Lucid calls it an operational reset. The rest of us call it admitting you f*cked up without the dignity of explaining how.
The company will delay its midsize vehicle. You know, the one that was supposed to save them after the luxury sedan nobody bought failed to save them. Classic pivot: from selling cars rich people don't want to selling cars middle-class people can't afford.
CEO Silvio Napoli already suspended production expectations earlier this year. Suspending expectations is what you do when reality keeps rudely interrupting your investor deck. Now he's delaying the next model too. At this rate Lucid's 2027 lineup will consist of a press release and a concept sketch.
The company didn't provide updated guidance. Of course they didn't. Updated guidance requires having a plan that extends beyond "maybe people will forget we exist and stop asking questions."
Somewhere a retail trader who bought Lucid at $57 is reading operational reset and thinking it means good news. It does not mean good news. It means the operations were so bad they needed to be reset. Like when your computer freezes and you hold the power button. Except your computer doesn't burn through billions in cash before it crashes.
Napoli took over and immediately started suspending things. Production targets. Vehicle launches. Shareholder optimism. The man runs Lucid like he's methodically unplugging life support systems to see which one was keeping the patient alive.
The midsize vehicle was supposed to compete with Tesla's Model 3. Now it's competing with the concept of time itself. And losing.
Lucid makes beautiful cars that almost nobody purchases, then delays the cars they promise will fix that problem, then calls the delay a reset like we're all stupid enough to confuse a reboot with a retreat.
Photo by Oxana Melis on Unsplash
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