Open Letter to Peter and Team - a rant

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methrow25

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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
 
You might be in the wrong place - this forum is about the cars and the ownership experience. There are many investor's forums you could join and rant to.
If you bought $LCID, I assume you have big-boy/girl pants and understand the risks of investing.
 
You might be in the wrong place - this forum is about the cars and the ownership experience. There are many investor's forums you could join and rant to.
If you bought $LCID, I assume you have big-boy/girl pants and understand the risks of investing.
The OP placed this in the "Lucid Investors Chat (LCID / CCIV)" part of the forum, which seems appropriate.
 
...low production and even lower deliveries...

It might be helpful if there's a summary from the above long post.

It's another new start-up with an uncertain profit date. It just takes time. It's better to be slow, safe, and with quality rather than fast and sloppy.
 
It might be helpful if there's a summary from the above long post.

It's another new start-up with an uncertain profit date. It just takes time. It's better to be slow, safe, and with quality rather than fast and sloppy.
I think a lot of folks were looking for "the next Tesla" and Lucid definitely is not that. Which is a huge positive, as far as I'm concerned. But if that's what you were hoping for, you are bound to be disappointed for at least another few years.
 
You might be in the wrong place - this forum is about the cars and the ownership experience. There are many investor's forums you could join and rant to.
If you bought $LCID, I assume you have big-boy/girl pants and understand the risks of investing.
Yes, I understand the risks, and am currently sitting on a large (for me at least) unrealized loss with hope that things will recover. I still believe in Lucid in the long term.
 
It might be helpful if there's a summary from the above long post.

It's another new start-up with an uncertain profit date. It just takes time. It's better to be slow, safe, and with quality rather than fast and sloppy.

The summary is basically, be more transparent and let investors know what is going on. We understand the risks and need for funding, but we also expect some successes and want to know what is actually happening.

I think a lot of folks were looking for "the next Tesla" and Lucid definitely is not that. Which is a huge positive, as far as I'm concerned. But if that's what you were hoping for, you are bound to be disappointed for at least another few years.

I did not expect that, I expected a little more success based on the initial guidance, and some transparency around the issues.
 
I don’t normally comment when a new member registers to post a grievance. However, this is very well written and in my opinion fair. I think a lot of us have been disappointed from the messaging (or lack there of) coming out from management.

The primary job of a CEO is to communicate with shareholders. Shareholders can handle bad news, especially in a world wide recession. When a a CEO provides gaps in communication, human nature is such that we will automatically assign negative news when there is no news, hence the tanking of the stock. A great CEO has the guts to sometimes not listen to the attorneys and tell the shareholders what they need to hear, rather than play the role of a hype man and tell them what they want to hear.
 
You might be in the wrong place - this forum is about the cars and the ownership experience. There are many investor's forums you could join and rant to.
If you bought $LCID, I assume you have big-boy/girl pants and understand the risks of investing.
I would like to think that all long term investors wear big boy pants, but that is probably foolish of me. Nevertheless, many of the points that the disgruntled shareholder makes are valid, especially the lack of communication that seems to be ingrained into the culture of the company and the company's dismal record of achieving statements made in previous quarters. It is one thing to make a truely remarkable car and a totally different thing to sucessfully run a profitable company. Peter is a genuis when it comes to automotive engineering and the engineering and design team that has been created are up there with any of the major automotive companies. However, deliveries do appear to be significantly lagging and that is where revenues are generated. I think it is fair and appropriate for any shareholder to ask questions regarding the operation of the company, especially when the company has now developed the reputation of keeping its stockholders in the dark on such fundamental issues. As long as Peter has the backing of the Saudi's his position as CEO is safe, and I am guessing they are the driving force behind the silent culture that Lucid Motors has adopted. However, many of us who own a significant number of shares wince each afternoon when the market closes only to see our investment contnueing to shrink. The potential for future significant dilution certainly is a drag on the share price but there must be is a lot more going on within the company that we just don't know about to create this lack of confidence in the marketplace.
I have followed you rpast postings with great interest as I find that you are usually very astute in what you share. I am curious, do you have any insights into why deliveries are lagging so or, at least, any theories which would account for it?
 
Put it in another way, LUCID engineering is clever, but the execution & marketing is horrible. Don't have to look far, just scan through the GlassDoor reviews. My relatives, who work for Lucid, think the reviews are pretty accurate.

Worse, Lucid's management only want to hear & talk about good news. That's why on every earning call, you keep hearing the same thing: Peter rants about the efficiency & vertical integration, then Sheryl talked about missed delivery + need to borrow more + reduced estimations. Even at the lower level such as @Firstto520 they only want to talk about how awesome the cars are, but if you raise any complain, they'll block you.

The culture have to change.

The good news is that the Saudi have pretty deep pocket, and will not likely let Lucid fail - they need to diversify from oil. If they can afford to pay #7 Ronaldo $250M/year just to bring soccer to Saudi (or Qatar spent $225B to host the WC), they can afford to fund Lucid. Better, at some point, they'll bring in the professional to run the company and right the ship. Also, once they deliver to other markets, and open up the SUV line, things should get better.

If you think Lucid is bad, perhaps you havent seen Nio tanked from $50 down to $2 and rebounded (and tanked again), or you havent been in the early days of Tesla.
 
I am also an investor in LCID from the CCIV days, albeit a very small speculative investment. I agree Lucid management could be more communicative. But I think everyone has a very short memory. The world essentially shut down for 12-18 months beginning in Q1 of 2020. It was tough working in an established company in an established industry like I personally do, but I can't imagine trying to start up a brand new luxury EV company in the same time period.

Again I agree the path has been challenging, but I am looking 5-10 years out with my investment. I think Lucid will follow the exact path of Tesla with product roll outs (most of which is already announced) with Lux Sedan, Lux SUV, Mid-Market Sedan, Mid-Market SUV. I think the technology that underpins the Air is the best in the EV world right now. The platform looks to be easily scalable, the battery tech is modular and efficient in design and performance, and the combination of the elements gives Lucid a huge technological advantage over everyone, including Tesla.

Given what we have seen over the last few days/weeks with the significant ramp in Touring finalizations, and the coming avalanche of deliveries, I think end of Q1'23 will be the really interesting report. Should have a full 3 months delivering at the increased production rates, Pure's will be in consumers hands, and first European deliveries either made or pending. I still think the general populace have very little awareness of Lucid as a brand and what will help that is more vehicles on the road.

I'm thinking of reupping my little investment to average down as we are in the $8 region and downside risk is fairly low given I don't think Lucid will be allowed to fail.

Best of luck everyone.
 
I too have a big paper loss in LCID because my cost is 26+ 67% loss. However, I knew the risk and LCID is only 3% of my portfolio. That said I am really not in favor of non Lucid Owners in this forum "LUCIDOWNERS.COM" unless we want to rename it as something else. There are other forums for investors. My personal opinion is that all large cap, high growth public companies in NASDAQ 100 can have a max valuation of 2 X that of S & P 500. The valuations have gone out of control. I see TSLA settling at PE 40 vs S & P 500 PE 20. TSLA was 600+ at one point. PE fell because earnings grew faster than stock price. I hope to see the same with LCID as the volumes ramp up in Pure and a new model at a lower price point to compete with Model Y. Dilution of the shares is not helping. Lowering the guidance is not helping. Investors in LCID need a minimum 3 year horizon at this point I think.
 
So - I exercised my 40c before the merger happened. Since then, I have been averaging down to get my cost lower. I am in this long term though I just have few hundreds unlike OP of 4K shares...
At the back of my mind, I will be in $LCID until I can afford to lose everything but until then I am still buying dips with target shares of 1500-2000. I am halfway there.
 
I too have a big paper loss in LCID because my cost is 26+ 67% loss. However, I knew the risk and LCID is only 3% of my portfolio. That said I am really not in favor of non Lucid Owners in this forum "LUCIDOWNERS.COM" unless we want to rename it as something else. There are other forums for investors. My personal opinion is that all large cap, high growth public companies in NASDAQ 100 can have a max valuation of 2 X that of S & P 500. The valuations have gone out of control. I see TSLA settling at PE 40 vs S & P 500 PE 20. TSLA was 600+ at one point. PE fell because earnings grew faster than stock price. I hope to see the same with LCID as the volumes ramp up in Pure and a new model at a lower price point to compete with Model Y. Dilution of the shares is not helping. Lowering the guidance is not helping. Investors in LCID need a minimum 3 year horizon at this point I think.
I disagree. There were many cogent points concerning delivery issues, flybys by Bear and many other statements which I feel many of the owners here would agree with. Some perhaps they were unaware of.

I love my AGT, but welcome comments concerning all aspects of Lucid.

Anytime we can learn more about Lucid as long as it is presented in a non hostile fashion, I am all for.
 
I disagree. There were many cogent points concerning delivery issues, flybys by Bear and many other statements which I feel many of the owners here would agree with. Some perhaps they were unaware of.

I love my AGT, but welcome comments concerning all aspects of Lucid.

Anytime we can learn more about Lucid as long as it is presented in a non hostile fashion, I am all for.
I am not saying that I disagree with the comments made. Mostly relevant to investors. I do think that the owners and potential owners do think about the long term future of the company. So, I guess they want to know or discuss the stock also here. I discuss all my investments not even in any forum but with a very small group in Telegram. Anyway, that is my preference vs your preference to discuss all things Lucid here. We cannot argue about preferences.
 
I invested in the company as soon as i read about the car and the company's vision. For those, like me, who have ridden the falling knife of share prices, let's all remember that:
1. the general market has been extremely volatile for the last 12 months (which is Wall Street's euphemism for a tanking market).
2. growth stocks like Lucid,, whose price is a function of what people think it WILL be, rather than what it IS, have particularly crashed down to 30-440 percent of their previous highs.
3. tech stocks have been hit worse than most growth stocks, with meta down bout 75% off its high.
4. When funds hit 'sell' to balance their portfolios or move with macro trends, they apply that to all stocks and frequently throw babies out with bathwater, for reasons that have nothing to do with the companies themselves.

The market is, as they say a voting machine in the short run, and only a weighing machine in the longest view - perhaps over a decade. This car, and the company that supports it is not perfect, but it is so much superior to any of the 'best' cars i have owned before that i am confident that the company who built it and supports it is solid, and ultimately will be weighed out properly with its value. Stop looking at the price every day, or every month. Just know you own it as you do your house, and know that fundamentally, it is a solid asset, unless somehting goes way sideways with the company itself.

For a thought, y partner who bought an Audi Etron GT for 160,000 about the same time I took delivery has had her car returned for major failures on 3 occasions. The last one is going on now due to a failed module of some kind, that they cannot cogently explain to her. They have had the car for 3 weeks waiting on a new 'module' and as of this morning cannot give her any estimate AT ALL of when they might expect to receive this mission critical piece, to be able to return to service. That is AUDI - one of the best names and most efficient automotive companies in the business. I have had NO problems with my AGT in the mean time and feel more confident by the day in my investment in both the car and the company.

While the stock is down, harvest the loss for your year end tax planning, and then buy back a little more at current prices. You will feel better to see green instead of red when you look at it, and one day, your children will call you a genius. In the mean time, if you dont have one of the actual cars, do yourself a favor and get one. It certainly helps my perspective on my investment.
 
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
Pretty much spot on. It's a long hold but management needs to be more transparent.
 
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