Lucid Not Helped by UAW Strike

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Lucid Not Helped by UAW Strike

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The United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against the Big Three automakers was supposed to help electric vehicle (EV) companies like Tesla and Lucid. It did help Tesla, with its stock up over 12% in the past month. Lucid, however, has fallen off by about the same percentage. A shortage of gasoline-powered cars shows the difference between the haves and have nots in the EV segment. (These are America’s least reliable new cars.)
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Tesla produced over 400,000 vehicles in the most recent quarter. It is at a run rate at which that figure is growing quickly. It has a chance to deliver 2 million vehicles this year. With the exception of China, it is the dominant EV maker, based on sales, in every major country in the world.
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Lucid should count itself lucky if it produces 10,000 cars this year. It should also count itself lucky if it loses less than $3 billion. It lost $837 million in the most recent quarter on $151 million in revenue. Lucid’s production would need to rise four or five times to hit breakeven, and that is if the cost of revenue does not skyrocket, which it is likely to do.

Lucid’s cars are too expensive, by a large margin, if it wants to capture sales. The base price of the Air Grand Touring model is $125,000. For people who want a gasoline-powered car, a comparable vehicle is about $50,000 less.
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Research has also found that only 20% of Americans would buy an EV as their next car. That, by itself, should make investment in EV stocks dangerous. For those who want to buy an EV, the Tesla is the most obvious choice. Plus, every major car company will flood the market with EVs in the next two years.
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Why is Lucid still in business? The UAW strike will not help it. That means the answer is “money in its bank account.” And that will not last for long.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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