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Lucid Group shares are barely in the green so far this year after enduring a brutal pummeling in 2022. Even as the company engages in a price war with Tesla amid an uncertain competitive landscape, a rare bit of good news has just come from Saudi Arabia.
https://twitter.com/KhairAlHelo/status/1688438513627168768
As per the reporting by the Arabic publication Maal, Lucid Group’s assembly plant within the confines of its gigantic AMP-2 facility in Jeddah’s King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) will go live in September 2023. The company will ship all pertinent parts for the Air EV from its AMP-1 facility in Arizona, with the final assembly taking place in Jeddah. Lucid Group plans to ramp up the annual production capacity of its AMP-2 facility to 150,000 units by 2026. The Kingdom has already awarded incentives of around $3 billion to Lucid Group to establish its AMP-2 facility in KAEC. The Saudis have also signed an agreement to purchase up to 100,000 electric vehicles from the company over the next ten years.
In Q2 2023, Lucid Group produced 2,173 vehicles at its manufacturing facility in Arizona and delivered 1,404 vehicles. The company has been struggling to ramp up production and sales, having to repeatedly slash its annual output target. Toward the beginning of 2023, Lucid Group was targeting an annual production of 14,000 units for the entire year. However, while announcing its earnings for the first quarter of 2023, the company slashed this target to just 10,000 units. The EV player also continues to suffer from lukewarm demand for its luxury EV, as evidenced by its elevated inventory levels.
BREAKING: Lucid has dropped prices by up to 18.8%.
• Air Pure AWD: $82,400 (from $87k)
• Air Touring: $95k (from $108k)
• Air GT: $125k (from $154k) pic.twitter.com/byaRGnF8TD— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 5, 2023
Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that Lucid Group has now slashed the prices of the Air EV variants by up to 18.8 percent to better compete with Tesla’s Model S. The move, however, risks triggering a damaging price war with the EV giant, which can afford to wage such a war due to its still-healthy margins.
Lucid Group’s much-anticipated Gravity SUV is due to launch next year. The company is slated to announce its earnings for the second quarter of 2023 later today.
