Lucid Group is the latest in a long line of EV automakers in recent months to raise the price of its electric automobiles.
Along with its first-quarter financial announcement on Thursday, the business stated that the pricing of its premium Air sedan models will be raised beginning June 1. The price increases raise the basic price of the Air sedan by up to 13%.
As the company struggles with manufacturing, Lucid Motors is boosting the pricing of its premium electric vehicles. In the first quarter of 2022, the company recorded only 360 automobiles delivered to clients.
Lucid's new higher costs will be $154,000 for the Air Grand Touring (up from $139,000), $107,400 for the Air Touring (up from $95,000), and $87,400 for the Air Pure (up from $80,000) beginning of June 1st.
This indicates an average rise of almost 11%. The pricing of the new Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance variant, which was unveiled just two weeks ago, will stay at $179,000. (All Lucid vehicles qualify for the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, as well as any state and local incentives.)
The company stated that no existing reservation holders would see price increases and that new pricing for Canada will be made public on June 1. Given that Lucid has announced 30,000 reservations for the Air, it will be some time before the company begins to see some profit from these increased rates.
Other EV automakers, including Tesla and Rivian, have announced similar price increases for their electric vehicles, blaming continued supply chain challenges from the epidemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as inflation, for higher supplier prices that are now being passed on to the customer.
In Rivian's case, the company first planned to boost prices for reservation holders as well, but swiftly changed its mind after receiving intense backlash from current reservation holders.
During a conference call with investors, Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson stated that the business will honor the original rates for existing reservation holders, addressing a crucial element that sparked outrage when Rivian announced a similar price rise.
"The world has altered tremendously since we initially launched Lucid Air in September 2020," Rawlinson remarked on the conference call. "I also want to reassure our current reservation holders that we will honor current rates for all existing clients as well as new reservations made by the end of the month.".
To guarantee fairness and prioritizing, we will be contacting reservation holders to facilitate order configurations in order to lock in pricing as their specified model becomes available.”
In the first quarter of 2022, the firm lost $81 million on sales of $58 million. Last year, when the business had essentially no sales, Lucid declared a $2.9 billion loss.
Lucid has failed to get vehicles off the assembly line as a result of supply chain issues and other interruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. Last quarter, the Newark, California-based firm revealed that it was reducing its annual production forecast from 20,000 automobiles to 12,000 vehicles.
Rawlinson also hailed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's acquisition of 100,000 vehicles. "We are happy to be aiding Saudi Arabia in attaining its sustainability goals and net-zero aims by delivering our advanced luxury EVs to Saudi Arabia," he added.
After investing $1 billion in the company, Saudi Arabia's national wealth fund now owns a controlling stake in Lucid.
