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Lucid’s second-quarter loss was wider than expected.
Courtesy Lucid Motors
Start-up electric-vehicle maker
Lucid Group
earnings missed Wall Street expectations. Still, results were good enough to send the embattled shares higher immediately late Monday. Shares are struggling to hold gains early Tuesday.
Lucid (ticker: LCID) reported a second-quarter loss of 40 cents per share on sales of about $151 million. Wall Street was looking for a loss of 34 cents per share on sales of $182 million.
Shares are up flat in early trading Tuesday, while
S&P 500
and
Nasdaq Composite
futures are both down about 0.5%. Price cuts announced earlier by Lucid weighed on shares during the regular session Monday, when they closed with a 3.2% drop; that might be mitigating the pain ahead of the Tuesday open.
An earnings miss doesn’t usually move a stock higher or keep it stable, but Lucid’s quarterly report had some positives. Lucid said it is on track for production of more than 10,000 units. That is in line with recent guidance provided in May.
At the start of the year, Wall Street had expected Lucid to manufacture closer to 20,000 units.
There is no new cut, but the decline in expected production is one reason Lucid stock has struggled in recent months. Through Monday trading, shares are down about 6% year to date, and off about 64% over the past 12 months.
“We continue to view the company’s 2Q 2023 production/deliveries announcement as disappointing, given the company’s production and delivery numbers were below our estimates and production for 2Q was even below 1Q levels,” wrote Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Andres Sheppard in a Tuesday report.
Lucid sold 2,810 vehicles in the first half of 2023. It produced 4,487, leaving about 5,500 to hit its guidance. Sales trailing production isn’t good news for any auto maker.
He is staying positive on the stock, though, rating shares at Buy with a $10 price target. Sheppard is looking for deliveries to Saudi Arabia to boost results in the third quarter.
Current production guidance relates to sales of the Air sedan. Lucid plans to unveil its Gravity SUV in November. The start of production is planned for late 2024.
Lucid ended the quarter with more than $5 billion in cash on hand, after using about $900 million to build its business in the second quarter.
Wall Street estimates that Lucid will use about $1 billion each quarter. Positive free cash flow isn’t projected until late in the decade, and is predicated on rising sales.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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