None of the above
The Seeking Alpha article I posted summed it, as how an investor is thinking. I just think they needed a lower priced EV in this market to really have a shot at making it long term. Like you said the climate/market is going to be really tough right now, especially for a startup. Even makes it worse that the Lucid Air is so high priced.
Peter was very clear in the Q&A that supply chain issues are no longer an issue. His reason for the lack of orders was lack of brand awareness, which he feels is solvable. We can debate all day if that’s really the reason for the reduced order book, but it was actually refreshing to hear a CEO stop hiding behind supply chain issues for a change.
Not unexpected, thanks.
I found the comment that production was not a bottleneck at odds with 28k reservations. I was disappointed that they did not identify the real bottleneck. I hope it is not demand but rather their ability to scale deliveries and service. Absent a statement about it, people will assume that it is demand. Weak demand will hurt Lucid's ability to scale to profitability. Hence, the outlook was diappointing.
I know I was hoping for better guidance that showed strong demand for the product and they pretty much said production wasn't the issue. It does seem like they are still having supplier issues which could be hurting their ability to produce. It's also strange that they have 28K reservations and the production capacity to do more but are only going to produce 10-14K. I think people were hoping to hear about some kind of partnership selling their motors or licensing technology and also Gravity reservations opening because I think those were promised for January back in October but now won't be open until the summer. I'm a big fan of my car and invested for the long term but that was not a very good earnings call.
It is all about meeting shareholders expectations.
Most importantly--Did he say anything about Apple CarPlay?
I totally agree, this is a very niche product at present. The Gravity will help a little, but even that will be a tiny market, given the price.The Seeking Alpha article I posted summed it, as how an investor is thinking. I just think they needed a lower priced EV in this market to really have a shot at making it long term. Like you said the climate/market is going to be really tough right now, especially for a startup. Even makes it worse that the Lucid Air is so high priced.
Only such a small percentage of people can afford them and the market is more competitive now than ever. It is always hard to start any company from scratch, but an auto company is even tougher. Just being realistic on the above, as I think Lucid is awesome.
Even with my statements, I am still strongly considering going forward with my order on a Touring, as I talked with my Lucid advisor today!
What were shareholders expectations? I haven't seen numbers only numbers from "Analysts."
An analyst asked why so few cars being produced. Is it a demand or production limitation? I think Peter has implicitly confirmed it was a demand issue by answering it was not a production issue. I guess more cancellations come from Pure reservation holders since they are more cost conscious then DE/GT folks especially in this economic environment.
I was hoping someone would ask about the over 2000 cars sitting in the parking lot. It seems that those are primarily AGT that people ordered then either cancelled or downgraded. Can’t we assume that every car there was built to actual order? I didn’t think they were building cars on speculation.
They didn't say but I think a bunch of those cars are heading to Europe. Peter stated GT and Dreams were going there first.
I listened to Sherry talk for almost 30 minutes about numbers.
Ok “a bunch”, I’ll agree with that but why are there over 2000 cars sitting in the AZ sun for several months now? I bet he can’t or won’t say “…. we had 2000 cancellations after the order was made…..” Maybe interest rates effected some buyers. When they made their order interest rates were in the 2s, now it’s in the 5s, etc. I would like more transparency.
I think batching is a more likely explanation than cancelations. They get five orders for a White GT with Tahoe interior. They do a run of 200. Because a run of 5 would be ridiculous.
