Citi lowered its price target on Lucid Motors to $11.00 from $14.00 on Tuesday, the second reduction in three months from the only major Wall Street firm rating the stock a Buy.
The revised target implies upside of 76.8% from Monday’s close of $6.22.
Citi’s updated target marks the third valuation it has attached to Lucid since analyst Michael Ward reinitiated coverage on March 18 with a Buy rating and a $17.00 target.
The Target Falls, the Upside Rises
Each reduction has chased the share price rather than closed on it.
Ward’s $17.00 target in March implied 64.7% upside from a close of $10.32.
The $14.00 target he set on May 15 implied roughly 123% from $6.27. Tuesday’s $11.00 implies 76.8% from $6.22.
The target has come down 35.3% in five months while the rating has not moved.
Lucid shares fell 7.23% on Tuesday to close at $5.77.
Against that close, the new target implies 90.6% upside. As of publication time, the stock was trading at $5.80 in pre-market on Wednesday, up 0.52%.
The shares have fallen 45.41% this year, are down 72.39% over twelve months, and 97.34% in the last five years.
What Ward Underwrote in March
Citi’s reinitiation rested on a set of catalysts, most of which have since moved.
Ward cited upcoming product launches, European expansion and strong liquidity, and described Lucid as being at a positive inflection point.
His case assumed production of the Cosmos midsize vehicle beginning in the fourth quarter of 2026, commercial robotaxi operations with Uber starting by the end of this year, an autonomy subscription launching in 2027, and accelerating European sales.
He modelled revenue of $2.4 billion in 2026, $5.9 billion in 2027 and $9.2 billion in 2028, against $1.4 billion in 2025, and judged the company funded into the second half of 2027.
Two of those assumptions have since changed.
Chief executive Silvio Napoli moved Cosmos production to the second half of 2027 on the August 4 earnings call.
And European expansion has gone backwards rather than accelerated: Lucid pushed its United Kingdom launch back another year, and registered 114 vehicles in Germany and 32 in the Netherlands over the first seven months of the year, both down on the same period of 2025.
Both markets are the only ones where official automotive associations release monthly figures of newly registered vehicles.
The Reason for the May Cut
Ward’s first reduction followed first-quarter results that missed Wall Street consensus on almost every measure.
Revenue came in at $282.5 million against a consensus near $434 million, with a net loss of approximately $1 billion.
Lucid produced 5,500 vehicles but delivered 3,953 after a 29-day stop sale on the Gravity, and suspended full-year production guidance of 25,000 to 27,000 units.
The halt in Gravity deliveries was first reported by EV on February 12 and confirmed by the Saudi-backed brand in early April.
Ward kept the Buy rating, telling investors that Lucid‘s medium-term plans remained intact and pointing to 2027 inflection points as production starts at the Saudi plant and capital spending declines.
Alone on the Street
Citi’s analyst became the sole bull in May, when Benchmark downgraded Lucid from Buy to Hold, removing the only other bullish call.
Around the same first-quarter report, Morgan Stanley halved its target to $5.00 with an Underweight rating, Robert W. Baird cut to $6.00 at Neutral, TD Cowen went to $7.00 at Hold and Evercore ISI to $6.00.
RBC Capital lowered its target to $7.00 from $8.00 on July 13, maintaining Sector Perform.
Citi’s History With the Stock
The bank has covered Lucid intermittently.
Itay Michaeli initiated coverage in January 2022 with a Buy rating and a $57.00 target, among the most bullish on Wall Street at the time.
Citi resumed coverage in April 2024 with a Neutral and High Risk rating and a $2.90 target, equivalent to about $29.00 after the company’s subsequent one-for-ten reverse stock split.
Coverage lapsed before Ward’s March reinitiation, which was Citi’s most bullish call on the company since 2022.
Where the Company Stands
Lucid reported a second-quarter net loss of about $1 billion on revenue of $405.3 million, and is running a cost programme targeting roughly $1.4 billion in cash-flow improvement this year, of which $600 million to $800 million is meant to come from inventory reduction.
Napoli cut about a fifth of the US workforce in June and eliminated the second shift at the Arizona plant.
EV exclusively reported the US workforce reduction in June, putting the cut at 15% of staff. Lucid confirmed the layoff hours later and put the figure at 18%.
The company’s CEO told analysts earlier this month that the company had disappointed for far too long, citing missed commitments, products launched before they were ready and slow responses to quality issues.
“Let me be direct. The way we operate has to change,” Napoli said on August 4. “While there is no question that Lucid brought leading innovations and outstanding products to the market, we have disappointed on several fronts and for far too long. We have not executed consistently, we missed commitments, launched products before they were ready, under-invested in service, responded too slowly to quality issues, and allowed complexity to slow decisions down.”
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) remains the majority shareholder, followed by Uber, which holds about 11.5% after raising its investment to $500 million in April.
