Lucid Motors delivered a record 4,078 vehicles in the third quarter. This increase was likely supported by more Gravity SUVs reaching customers and a rush of buyers taking advantage of the expiring federal EV tax credit.
The Saudi-owned luxury EV startup still falls short of the projections it used to go public in 2021, a transaction that netted the company four billion dollars. However, Lucid Motors has seen its deliveries climb steadily over the last two years. The third quarter delivery figures announced on Monday mark the seventh consecutive quarter of increasing sales for the company.
Lucid Motors was not alone in seeing a significant third-quarter increase in EV sales. Tesla recorded its best quarter in company history, and legacy automakers like Ford and General Motors also reported large increases. Even Rivian, which is forecasting a worse overall year for total EV deliveries than 2024 or 2023, saw a boost in the third quarter.
Similar to Rivian, only customers who leased Lucid Motors vehicles were eligible for the federal EV tax credit, making the impact of its expiration difficult to quantify. It is also unclear how many Gravity SUVs were delivered compared to the company’s first model, the Air sedan. Lucid Motors will reveal its full financial results for the quarter on November 5.
Lucid Motors has struggled to generate interest for its luxury EVs since going public in 2021. Former CEO Peter Rawlinson openly admitted the company needed to strengthen its marketing operations. Earlier this year, the company announced it signed actor Timothée Chalamet to be its first global ambassador. The company has also previously benefitted from rental sales and company leases in some quarters.
Lucid Motors is also increasingly looking to Saudi Arabia as a key market for its vehicles. Saudi Arabia owns around sixty percent of the publicly-traded company through its sovereign wealth fund. On Monday, Lucid Motors stated it built more than one thousand vehicles specifically for the Saudi market. The company currently operates an assembly facility in the Kingdom and plans to open a full-fledged factory there.
Lucid has also secured future demand from an unlikely customer, Uber. Uber announced last month its plans to buy at least twenty thousand Gravity SUVs over the next six years and use them as robotaxis on its network. For that deal, Lucid Motors will work to integrate the autonomous vehicle technology from the company Nuro into the vehicles.