Luxury EV Manufacturer Loses $227,000 On Each Car It Sells

A manufacturer of luxury electric vehicles (EVs) lost more than $227,000 on each car it sold in the third quarter.

Lucid Motors, headquartered in California, sells four EV models, ranging in price from $74,900 to $249,000, according to its website. The company reported a net loss of $630.9 million in the third quarter, excluding its overhead costs, which comes out to a loss of more than $227,000 on each car it sold, according to its financial filings and The Wall Street Journal’s calculations.

The company soared to a $91 billion valuation in November 2021, despite only ever having sold 125 vehicles at the time, according to the WSJ. Since then, the company has seen its share price fall by about 93%.

Lucid also moved last week to slice its prices in an effort to attract more demand for its vehicles, according to the WSJ.

The company’s largest shareholder is Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund, according to Lucid’s quarterly financials; the Saudi investment fund is bankrolled by oil revenues, according to Reuters. The Saudi Arabian government has committedto buying 100,000 of its cars over the next decade, and the public investment fund has spent billions of dollars to keep the company alive as it struggles, according to the WSJ.

Lucid is far from the only EV manufacturer that is losing money on its vehicles and dealing with tepid consumer demand. Rivian, another luxury EV manufacturer, lost $33,000 on each car it sold in the second quarter, and Ford, a legacy manufacturer, expects it will lose more than $4 billion on its EV operations this year alone.

Lucid Motors did not respond immediately to a request for comment.