Lucid Pulls Back on Production Outlook

With 2025 already more than halfway through, the year isn’t going as well as the leaders at Lucid Group had projected. In the company’s second quarter earnings conference, the results were mixed due to tariffs, ramp up of the Gravity SUV launch and more.

Deliveries and production for the quarter were up overall: Lucid delivered 3,309 vehicles to mark its sixth consecutive quarter of record deliveries, and produced 3,863 vehicles, an 83% jump over Q2 2024.

However, for the first half of the year, that means Lucid produced just over 6,000 vehicles. Originally, leaders had set their 2025 production goal at 20,000 vehicles, but interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said they had adjusted the fixed goal to a range of 18,000 to 20,000 vehicles, citing supply-chain bottlenecks for the lower-than-expected production numbers in the first half.

According to Winterhoff, production could have been shut down in Q2 due to a shortage of China-sourced magnets, but the problem was solved in a matter of weeks rather than months due to Lucid’s existing vertical integration capabilities.

Now, he said, with the issue largely in the rear view, the company plans to ramp up production, particularly around its Gravity SUV, in the second half of the year.

Improving production is just part of Lucid’s three “near term priorities” Winterhoff described, falling under their operational discipline goal that includes manufacturing, cost control and “practically every element of the business.”

Leaders have also been hard at work on the second and third goals: building a scalable brand and designing Lucid’s technology with a sustainable edge. The company plans to launch brand ambassadors as part of its fall advertising campaign, featuring “globally recognized creators” such as actor Timothée Chalamet as Lucid works to go beyond what Winterhoff called “traditional advertising.”

On the technology side, the 2026 Lucid Air, which recently began production, comes with a new battery pack on certain models that extends its range by roughly 25 miles and copies some components from the Gravity as the company aims to standardize its vehicle line ups.

However, progress comes with a cost, and Lucid’s costs were slightly higher than expected in the quarter. Although net loss for Q2 totaled $539 million, a nearly $100 million improvement year over year—and quarterly revenue hit a record high of $259 million—the progress was impacted by $54 million in tariffs, according to CFO Taoufig Boussaid. 

But it’s not necessarily a death knell for Lucid’s margins for the rest of the year. While he said the company was navigating an environment that remains “volatile and uneven,” the potential tariff-related margin headwinds Boussaid warned of earlier this year are expected to be on the “lower end” of the 8% to 15% range he projected.

Going forward, the company plans to minimize the tariff impact through “material cost optimization, improving production efficiency and tighter inventory management.”