For the second time this year, the electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors has announced major leadership changes immediately after reporting quarterly financial results.
In February, the Newark-California based premium brand announced the abrupt exit of its CEO/CTO Peter Rawlinson.
The EV maker said Rawlinson would transition to the role of Strategic Technical Advisor to the Chairman of the Board (with a monthly salary of $120,000 among other benefits).
Marc Winterhoff, who had been serving as Chief Operating Officer (COO), took over as interim CEO.
Peter Rawlinson Outsted as CEO
Two sources familiar with the matter told EV in March that Lucid‘s Chairman of the Board, Turqi Alnowaiser, has “forced out” Rawlinson and selected Winterhoff as interim chief.
Turqi Alnowaiser became Chairman of our Board in April 2023, after being a member since 2019. According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Alnowaiser has been Head of International Investments at the PIF since October 2016.
On that same day, the board immediately initiated a CEO search “with the support of a leading executive search firm.”
Chief Product and VP Engineering: Out
This time, and amid the third quarter earnings results, the company announced a new round of changes in its executive team.
Lucid promoted its Senior VP of Powertrain Emad Dlala to Senior Vice President of Engineering and Digital as its Senior VP of Product and Chief Engineer Eric Bach left the company.
Despite Lucid did not reported the departure of James Hawkins, TechCrunch reported last week that the VP of Engineering has also left the EV maker after also spending 10 years there.
Contacted by the media outlet, Lucid “declined to specifically comment on his departure.”
Hawkins became the 13th C-suite or vice president leaving the company in under two years.
Dlala is one of the two members of the original leadership team who remain. Derek Jenkins, senior vice president of design and brand, is also still with the company.
In its press release last week, the company has only mentioned Bach at the end of it, saying he “has departed Lucid.”
“As part of these changes, Eric Bach, Senior Vice President of Product and Chief Engineer, has departed Lucid,” the company said in release. “The company thanks him for his contributions over the past decade.”
Eric Bach Ousted
EV learned on Wednesday that Bach was forced out by the EV maker’s interim CEO Marc Winterhoff.
“Many were surprised it took this long,” an internal source told EV.
Bach was viewed internally as a significant factor behind repeated product delays, with his team failing to establish proper design controls and governance over engineering changes, leading to costly setbacks throughout the supply chain, the person said.
The company’s second model, the Gravity minivan labeled as SUV, was first unveiled at the LA Auto Show exactly two years ago.
In 24 months, production of the three-row model has not yet achieved full capacity.
Former CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson delivered the first units to employees and their families last December, but production at the Arizona plant has faced several hurdles this year.
In August, the EV maker said that it narrowly avoided suspending production of the model over a shortage of magnets. However, not all production ramp up issues have been due to external factors.
The same source told EV that these missteps created cascading delays that were often attributed publicly to supply chain issues, when the actual root cause was a failure to appreciate lead times and the costs of acceleration when problems emerged.
According to the same source, the former CEO Peter Rawlinson was a strong supporter of Bach.
Bach, who joined Lucid in 2015 after serving as a director of engineering at Tesla, spent more than a decade at the company.
Rawlinson had also served at Tesla prior to join Lucid.
According to his LinkedIn profile, the executive was VP and Chief Engineer for the Model S.
However, Elon Musk has repeatedly dismissed Rawlinson’s relevance in the development of the model.
Lucid‘s interim CEO Marc Winterhoff has worked closely with Bach for years and was instrumental in developing the company’s go-to-market strategy for the Air, Gravity and upcoming midsize model — scheduled to be launched late next year.
Ambitious Targets, Sobering Results
Winterhoff, whose background at consulting firm Roland Berger included oversight of Lucid‘s account, helped craft a long-term sales strategy projecting annual sales of 60,000 Air sedans and 40,000 Gravity SUVs, a separate source close to the matter told EV earlier this year.
Internal discussions envisioned even more aggressive targets of 150,000 to 500,000 units annually for the future midsize model.
Reality has fallen far short.
In 2023, Lucid initially projected production of 10,000 to 14,000 vehicles, later narrowing that to 10,000, then cutting it again to 8,000 to 8,500. Actual production totaled 8,428 vehicles.
In October, Lucid has sold four units across its fourth European markets.
The figures mark the third consecutive month of sales being cut by more than half, following September’s 11, August’s 23 and July’s 84 vehicles.
Stock Performance
As of the time of writing, Lucid shares are trading near a new all time low despite the reverse stock split announced in July and implemented in early September.
The stock has plunged 48% year to date and currently has a market cap of $5.1 billion.
