I don't think this breaks any of the rules, but of course please remove it if it does - I did post on reddit but it got removed. I am a new member, but have been lurking for a while. I do not own the vehicle, but do plan to at some point - it is not yet available in my country. I do own shares.
Note, this is just my opinion and I hope it actually gets to Peter and the executive team. Feel free to disagree or correct anything I may have gotten wrong. I am an investor and still believe in the company, but as many investors, I am also not happy with the current share price.
Warning, it is long.
If any of the official Lucid members see this (like @Firstto520), I would really appreciate this being brought to the attention of the team. I'm sure they are well aware, but I figure there is no harm in asking.
Dear Peter and others,
I am writing this as a hopeful shareholder who first bought in to CCIV when it was rumored to be merging with Lucid Motors (as it was then, before becoming Lucid Group). I was very happy when the rumor was confirmed and I continued to buy shares based on the information provided. Since then I have continued to buy shares (now to average down my cost basis), believing that the company is on the right track for success based on statements made, but have now exhausted my desire to continue accumulating shares - due mostly to the surreptitious nature of the company preventing any insight into the current performance.
First, I would like to preface this with a statement that I, and likely other investors, purchased shares with the full knowledge that this would be a long term investment and that some further funding would be required. Nevertheless, this was entered as long term investment based on the guidance provided by Lucid and early ongoing press releases and interviews, additional funding was expected after some successes from those original targets - none of which have been met.
In a recent interview with CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/11/...new-lucid-air-pure-electric-luxury-sedan.html) it is mentioned that investors expected more raises, but we also expected targets to be met, not constant failures and issues followed with excuses and little action. There is so much secrecy around Lucid that investors have no idea what is currently happening.
As an original investor I bought in to the promises made and the projections given. From your investor presentation in July 2021 (available on your website) you had over 10,000 reservations (slide 6), were on track for 2H 2021 deliveries (slides 8 and 14), expected to launch Gravity at end 2H 2023 (slides 13 and 37), already had a 34,000 unit annual production capacity (slide 17), planned to deliver "over 577" units in 2021 (https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/05/11/lucid-motors-ceo-on-going-public-revenue-projections.html), 20,000 units in 2022 and 49,000 in 2023 (slide 65), discussed future growth like ESS and being a technology supplier (slide 39), expected entry to Middle East and European markets 1H 2022 (slide 52), and planned for positive free cash flow in 2025 (slides 66, 68, and 73). The only one of these that has not been reversed is the number of reservations (2023 guidance has not yet been lowered, but as approx. 12k of the projected number was the Gravity model, it is all but confirmed the guidance will be lower than projected). I will concede that 2H 2021 deliveries were also made, albeit at much reduced numbers from the already low guidance. It seems you are keeping up the pretence that annual production capacity is 34,000, but there is no evidence yet that that is actually possible, to the contrary, production was most recently proudly announced at just 300/week - less than half apparent capacity of approx. 650/week. The free cash flow numbers have also not yet been revised, I hope it is still possible for this to be positive in 2025.
In that same presentation (slides 15 and 71) you call Lucid a "leader in EV technologies" and list some points for why the merger is good for CCIV holders, the first is "Legitimate Track Record", 4th is "Established In-house Manufacturing", 10th is "Attractive Valuation".
We bought in to these values, and have been disappointed by every one, the legitimate track record has proved to be worthless as some of that team have since left/been let go (as investors we still don't know) due to issues with production - this track record was meant to prevent precisely these sort of issues.
The in-house manufacturing turned out to not be established as you could not deliver on time, and then could not, and apparently still cannot, deliver anywhere near the volumes promised.
The attractive valuation turned out otherwise due in part to the markets, but in my opinion mainly due to the failures of Lucid as a company to deliver on those early promises.
If we look at Rivian (as they went public and started production and deliveries at a similar time) we can see that they too had their own issues, but their shares are, as of writing, currently trading over 50% above their all time low - they only reduced guidance once and then proved they can produce and deliver at volume. Lucid is languishing around, and making new, all time lows - and management are quietly ignoring this.
Before the merger vote, in an interview in May 2021 on CNBC (same link as above https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/05/11/lucid-motors-ceo-on-going-public-revenue-projections.html), Peter claimed to be "very much on track" to produce over 577 vehicles in 2021 with production beginning in 2H 2021, although was very cagey on repeating the 20,000 units in 2022 target.
If, as Peter states, he is all in on stock options, then why is nothing being done to try and improve the share price? In this interview Peter also states that Lucid was in a good financial position, and the SPAC merger added $4.4bn which would take Lucid into 2023 close to Gravity going into production. Yet 2 funding rounds have been announced since, and we are not even into 2023 yet, and Gravity production is even further out.
In June 2021 Peter again states that you were "bang on schedule" and "absolutely on track" for the 577 deliveries ( ).
The 577 expected production in 2021 was later changed to less than 1,000, and we got just 125 deliveries in 2021, you didn't even tell investors how many vehicles were produced in 2021, just provided a vague "over 400" as of the earnings release on February 28, 2022, some 2 months after the end of the quarter - by then you should have had many hundreds, if not thousands, produced. In that same earnings release the production target for 2022 was slashed from 20,000 to just 12,000 - 14,000, a minimum 30% reduction. Investors accepted that reduction due to supply chain issues, but believed the rhetoric from the earnings call (transcript https://seekingalpha.com/article/44...n-on-q4-2021-results-earnings-call-transcript) that these issues were small and expected to resolve over the year, with some parts sourced elsewhere - "And by way of risk mitigation, John, we're supplying particular support to some suppliers to up their processes and bring them in line with our quality expectations. Some we're actually allocating the supply to new suppliers. And in some instances, we're actually bringing processes and manufacturing in-house so that we can have a vertically integrated control of quality and volume."
The very next earnings release on May 5, 2022 brought just 360 deliveries so far in 2022, again up to the earning release date, over one month after quarter end. Here there was some good news in that the 12k-14k production target was reaffirmed, and it was stated that there was sufficient liquidity to run "well into 2023", quelling worries about further immediate dilution. However, Gravity was pushed back into 2024, and you again couldn't trust your investors with production numbers.
In the following earnings release on August 3, 2022 it was announced that production guidance would again be reduced, this time down to just 6,000 - 7,000, some 65% minimum reduction from the original guidance and even a full 50% drop from the previous guidance that was reaffirmed just 3 months earlier.
It seems strange that the guidance was kept up when deliveries had been so low in the first part of the year, you must have known production was lackluster and you would need to lower guidance. It was convenient that the pretense was kept up until after share awards were made due to the market capitalization (https://www.carscoops.com/2022/04/l...60-million-right-before-shares-plunged-by-67/), which may not have been met had the truth about production been shared with investors.
In the most recent earnings release on November 8, 2022 the announced deliveries were a little better at 1,398 in the quarter (the first reporting of actual quarter numbers) and production was announced at 2,282, this was lauded as a huge improvement, more than tripling production from Q2. It was clear that you were proud of this "achievement" as the numbers were announced on October 12, 2022, earlier than ever before. I say "achievement" in quotes as this is still a huge way off the original planned guidance. You could also only deliver 61.3% of those produced vehicles. You had already taken logistics in-house, and knew your production rate, plus knew you were ramping up, so why was there no foresight to actually plan for higher deliveries?
It was again mentioned that you had sufficient liquidity to run to at least Q4 2023, yet at the same time you announced up to $1.5bn of share dilution to raise more funds at the same time the share price was consistently dropping. Going back to the CNBC interview where Peter mentioned he was all in on share options, he said that was his motivation - why announce additional funding 1 year before required while the share price was so low. You claim to be consistently ramping production and deliveries, and claim to have liquidity for 1 year, the higher production and deliveries should help raise the share price a little, why not wait to raise so that the dilution effect is lower for your existing shareholders?
This is the second raise announced after the green bonds announced on December 20, 2021 which could involve further dilution. We were also hit an $8bn shelf offering on August 29, 2022 - I understand that just $600m of the recent offering is part of the shelf offering and the remaining $915m is additional dilution?
When it came to shareholders voting to pass through the merger agreement, Peter did a video requesting that shareholders vote to approve all items as otherwise the merger would fail (https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose...d-motors-needs-more-votes-for-32m-merger.html). At a time when you needed us, the shareholders, you came out and did a pleading video. When we now need you to do something about the plummeting share price, you do nothing but remain as quiet and secretive as you have since that video. We voted the deal through as we believed (and to some extent still do) in Lucid, we knew funding would be required, so voted through the ability to add shares without further votes, knowing this would bring dilution to ourselves in the process.
Remember though that this was also all based on those original promises, but as a company the performance has been dismal. We accept there are some issues out of your control, but it is more than that as the rest of the industry has been performing much better than Lucid. The real issue though is the complete lack of updates, and lack of empathy for the shareholders sitting on over 50% losses, it is fine to remind us that this is a long term project, but let us remind you of missed promises and abject failure from the start.
Most investors follow all the news regarding Lucid, but still remain in the dark as to the current performance until the next earnings call, as can been seen from my earlier comments, most earnings have unequivocally brought more bad news for investors.
We are investors all year round, not just when you release earnings, we need more than pictures of you and your team smiling gleefully holding up 3 and 4 fingers to point to some inside secret - it feels like you a sticking one finger up at us, all while you continue to praise underwhelming news masquerading as achievements.
A lot of investors watch the drone flyover videos from Bear's Workshop, and we gain more insight from those than from the actual company. In the early days they provided hope that you were on target, that turned out to be misguided, but coupled with your comments it seemed justified at the time. Those same videos now fill us with dread as cars are just building up on-site. They at least show that production has indeed ramped up, but they cannot explain why you are not delivering the vehicles - and as usual there is no official comment. Until they are delivered they are just a cost to the company. What good is production if you cannot deliver and collect the income?
It has raised many questions and criticism that you have no demand. This isn't helped by the reduced reservations mentioned in the latest earnings, and also isn't helped by the "available now" section of your website. How can you have available inventory when there are so many customers waiting for their vehicle? Did you purposefully build extra of the GT trim in hopes of selling more, or are there really that many cancellations with no other reservation holders waiting for the same specification?
On social media there is a lot of criticism for Peter and the PR team, some is justified, some maybe not. With stunts like cars in boxes, and the afore mentioned pictures, coupled with low production and even lower deliveries, it is no surprise that there is criticism. There are also plenty of interviews (and I believe some earnings) where Peter is asked questions, but he avoids answering by extolling the virtues of your technology and vertical integration. We know this and do not need it repeated constantly, we need some action. What good is the technology and vertical integration if it is not achieving anything? Where are the benefits of vertical integration as it is definitely not shown in production and delivery numbers. What benefits are there from having this advanced technology, there are no licensing deals to bring in extra income, and it is not producing the demand if we look at latest reservation numbers. There has been no further mention of technology for ESS since the merger, is this still planned? By all means the focus has to be on the vehicles, but some updates on other business aspects would be useful to investors.
Signed,
A disgruntled shareholder
Note, this is just my opinion and I hope it actually gets to Peter and the executive team. Feel free to disagree or correct anything I may have gotten wrong. I am an investor and still believe in the company, but as many investors, I am also not happy with the current share price.
Warning, it is long.
If any of the official Lucid members see this (like @Firstto520), I would really appreciate this being brought to the attention of the team. I'm sure they are well aware, but I figure there is no harm in asking.
Dear Peter and others,
I am writing this as a hopeful shareholder who first bought in to CCIV when it was rumored to be merging with Lucid Motors (as it was then, before becoming Lucid Group). I was very happy when the rumor was confirmed and I continued to buy shares based on the information provided. Since then I have continued to buy shares (now to average down my cost basis), believing that the company is on the right track for success based on statements made, but have now exhausted my desire to continue accumulating shares - due mostly to the surreptitious nature of the company preventing any insight into the current performance.
First, I would like to preface this with a statement that I, and likely other investors, purchased shares with the full knowledge that this would be a long term investment and that some further funding would be required. Nevertheless, this was entered as long term investment based on the guidance provided by Lucid and early ongoing press releases and interviews, additional funding was expected after some successes from those original targets - none of which have been met.
In a recent interview with CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/11/...new-lucid-air-pure-electric-luxury-sedan.html) it is mentioned that investors expected more raises, but we also expected targets to be met, not constant failures and issues followed with excuses and little action. There is so much secrecy around Lucid that investors have no idea what is currently happening.
As an original investor I bought in to the promises made and the projections given. From your investor presentation in July 2021 (available on your website) you had over 10,000 reservations (slide 6), were on track for 2H 2021 deliveries (slides 8 and 14), expected to launch Gravity at end 2H 2023 (slides 13 and 37), already had a 34,000 unit annual production capacity (slide 17), planned to deliver "over 577" units in 2021 (https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/05/11/lucid-motors-ceo-on-going-public-revenue-projections.html), 20,000 units in 2022 and 49,000 in 2023 (slide 65), discussed future growth like ESS and being a technology supplier (slide 39), expected entry to Middle East and European markets 1H 2022 (slide 52), and planned for positive free cash flow in 2025 (slides 66, 68, and 73). The only one of these that has not been reversed is the number of reservations (2023 guidance has not yet been lowered, but as approx. 12k of the projected number was the Gravity model, it is all but confirmed the guidance will be lower than projected). I will concede that 2H 2021 deliveries were also made, albeit at much reduced numbers from the already low guidance. It seems you are keeping up the pretence that annual production capacity is 34,000, but there is no evidence yet that that is actually possible, to the contrary, production was most recently proudly announced at just 300/week - less than half apparent capacity of approx. 650/week. The free cash flow numbers have also not yet been revised, I hope it is still possible for this to be positive in 2025.
In that same presentation (slides 15 and 71) you call Lucid a "leader in EV technologies" and list some points for why the merger is good for CCIV holders, the first is "Legitimate Track Record", 4th is "Established In-house Manufacturing", 10th is "Attractive Valuation".
We bought in to these values, and have been disappointed by every one, the legitimate track record has proved to be worthless as some of that team have since left/been let go (as investors we still don't know) due to issues with production - this track record was meant to prevent precisely these sort of issues.
The in-house manufacturing turned out to not be established as you could not deliver on time, and then could not, and apparently still cannot, deliver anywhere near the volumes promised.
The attractive valuation turned out otherwise due in part to the markets, but in my opinion mainly due to the failures of Lucid as a company to deliver on those early promises.
If we look at Rivian (as they went public and started production and deliveries at a similar time) we can see that they too had their own issues, but their shares are, as of writing, currently trading over 50% above their all time low - they only reduced guidance once and then proved they can produce and deliver at volume. Lucid is languishing around, and making new, all time lows - and management are quietly ignoring this.
Before the merger vote, in an interview in May 2021 on CNBC (same link as above https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/05/11/lucid-motors-ceo-on-going-public-revenue-projections.html), Peter claimed to be "very much on track" to produce over 577 vehicles in 2021 with production beginning in 2H 2021, although was very cagey on repeating the 20,000 units in 2022 target.
If, as Peter states, he is all in on stock options, then why is nothing being done to try and improve the share price? In this interview Peter also states that Lucid was in a good financial position, and the SPAC merger added $4.4bn which would take Lucid into 2023 close to Gravity going into production. Yet 2 funding rounds have been announced since, and we are not even into 2023 yet, and Gravity production is even further out.
In June 2021 Peter again states that you were "bang on schedule" and "absolutely on track" for the 577 deliveries ( ).
The 577 expected production in 2021 was later changed to less than 1,000, and we got just 125 deliveries in 2021, you didn't even tell investors how many vehicles were produced in 2021, just provided a vague "over 400" as of the earnings release on February 28, 2022, some 2 months after the end of the quarter - by then you should have had many hundreds, if not thousands, produced. In that same earnings release the production target for 2022 was slashed from 20,000 to just 12,000 - 14,000, a minimum 30% reduction. Investors accepted that reduction due to supply chain issues, but believed the rhetoric from the earnings call (transcript https://seekingalpha.com/article/44...n-on-q4-2021-results-earnings-call-transcript) that these issues were small and expected to resolve over the year, with some parts sourced elsewhere - "And by way of risk mitigation, John, we're supplying particular support to some suppliers to up their processes and bring them in line with our quality expectations. Some we're actually allocating the supply to new suppliers. And in some instances, we're actually bringing processes and manufacturing in-house so that we can have a vertically integrated control of quality and volume."
The very next earnings release on May 5, 2022 brought just 360 deliveries so far in 2022, again up to the earning release date, over one month after quarter end. Here there was some good news in that the 12k-14k production target was reaffirmed, and it was stated that there was sufficient liquidity to run "well into 2023", quelling worries about further immediate dilution. However, Gravity was pushed back into 2024, and you again couldn't trust your investors with production numbers.
In the following earnings release on August 3, 2022 it was announced that production guidance would again be reduced, this time down to just 6,000 - 7,000, some 65% minimum reduction from the original guidance and even a full 50% drop from the previous guidance that was reaffirmed just 3 months earlier.
It seems strange that the guidance was kept up when deliveries had been so low in the first part of the year, you must have known production was lackluster and you would need to lower guidance. It was convenient that the pretense was kept up until after share awards were made due to the market capitalization (https://www.carscoops.com/2022/04/l...60-million-right-before-shares-plunged-by-67/), which may not have been met had the truth about production been shared with investors.
In the most recent earnings release on November 8, 2022 the announced deliveries were a little better at 1,398 in the quarter (the first reporting of actual quarter numbers) and production was announced at 2,282, this was lauded as a huge improvement, more than tripling production from Q2. It was clear that you were proud of this "achievement" as the numbers were announced on October 12, 2022, earlier than ever before. I say "achievement" in quotes as this is still a huge way off the original planned guidance. You could also only deliver 61.3% of those produced vehicles. You had already taken logistics in-house, and knew your production rate, plus knew you were ramping up, so why was there no foresight to actually plan for higher deliveries?
It was again mentioned that you had sufficient liquidity to run to at least Q4 2023, yet at the same time you announced up to $1.5bn of share dilution to raise more funds at the same time the share price was consistently dropping. Going back to the CNBC interview where Peter mentioned he was all in on share options, he said that was his motivation - why announce additional funding 1 year before required while the share price was so low. You claim to be consistently ramping production and deliveries, and claim to have liquidity for 1 year, the higher production and deliveries should help raise the share price a little, why not wait to raise so that the dilution effect is lower for your existing shareholders?
This is the second raise announced after the green bonds announced on December 20, 2021 which could involve further dilution. We were also hit an $8bn shelf offering on August 29, 2022 - I understand that just $600m of the recent offering is part of the shelf offering and the remaining $915m is additional dilution?
When it came to shareholders voting to pass through the merger agreement, Peter did a video requesting that shareholders vote to approve all items as otherwise the merger would fail (https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose...d-motors-needs-more-votes-for-32m-merger.html). At a time when you needed us, the shareholders, you came out and did a pleading video. When we now need you to do something about the plummeting share price, you do nothing but remain as quiet and secretive as you have since that video. We voted the deal through as we believed (and to some extent still do) in Lucid, we knew funding would be required, so voted through the ability to add shares without further votes, knowing this would bring dilution to ourselves in the process.
Remember though that this was also all based on those original promises, but as a company the performance has been dismal. We accept there are some issues out of your control, but it is more than that as the rest of the industry has been performing much better than Lucid. The real issue though is the complete lack of updates, and lack of empathy for the shareholders sitting on over 50% losses, it is fine to remind us that this is a long term project, but let us remind you of missed promises and abject failure from the start.
Most investors follow all the news regarding Lucid, but still remain in the dark as to the current performance until the next earnings call, as can been seen from my earlier comments, most earnings have unequivocally brought more bad news for investors.
We are investors all year round, not just when you release earnings, we need more than pictures of you and your team smiling gleefully holding up 3 and 4 fingers to point to some inside secret - it feels like you a sticking one finger up at us, all while you continue to praise underwhelming news masquerading as achievements.
A lot of investors watch the drone flyover videos from Bear's Workshop, and we gain more insight from those than from the actual company. In the early days they provided hope that you were on target, that turned out to be misguided, but coupled with your comments it seemed justified at the time. Those same videos now fill us with dread as cars are just building up on-site. They at least show that production has indeed ramped up, but they cannot explain why you are not delivering the vehicles - and as usual there is no official comment. Until they are delivered they are just a cost to the company. What good is production if you cannot deliver and collect the income?
It has raised many questions and criticism that you have no demand. This isn't helped by the reduced reservations mentioned in the latest earnings, and also isn't helped by the "available now" section of your website. How can you have available inventory when there are so many customers waiting for their vehicle? Did you purposefully build extra of the GT trim in hopes of selling more, or are there really that many cancellations with no other reservation holders waiting for the same specification?
On social media there is a lot of criticism for Peter and the PR team, some is justified, some maybe not. With stunts like cars in boxes, and the afore mentioned pictures, coupled with low production and even lower deliveries, it is no surprise that there is criticism. There are also plenty of interviews (and I believe some earnings) where Peter is asked questions, but he avoids answering by extolling the virtues of your technology and vertical integration. We know this and do not need it repeated constantly, we need some action. What good is the technology and vertical integration if it is not achieving anything? Where are the benefits of vertical integration as it is definitely not shown in production and delivery numbers. What benefits are there from having this advanced technology, there are no licensing deals to bring in extra income, and it is not producing the demand if we look at latest reservation numbers. There has been no further mention of technology for ESS since the merger, is this still planned? By all means the focus has to be on the vehicles, but some updates on other business aspects would be useful to investors.
Signed,
A disgruntled shareholder
