Restructuring adviser AlixPartners has been asked to deliver its findings to Lucid‘s board before its next meeting, two people familiar with the matter told EV on Tuesday.
The strategic options under review include taking the Saudi-backed EV maker private or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, one of the sources said.
According to the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the review is strictly confidential, AlixPartners is urging the board to run one more round of restructuring in the United States and Europe, and to narrow the company’s focus onto its Gravity SUV.
The model, Lucid’s second EV, has been facing severe quality issues since small scale production began in late 2024 — as first reported by EV in early 2025.
One person close to the matter told EV that the two starker questions, whether Lucid should be taken private or seek Chapter 11 protection, are among the scenarios the adviser has been asked to weigh.
Neither, the person stressed, is a decision the board has taken.
Speculation about a take-private has trailed the company for months, driven by the gap between what its Saudi backer has invested and where the shares now trade, and previous management said last year it was unaware of any such plan by the fund.
As of publication time, Lucid shares were trading flat on Tuesday’s pre-market session at $5.51.
What the Adviser Has Advised
AlixPartners has told the board to concentrate on Gravity production while improving its quality, and to temporarily hold back the Lucid Air, the sedan that has defined the company since its launch.
The recommendations prioritize the company’s robotaxi work with Uber and the second car plant in Saudi Arabia (known as AMP-2) while holding to the timeline for the Cosmos, the mid-size model due to enter production late this year, the sources said.
Delivering that model on schedule without sacrificing quality is treated as the fixed point of the plan, one of the people said, with other programs bending around it.
Europe Told to Slow Down
The review also calls for a pause in Lucid‘s European expansion, according to the two people.
The company has been told to slow or temporarily halt entry into additional European markets, the people said, because sales agents are finding the cars difficult to sell amid quality problems that have dented the brand’s reception.
As EV has previously exclusively reported, Lucid has delayed its expansion to Austria and Spain — weeks after postponing the UK debut.
That marks a retreat from the international growth Lucid had been pursuing, and aligns with a broader instruction from Chief Executive Silvio Napoli to build a smaller, more focused company for at least the next year.
The emphasis on quality recurs through the adviser’s recommendations, from Gravity to Cosmos to the European retrenchment, suggesting the firm sees product execution as central to whatever path the board ultimately chooses.
A Deepening Restructuring
The findings land on a company already in the deepest overhaul of its history.
AlixPartners’ engagement was first reported last week by CarBuzz and covered by EV, which noted that both the automaker and the firm declined to comment on it.
The firm is among the world’s largest turnaround and restructuring consultancies, and its work spans cost and performance improvement well short of any court filing.
Since taking over on June 1, Napoli has cut about 18% of the US workforce, eliminated the chief operating officer role, replaced most of his senior team and suspended the company’s 2026 production guidance of 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles.
A July overhaul installed a new finance chief, Alexander De Bock from supplier TI Automotive, alongside a new technology chief, while open roles fell about 76% from a year earlier, a sign of how sharply hiring has been throttled.
An insider had already described the overhaul to EV last week as the most serious reset in the company’s history, saying the business was being pared back to survive until the Cosmos arrives, a characterization the fresh recommendations reinforce.
EV had exclusively reported before this week that the board had already decided to slow European growth and cut regional staff by the end of September.
The adviser’s findings now extend that decision into a broader instruction to pause market entries, rather than merely trim headcount, the two people said.
The Financial Backdrop
The strategic review is unfolding against a cash position that frames every option on the table.
Lucid lost about $2.7 billion in 2025 and has continued to burn roughly $1 billion a quarter, building more vehicles than it sells, with 4,774 produced against 3,953 delivered in the second quarter.
The company ended 2025 with $997.8 million in cash and about $4.6 billion in total liquidity.
On July 6 it drew $800 million from a term loan provided by an affiliate of its Saudi backer, its second such draw this year.
Lucid‘s market value has fallen to roughly $2.3 billion, less than a third of what Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has invested since 2018.
The stock traded at $5.51 during pre-market on Tuesday, down about 76% over the past year and roughly 48% since the start of the year.
That level sits about 90% below the $57.75 high the shares reached on November 17, 2021.
Lucid had gone public months earlier, in July that year, by merging with Churchill Capital Corp IV, a blank-check company run by investment banker Michael Klein.
The deal was then the largest of its kind between a special-purpose acquisition company and an electric-vehicle maker.
The merger delivered about $4.6 billion to the company and valued it near $24 billion.
That debut briefly made the pre-revenue automaker worth roughly as much as Ford, before deliveries of its first car had begun.
Heavy share issuance since has driven the company’s market value more than 99% below its 2021 high, even as the stock itself trades about 90% down.
The fund holds a majority of the company and has committed more than $9 billion since 2018.
The reported deadline ties the adviser’s work to the board’s next meeting, though neither the meeting date nor the timing of any decision could be learned.
Lucid reports first-half results on August 4, its first full financial update under Napoli and the clearest near-term read on its runway after the April equity raise and the July loan draw.
