Lucid's production drops to its lowest level since early 2025 as it sells off unsold cars

The numbers:

• Production: 2,954 vehicles, down 38% from 4,774 in the second quarter, Electrek reports. It's Lucid's lowest production since early 2025.
• Deliveries: 3,806 vehicles, down about 4% from 3,953 in Q2 and about 7% from 4,078 in Q3 2025, according to Electrek.

A losing streak: it was the third straight quarter in which Lucid's production declined, TechCrunch reports. It's also the lowest quarterly output since the first quarter of 2025, just after Lucid started building its second EV, the Gravity SUV.

Year to date: after nine months, Lucid has built 13,228 vehicles and delivered 10,852, according to Electrek.

That depends on how you count.

On paper, production fell about 24% from the 3,891 vehicles Lucid built a year earlier. But Electrek says the real drop is closer to 40%. In Q3 2025, Lucid counted the 1,000-plus vehicles it shipped to Saudi Arabia for final assembly separately. Since the start of 2026, it counts everything that leaves its Arizona factory. Count both quarters the same way, and the decline is much steeper, according to Electrek.

Because it had too many unsold cars.

In the first half of 2026, Lucid built 3,228 more vehicles than it delivered, Electrek reports. Most of that came in the first quarter, when a supplier problem with second-row seats held up Gravity deliveries for 29 days while the factory kept running.

In Q3, deliveries beat production by 852 vehicles, about a quarter of that first-half pile, according to Electrek.

In Lucid's words: "Deliveries exceeded production as the company continued to execute its planned inventory reduction, converting existing vehicle inventory into customer deliveries," the company said.

Builds versus sales: in five of the last six quarters, Lucid built more vehicles than it delivered, TechCrunch notes.

It's new CEO Silvio Napoli's plan to stop the bleeding. He took over in June, and the plan targets $1.4 billion in cash flow improvements in 2026.

Where the money comes from, according to Electrek:

• $600 million to $800 million from selling inventory.
• About $500 million from lower capital spending.
• Roughly $200 million from operating costs.

The cuts so far:

• Fewer workers: Lucid laid off around 1,500 employees, TechCrunch reports. Electrek puts it at 18% of staff.
• One shift: it eliminated the second shift at its Casa Grande, Arizona factory in June.
• Leaner leadership: it streamlined the company's management, TechCrunch reports.
• No more target: Lucid withdrew its goal of building 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles this year, according to Electrek.

Lucid had $1.38 billion in inventory on its balance sheet at the end of June, up from $1.11 billion six months earlier, Electrek reports.

He didn't hold back. On the company's second-quarter earnings call in August, Napoli acknowledged years of mistakes, as TechCrunch reports.

"While there is no question that Lucid brought leading innovations and outstanding products to the market, we have disappointed on several fronts, and for far too long," he said. "We have not executed consistently. We missed commitments, launched products before they were ready, underinvested in service, responded too slowly to quality issues, and allowed complexity to slow decisions down."

Gravity: Lucid says demand for its Gravity SUV "continued to regain momentum." It didn't give a number, and it doesn't break out deliveries by model, Electrek notes.

Cosmos: Lucid's third EV, which is supposed to start under $50,000, has been delayed, TechCrunch reports. A cheaper car could open up a wider market, but Napoli has warned against rushing it.

"We will not repeat the mistakes of the past by bringing a product to market before it is ready," he said on the August call.

When it's coming: Electrek reports the Cosmos is now delayed to the second half of 2027. Lucid's robotaxi deals with Uber and Bolt won't move real volume for years either, Electrek adds. That means Lucid has to get through at least another year on just the Air sedan and the Gravity, at under 4,000 deliveries a quarter.

A cheaper Gravity: one thing that could help in the meantime is the lower-priced Gravity Touring, which recently opened for orders in the US and Canada, Drive Tesla Canada reports. In Canada, it starts at $113,500.

Badly, for now. Rivian delivered 19,248 vehicles in Q3 as its cheaper R2 SUV ramped up, about five times Lucid's total, Electrek reports.

A big gap from the promises: when Lucid went public through a SPAC merger in 2021, it estimated it would ship as many as 90,000 EVs in 2024 alone, TechCrunch notes. It raised $4 billion in that deal.

The Rivian contrast: Rivian's Q3 deliveries were up nearly 58% from the second quarter and about 46% from a year earlier, Drive Tesla Canada reports. Rivian faced the same tough comparison as Lucid but grew by more than 40% because it had a new product to sell, Electrek notes.

One caveat: Q3 2025 got a boost from US buyers rushing to buy before the federal EV tax credit expired, Electrek notes, so year-over-year comparisons look tougher this year for every EV maker.

Lucid will report full third-quarter financial results on November 9, 2026, with a conference call that day. Shareholders can submit and upvote questions for management through the Say Technologies platform from October 23 until November 6, and a selection will be answered on the call, the company says.

Numbers aren't everything: Lucid cautions in its filing that production and delivery figures are only one measure of its performance and shouldn't be relied on as the sole indicator of its quarterly financial results. Net income and cash flow will come with the earnings report.

Where Lucid builds: the company designs and engineers its vehicles in-house and assembles them at its factories in Arizona and Saudi Arabia, according to the filing.

Lucid is still losing about $1 billion a quarter, according to Electrek, so investors will be watching how fast the reset improves its cash flow. Selling off inventory helps the cash position, Electrek argues, but it only works for so long.

• Shopping for a Lucid? With the company selling down inventory, there may be more cars available to buy right away.
• Waiting for a cheaper Lucid? The under-$50,000 Cosmos has been delayed, so it's not coming soon.
• EV market watchers: Lucid's struggles contrast sharply with Rivian's R2-driven growth.