Lucid Motors Offers Discounts as Demand Shrinks

• Lucid Motors is trying to keep its existing customers and drum up employee orders by offering hefty discounts, as the total number of orders dropped to 34,000 in September.

• The company is offering a 10% discount for customers to reinstate lapsed orders; an $18,000 discount for employees who purchase a Grand Touring model before year's end; and a 2.81% in-house financing rate for ready-made units.

• Production goals for 2022 were set at 7000 units, cut down from the original 14,000 figure quoted in February, but the company has only produced around 4000 units this year.

As the auto industry pivots toward electrification, the cost to produce electric vehicles remains high as compared to internal-combustion counterparts, a result of growing material costs and new manufacturing processes. That cost is baked into the retail price of every EV on the market today, with legacy manufacturers hoping to recoup costs from early adopters willing to pay upmarket prices. Startup EV manufacturers are largely betting on a different demographic: the affluent but anti-Tesla buyer. Or, in other words, a Lucid Air owner.

There can only be so many $100,000 EVs out there, and Lucid Motors jumped onto the electric luxury performance bandwagon a few years too late. At least that's what it seems like, as the California-based EV manufacturer continues to move slowly through its backlog of 34,000 orders. Slow enough that the company appears hungry for cash now, as it offers discounts to customers who previously abandoned their orders.

Specifically, Lucid sent an email to customers with lapsed orders saying the company would reinstate these orders at the original legacy pricing of $139,000 for the Lucid Air Grand Touring, according to Barrons. That's a 10% discount from the current pricing of $154,000. This same email claims that reinstated orders could be completed in a few weeks, as the company works to complete 7000 orders by the end of the year. For reference, Lucid had delivered less than 4000 units through the end of September.