Lucid Group (LCID 0.41%) stock is having a disastrous year. Shares of the electric vehicle (EV) maker continued to fall this week, trading 16% lower through noon Friday and hitting its all-time lows of $4.26 a share, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
With this week's decline, the EV stock has tanked nearly 40% in just the past three months. Lucid's ongoing struggles, coupled with a looming EV industry slowdown, are making investors jittery.
Lucid's production continues to dwindle
Lucid confirmed this week that it will launch its much-awaited Gravity SUV on Nov. 16 at the Los Angeles Auto Show. That should have been good news for the stock, but Lucid doesn't expect to start Gravity production until late 2024.
The company is already struggling to ramp up production of its existing Lucid Air luxury electric cars. This week, the company said it produced only 1,550 vehicles in the third quarter but delivered only 1,457 units. That doesn't include the 700 vehicles the company shipped to Saudi Arabia for assembling in Q3, but that also doesn't change that Lucid's production has fallen consistently in recent quarters, with its latest number turning out to be much worse than expected.
| Metric | Q4 2022 | Q1 2023 | Q2 2023 | Q3 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Production | 3,493 | 2,314 | 2,173 | 1,550 |
| Deliveries | 1,932 | 1,406 | 1,404 | 1,457 |
Data source: Lucid Group.
Moreover, Lucid stopped revealing its reservation number from the first quarter. It last reported reservations of "over 28,000" cars as of Feb. 21, 2023, excluding the agreement with the Saudi Arabian government to deliver up to 100,000 cars over the next 10 years. Again, that reservation number was dwindling steadily for some quarters, which means Lucid is possibly struggling to find takers for its electric cars.
Be cautious with Lucid stock
Lucid's latest production number raises concerns about whether the company will now be able to meet its already low full-year production target of 10,000 units. The timing couldn't be any worse, with the EV industry staring at a potential slowdown.
This week, EV leader Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk sounded the warning bell on the auto industry, highlighting how higher interest rates in the U.S. and global wars were hurting consumer sentiment.
In further evidence of a looming slowdown this week, General Motors postponed the production of its electric pickup trucks by one year. General Motors' announcement came just days after Ford announced a temporary cut in one of its shifts at the Michigan plant that builds its popular all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup trucks.
Long story short, the headwinds are only stronger for Lucid, with Tesla's note of caution this week giving investors an even bigger reason to stay on the sidelines of the EV stock.
