Lucid Motors‘ interim Chief Executive Officer Marc Winterhoff defended the company’s decision to partner on autonomous driving technology rather than develop it in-house.
Speaking at a Nasdaq investor conference earlier this month, Winterhoff framed the strategy as prudent financial management while citing Apple’s history of relying on external suppliers before bringing capabilities in-house.
“In order to get to high levels of autonomy, we’re talking really about billions of investments,” Winterhoff said.
“And obviously right now, we don’t want to have to raise a couple of billions. At the same time, when you look at even the biggest and most successful companies in the world have once in a while sidestepped and used partners for their technology,” the interim CEO added.
Apple as Model
Winterhoff pointed to Apple as a template for Lucid‘s approach.
“One very simple example is Apple. To this day, when you search on your phone, the search results don’t come from Apple; they come actually from Google. It’s number one,” Winterhoff said.
Google pays Apple approximately $20 billion annually to serve as the default search engine on iPhones, iPads, and Macs, according to court documents from the US government’s antitrust case against Alphabet Inc.
Winterhoff also cited Apple’s shift to Intel processors in the mid-2000s.
“Number two is, and it was probably like 15 years ago, when they realised that, oh, you know, our investments into the PowerPC chips were not enough, they went with Intel for a long period of time in order to be competitive,” Winterhoff said. “While they were figuring out, is it worth for us to invest into our own Silicon VM? And then they switched.”
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs announced in 2005 that the company would transition all Macintosh computers to Intel chips by the end of 2007. Apple used Intel processors for 15 years before unveiling its in-house M1 chip in 2020.
“And at the same time, they delivered fantastic products,” Winterhoff said. “And in that meantime, by the way, even they used Qualcomm modems that they also now in-source. They did a lot of changes over time once they realised there is a value of doing it.”
Billions Saved
Winterhoff said Lucid is taking a similar approach.
“But we are in a very similar situation. I wanted to make smart investment allocations and then we monitor and see, is that something that we should actually own in-house?” Winterhoff said.
“And if you just look at autonomy as a very good example, if we would have made an investment, started the investment five years ago, where would we be right now?”
Pursuing autonomous driving independently would have cost Lucid billions, the interim CEO said.
“We probably would be, you know, poor, $5 billion at least poorer than we are,” Winterhoff said. “And at the same time, we would have something that somehow works. And if it were the new AI models, now in a year or two from now, things look completely different with less investments.”
Rivian, another US EV maker, announced earlier this month its in-house developed processor, RAP1 — a multi-billion dollar investment.
Winterhoff said the company will continue to evaluate whether to eventually bring autonomous technology in-house.
“So we think that it’s a very, you know, simple smart way of approaching things to provide something for our customers,” Winterhoff said.
“And at the same time, monitor, you know, how things develop and what we should be doing and where we should, you know, place our bets in the future.”
Uber and Nuro Partnership
Lucid announced a robotaxi partnership with Uber and autonomous vehicle startup Nuro in July.
Under the deal, Uber will acquire at least 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs over six years, equipped with Nuro’s Level 4 self-driving system.
Uber also invested $300 million in Lucid as part of the agreement, which closed on the first days of September.
Deployment is expected to begin in the San Francisco Bay Area in late 2026 before expanding to other regions.
Lucid shares initially surged 61% following the announcement, reaching as high as $3.37 on a split-adjusted basis.
Winterhoff acknowledged last September that the initial commitment was modest, adding that the EV maker hopes to sell way more than the 20,000 units.
“Twenty thousand is a good number. But at the same time, when you look at the details of the agreement, it’s about over six years. It’s not that big of a number,” Winterhoff said in an interview as reported by EV. “So our aspiration is that this will be much bigger than that.”
Stock Decline
Shares have since fallen sharply amid two production target cuts, executive departures, and financial results that missed Wall Street expectations.
Lucid reached an all-time low of $11.09 on December 17.
Nuro, which is backed by Alphabet and SoftBank Vision Fund, will provide the autonomous driving software.
Liquidity Position
Lucid said in early November that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund agreed to increase a delayed draw term loan facility to approximately $2 billion from $750 million.
Giving effect to the expanded facility, Lucid‘s total liquidity would have been approximately $5.5 billion at quarter end, up from $4.2 billion. The facility remains undrawn.
