Shares of luxury electric vehicle (EV) maker Lucid Group (LCID +4.18%) rallied 22.9% this week through Thursday trading at 2:20 p.m. ET, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Although the electric vehicle maker reported earnings earlier in August, the company's CEO made news at the Monterey Car Week this week, with a bullish outlook for the upcoming Gravity SUV, as well as Lucid's technology versus peers -- especially the elephant in the room, Tesla.
NASDAQ: LCID
Key Data Points
Lucid CEO: We've taken the mantle from a distracted Tesla
At Monterey Car Week, Lucid displayed its new SUV called the Lucid Gravity, which could be a game changer for the company. In an interview during the event, Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson noted that the market for the Gravity is 6 times that of the Lucid Air, which is the company's central sedan product first unveiled in 2021. "Gravity is going to come in, and our finances are dominated by scale. It's all scale, scale, scale. And this is a big step in that scale."
It should be noted that the unveiling of a Gravity vehicle at Monterey shouldn't have come as a surprise. In late July, Lucid noted the first Gravity vehicle had ridden off the pre-production line.
Still, this week's show may have encouraged attendees about the Gravity, which is set to reach customers by the end of this year and will be critical to Lucid's future and financial stability. The SUV will start at a price point under $80,000 and have 440 miles of range per charge, which is an excellent range and price point for a new luxury EV.
Rawlinson, a former Tesla engineer who headed research and development on the original Model S, also took the opportunity to trash talk his former employer. In the same interview, Rawlinson called Tesla "distracted" by its emphasis on robotaxis and CEO Elon Musk's forays into social media, artificial intelligence, space, and other politically charged areas, saying:
We are considerably ahead of where Tesla is. We've taken that mantle. When I was at Tesla, Tesla was the tech leader. They've become distracted, and we have taken that place.
Rawlinson was likely referring to a LinkedIn post he made earlier this month, showing the Lucid Air Pure getting 5 miles per kilowatt-hour (kWh), about 25% more than the Tesla Model S, around 4.
Lucid is still a show-me story
Before investors abandon Tesla stock for Lucid on the basis of the current state of their technology, it should be noted Tesla is still profitable and has a market cap if $680 billion, as opposed to Lucid's mere market cap of $9 billion, all while the business is still enduring massive losses.
While Lucid did beat expectations in the second quarter with $200.6 million in revenue, its bottom-line losses were worse than expected, with a huge operating loss of $787.4 million. In fact, its quarterly revenue was even below the company's cost of goods sold at $470.4 million.
In order to turn a profit, Lucid will have to scale big volumes to fill up its factories, which is why the success of the Gravity is so crucial. While this week's Monterey event provided optimism on that front, the Gravity's ultimate success is still a question left to be answered. Lucid remains a highly speculative bet, despite this week's performance.
