Cantor Fitzgerald slashed its price target on Lucid Motors following the company’s first-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, citing weaker production expectations and a more cautious outlook for delivery growth.
The firm reiterated its Neutral rating while cutting its target to $8.00 from $14.00.
Despite the trim, the updated target still implies a 28.0% upside potential, based on Tuesday’s closing price of $6.25.
As of press time, the stock was trading 4% lower at $5.99 on Wednesday’s pre-market session.
The company lost over 98% of its share value in the past five years. It traded as low as $5.62 last week, markin a new record low.
According to Sheppard, who remains bullish on the stock, key risks include high negative gross margins, additional capital needs, and the impact of supply chain disruptions and tariffs.
Competitive pressure and slower-than-expected customer adoption also contribute to the mix.
Revenue and Deliveries
In a research note published on Wednesday, analyst Andres Sheppard highlighted Lucid‘s $282.5 million in revenue, in line with the company’s guidance of $280–284 million and with Cantor’s estimate of $281.7 million.
Revenue was up approximately 20% from the $235 million recorded in the same quarter last year.
The quarter was driven by 3,093 vehicle deliveries and 5,500 vehicles produced, a discrepancy justified by a delivery halt in March — which ultimately led to a recall on nearly all Gravity vehicles produced so far.
The company suspended its production guidance for 2026.
“Management disclosed that it now expects to provide updated guidance in Q2,” Sheppard wrote.” We view this as mildly disappointing, as we now expect the production guidance to likely get revised next quarter.”
Sheppard updated Cantor’s model on Lucid, lowering full-year 2026 blended average selling price to $87,800 (from $89,100).
The updated figures lead to lower annual revenue, which the firm expects to be at $2.035 billion.
Liquidity and Capital Raise
Profitability metrics remained deeply negative.
Lucid reported a GAAP gross margin of approximately negative 110%, which Sheppard noted was slightly better than Cantor’s estimate of negative 121% — despite being worse than the negative 97% posted a year earlier.
The adjusted EBITDA loss widened to $780.6 million, above the firm’s estimate of $772 million and well above the FactSet consensus of $641 million.
Lucid posted a net loss of $1.028 billion, compared with Cantor’s estimate of $973.8 million and the consensus expectation of $817.3 million.
The year-ago net loss was $366.2 million.
Non-GAAP diluted net loss per share came in at $2.82, below Cantor’s estimate of $2.71 and the consensus of $2.16.
Capital expenditure of $253 million was below estimates, while free cash flow came in at negative $1.439 billion, roughly in line with Cantor’s forecast.
Sheppard noted a significant drop in Lucid‘s cash position during the quarter.
The company ended the period with approximately $700 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments, down from $2.1 billion at the end of 2025.
Total liquidity stood at approximately $3.2 billion, compared with $4.6 billion a quarter earlier, and includes a $2.0 billion unsecured delayed draw term loan facility and a $468 million asset-backed revolving credit facility.
Lucid has since raised additional capital: Ayar Third Investment Company, an affiliate of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, committed $550 million in convertible preferred stock.
Recently, Uber invested $200 million in Lucid‘s stock as part of its deal for Robotaxi deployment with Nuro, bringing its total investment to $500 million.
Lucid also completed a $300 million registered public offering.
Together, the three transactions bring the total raise to approximately $1.05 billion, lifting total liquidity to approximately $4.7 billion.
Upcoming Products
Lucid disclosed on Tuesday that it remains on track for commercial robotaxi launch in late 2026 in the San Francisco Bay Area, with the midsize variant targeting start of production in the second half of 2028.
During Tuesday’s earnings call, Sheppard pressed management on whether these milestones remain unchanged despite the company’s decision to defer updated production and capital expenditure guidance to the second quarter.
The analyst asked Winterhoff to confirm that the midsize timing, robotaxi timing, and medium-term goals are all still on track.
Winterhoff confirmed that a start-of-production update for the midsize model will come after a review with incoming CEO Silvio Napoli and the leadership team by the end of the second quarter.
“What really counts is the ramp-up in 2027, and that’s what remains unchanged,” Winterhoff said, adding that the volumes the company is targeting have not changed.
The outgoing interim CEO cautioned against reading too much into start-of-production timing alone, pointing to lessons learned from the Gravity ramp.
“When we talk about the start of production, that is less impactful actually than the ramp,” Winterhoff noted, adding that they’ve “seen this, you probably remember with the Gravity where we had an SOP [start of production], but then we weren’t able to ramp as we intended to. And that is something that we definitely absolutely want to avoid.”
The first Gravity vehicles were delivered to employees and family in late 2024. First customer delivery units, however, only started being registered nearly half a year after that.
Outlook
Sheppard also flagged in the note the appointment of Silvio Napoli as permanent CEO, bringing more than 30 years of industrial experience from his tenure as Chairman and CEO of Schindler Group.
Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff will continue as Chief Operating Officer, the role he held before his appointment to lead the EV maker in the past fourteen months.
On the call, Sheppard asked whether the ongoing geopolitical environment could create bottlenecks for the construction timeline of Lucid‘s second manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia, where the midsize platform is set to begin production.
The interim CEO acknowledged that the company experienced some delays in the arrival of equipment to be installed; however, the team was able to mitigate those issues.
“So far, we haven’t seen any impact,” Winterhoff said, adding that a fuller update on the Saudi plant would also come at the end of the second quarter.
Cantor is expecting a “catalyst-heavy” schedule for Lucid in the following twelve months — including not only the launch of the mid-size platform by year-end, but also the debut of its Robotaxi with Uber and Nuro and hands-free highway and city driving autonomy, scheduled for the second half.
