrants. I think during 2022, Musk took Rivian and Lucid with more serious attitude than towards GM and Ford.

 

[hydbob]

Musk couldn’t get Rawlinson out of his head because Rawlinson basically broadcast out Lucid company road map same as Tesla’s road map —start building from high-end to generate profit to use it to build mass market. Rawlinson also was an ex-Tesla which is Musk’s thorn.



I really like this segment, but I agree Lucid has to find that product to save company (Gravity) instead of following same Tesla roadmap. 2012 is very different from 2021 when Tesla being market maker didn’t have to face that many market entrants competition. Rawlinson wants to go after German luxury market, that basically woke up German to accelerated and building more EV models than they previously planned.

I also like to use a wild analogy. As everyone know China loves to be world biggest copycat making all kind of bootlegs. Even politically, they are copying Japanese WWII vocabulary and strategies of first-chain and 2nd chain islands in Indo-Pacific. China basically has the fastest Navy ships ramp up speed in the history of mankind passing US in naval ship count and now harassing its neighbors of Indonesia, Philippines, Australia and Taiwan in South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. They are also making diplomatic relation (bribing) with many island nations of South Pacific around Guam with recent nation of Nauru for economic subsidies in order to build harbors and shipyard to boosts its domestic GDP and military strategic locations.

Translation: What worked in 1935 doesn’t necessarily work in 2020 for China to copy Japan as undermining US intelligence surveillance and response. Likewise what worked in 2012 doesn’t work in 2021 as EV market dynamic has changed with many new parameters.

Let's try and steer this back on topic about LCID....

 

[MSH2]

As a 16 month owner of a GT which I love, I believe Lucid has the best engineers and the worst marketing in the industry. If you can't see or test drive the car will you ever buy one. To have only one show room(maybe two but they are next to each other) and one service center in Florida is insane. My car has been sitting at the service center for a week. Yes they drove a new GT across Florida to pick it up and left it for me. It is there for a warranty fix on a computer as it wouldn't down load the last software update. As far as I know they are still waiting to fix it as they have a back up of vehicles. It took them over a week to do the anual service because they didn't have a key part. Again they left me a new GT and the cost of the service was minimal to me, but in that case they trucked the car from Naples to Miami and back. This is annoying for me and incredibly expensive for Lucid. Yes they need the Gravity but they need to rapidly expand their distribution and service network. The money they spent on the Saphire could have been far better spent on distribution and service. Lucid is run by engineers but unless the Saudi's are going to bankroll them forever, they run the risk of watching all that effort go down the drain when they go under. Without the Saudi's they would already be there. If they go under, we will be left owning cars that can't be maintained. They have to get someone in who knows how to run a company. Yesterday, is too not soon enough. Mike.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Let's try and steer this back on topic about LCID....

I was making business strategy analogy. I’ll leave politics and religions out of discussion.

 

[xponents]

I saw 3 Fiskr Ocean, a dozen R1T and R1S, one Air during December holidays before I left the states. I think Air is just very niche like MB S-Class. If general public wants to spend Touring or GT price range, they automatically start looking at SUV segment for higher utilization sensibility as in Porsche Cayennes and Macan.

Understand it doesn’t translate with small window of sample size. I was responding to @xponents observation in New Jersey with my South Texas observation.

Yes, it seems that Texas and my locations are very similar(largely asian i think for you as well?). I almost always see the latest EV SUVs like a month or two after they come out(case in point:ev9s are common, hummer evs are spotted twice a week... etc). However, the Air and other EV sedans are unobtanium which is very similar to your situation. Our areas like SUVs more, probably for the status, but nevertheless this is why I hope gravity comes out soon.

 

[SBK]

I believe Lucid has the best engineers and the worst marketing in the industry.

Given that The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is sitting on at least 20 Trillion dollars worth of oil, it is not difficult to see why that is the case. If Lucid or EV in general becomes more popular, it can actually hurt their overall financial interest.

Lucid does currently have the best efficiency and packaging in the industry, which they now control. Perhaps they are treating it as a lab or incubator of EV technology. Fulfilling their ESG and Climate goals, while having a hedge in case EV does take off. Remember they waged a fairly prolong price war against the US shale producers. Perhaps they wanted to have that capacity and possibility in the EV space. From that perspective, the handsome compensation for the executives actually make sense.

Given the latest development with the Chinese EV maker, I don't think price war is going to work as easily. But technology of Lucid is currently quite a bit more advanced than the competition. So, I don't see PIF abandoning Lucid either. The more interesting question would be that if they actually want the midsize model after the Gravity to be a huge hit?

 

[Buffalo Bob]

If the PIF wants to take Lucid private, isn't the current price action playing beautifully into the plan? Also, is all of this daily volume just 'churning' with high frequency trades, or is some entity actually accumulating? I don't know where SEC reporting requirements do or do not apply worldwide.

 

[DougB]

Lucid needs to plow more resources into marketing. TV and as many platforms as possible. The many awards and accolades should be emphasized and the superiority over the competition needs detailing.

 

[HariK]

Fisker has delivered 4700 cars (source), which is about half of Lucid. On-road observations over a short period do not always translate to generalizations about all buyers.

BTW, I canceled my order on Fisker and bought ioniq 5 instead because Fisker has the 12v battery drain issue not fixed before delivery and totally kills the car. They know the fix but their mobile mechanics took too long to be trained and they would just jumpstart and go away without fixing the known problem. Their software update is taking more than a month to roll out in 2 parts and many did not get it. None of the ADAS features work right now. Initially they promised delivery of all the first 5000 units by Q2 or Q3 and they did in Q4. They advertised that Bridgestone would service the car but so far it is not. To fix the non working AC, they could not do it in the Corte Madera location north of San Francisco and took 2 months to eventually send to LA to fix it. They got off to a very bad start.

 

[gaskiller]

I think there's another reason, too, that Musk can't get Rawlinson out of his head and continues to attack Lucid. Musk knows that Rawlinson is the superb automotive engineer that Musk just claims to be, and the emperor is frightened of having his clothes torn off. (This doesn't mean that Teslas are poorly-engineered cars. Quite the opposite. It's just that they are not really Musk's engineering work.)

Rawlinson was the head of Advanced Engineering at Lotus when Tesla turned to them for help in sorting out bugs in development of the original Roadster. That is why Musk later turned to Rawlinson when the Model S ran into early engineering problems. (Rawlinson's name is on 70 Model S patents. Musk's name is on 0.)

It is also the reason that Musk blatantly lied that Rawlinson was little more than a minor chassis engineer at Tesla -- even though Tesla's own April 2010 press release announced that Rawlinson had joined Tesla as Chief Engineer who was responsible for bringing the Model S to market. (It was also Rawlinson who was on the podium when the original Model S was unveiled at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show and was interviewed by both "Motor Trend" and "Car & Driver" as the Chief Engineer of the car.)

Exactly why I hate Musk!

 

[xponents]

Exactly why I hate Musk!

I'm just convinced that you are @quantum s reincarnation

 

[gaskiller]

Given that The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is sitting on at least 20 Trillion dollars worth of oil, it is not difficult to see why that is the case. If Lucid or EV in general becomes more popular, it can actually hurt their overall financial interest.

Lucid does currently have the best efficiency and packaging in the industry, which they now control. Perhaps they are treating it as a lab or incubator of EV technology. Fulfilling their ESG and Climate goals, while having a hedge in case EV does take off. Remember they waged a fairly prolong price war against the US shale producers. Perhaps they wanted to have that capacity and possibility in the EV space. From that perspective, the handsome compensation for the executives actually make sense.

Given the latest development with the Chinese EV maker, I don't think price war is going to work as easily. But technology of Lucid is currently quite a bit more advanced than the competition. So, I don't see PIF abandoning Lucid either. The more interesting question would be that if they actually want the midsize model after the Gravity to be a huge hit?

Transition to EV has leveled the playing field. Traditional ICE makers are vulnerable. Great opportunity for new manufacturers to dominate. Saudi realized they can diversify into car manufacturing , a golden opportunity. Detroit and the Japanese are done!

 

[Chrry]

I know of at least 13 people who do not want an air due to this precise reason(heck, even my parents used to be in that list). I sincerely hope lucid turns on the pr machine to dispel these rumors, and also increase their visibility through advertisements. Out of those 13 people, 4 of them wanted to see it before cancelling. 3 of those 4 ended up buying it. Lucid has a great product that almost all love when they see it… but these rumors are stopping them from wanting to even see it in the first place.

This is why my husband and I chose to lease. And then, 3 years pass, we can buy one. I truly hope they survive. The definitely need pr. Advertising is something I’ve never seen for Lucid. And it’s such a beautiful car. Truly leaps and bounds better than the other EVs.
I love Luci and they need to survive