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A second-row seat defect that halted Gravity SUV shipments in February drove Lucid Group to pull its full-year production guidance on Tuesday and post quarterly revenue that fell dramatically short of Wall Street expectations.
Revenue of $282.5 million represented a roughly 20% year-over-year improvement, though analysts had been anticipating an increase nearly four times that size. Analysts had expected $440.4 million, according to CNBC. On a per-share basis, the net loss of $3.46 exceeded the $2.64 deficit that analysts had forecast, according to CNBC. The company said the seat supplier issue caused more than $200 million in revenue impairment during the quarter.
The gap between production and sales was stark: while 5,500 vehicles rolled off the line during the quarter, just 3,093 reached customers — a shortfall CFO Taoufiq Boussaid acknowledged in a statement had left the company carrying what he called "elevated inventory." The prior full-year production guidance of 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles has been withdrawn, the company said.
Boussaid pointed to the incoming CEO's ongoing review as the reason for the move, telling investors: "With Silvio now on board and conducting his review of the business, we are suspending our prior guidance and will provide a full updated outlook at our second-quarter earnings call," according to Reuters.
According to Barron's, Napoli — who was appointed CEO in April — intends to spend the coming weeks assessing the business before sharing a revised outlook with investors when second-quarter results are reported. Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff will move back to his COO role once Napoli assumes the top position, the company said.
The second-row seat issue has since been fixed, the company said, and momentum returned in March: North American order intake jumped 144% compared with February, and deliveries were up 14% against the same month a year ago.
Despite the production guidance suspension, Lucid said it ended the quarter with about $3.2 billion in liquidity. When adjusted to include the roughly $1.05 billion raised through equity and convertible preferred stock in April, along with a new $500 million delayed draw term loan from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the company's pro forma liquidity position at quarter-end stood at approximately $4.7 billion. Lucid said the fundraising activity gives it sufficient liquidity to operate through at least mid-to-late 2027.
Shares dropped more than 8% in after-hours trading after the report was released, according to Reuters.
The company said its robotaxi partnership with Uber has been expanded to at least 35,000 vehicles. Nuro, a self-driving startup involved in the program, secured a California DMV permit for driverless testing in April. Lucid said it expects to launch commercial robotaxi service later this year.