Lucid Boss Quits After Company Loses $300,000 For Every Car Sold Last Year

American electric vehicle startup Lucid is burning through cash at an alarming rate as it tries desperately to avoid the same fate that hit defunct automakers like Canoo and Nikola. The struggles are very real for the Saudi-backed EV maker, though, and its CEO stepped down this week after the company revealed it lost $3 billion over the course of 2024.

Lucid was meant to be one of the rare success stories in the world of EVs. It had contracts to supply motors to brands like Aston Martin, had the backing of Saudi's vast oil funds and had two cars that were winning fans. Fans don't equal sales, however, and after shifting less than 10,000 units in 2024, the company revealed that the losses were mounting, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Over the course of 2024, the company posted net losses of $3 billion for the year compared with $2.8 billion in losses a year earlier. The eye-watering figure means that Lucid lost around $300,000 for every car it sold last year.

The enormous losses at Lucid ate into the company's cash reserves, which are now worth less than $2 billion, and led to the departure of CEO Peter Rawlinson, adds the WSJ.

Rawlinson resigned on Tuesday, and will be replaced at the head of Lucid by interim CEO Marc Winterhoff, who was appointed chief operating officer of the brand a little over a year ago. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

Rawlinson led Lucid since 2019 and guided the startup through its public debut in 2021. A former Tesla and Jaguar engineer, Rawlinson helped Lucid develop some of the industry's most innovative battery and electric-motor technology.

Still, the EV maker has struggled to lift its share price and been beset by sluggish sales and persistent losses, hurt by a slowdown in the growth of U.S. electric-vehicle sales that has hit traditional automakers and startups alike.

A search for a new leader of Lucid will now kick off, while Rawlinson will reportedly stay on at the automaker in an "advisory capacity."

Lucid burst onto the electric vehicle scene with its Air sedan back in 2021. The automaker sold around 10,000 of the $70,000 EVs last year, which was up from around 6,000 units a year previously. The Air will be joined on the road by the Gravity SUV later this year, which is scheduled to enter production in 2025.  

The luxury electric three-row SUV will be available to order in "late 2025," Lucid reports, with a starting price around $79,900. When deliveries begin, Lucid hopes that the addition of an SUV to its range will help it double sales over the course of the year, with it targeting deliveries of 20,000 units this year.

The American automaker currently offers its EVs in select global markets, including the United States, Europe and Saudi Arabia. In order to boost sales and, ultimately, profits Lucid opened a dedicated facility in Saudi Arabia that will one day have the capacity to build more than 150,000 cars per year. The company clearly has to work on its sales tactics before then, however.