Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson, in an interview with Semafor, commented on the company’s development over the last years and the support from Saudi Arabia since the summer of 2018.
Rawlinson, who worked with Elon Musk at Tesla for three years, emphasized that while Lucid has excelled in building top-tier vehicles from a mechanical perspective, the company has faced challenges in perfecting its autonomous driving features.
“We’ve got the best car in the world from a mechanical standpoint, and for most of its underlying software,” Lucid‘s chief executive stated.
“What we know we struggled with a little bit has been the autonomous driving features and the user interface, and we’ve made sweeping changes to leadership. I’m personally taking charge of this, and we’re really advancing this now at an accelerated pace,” he admitted.
The number of top executives leaving the company has climbed to seven over the past 12 months, recent data shows. Since October 2023, the departures have included two C-level executives, one senior vice president, and four vice presidents.
In the last six months, Lucid’s Senior VP of Digital Michael Bell and the VP of Platform Software Engineering Derrick Carty left the EV maker.
Commenting on the complexities of autonomous driving in urban environments such as New York City, Rawlinson said technical people are “significantly underestimating” how hard it is to reach full autonomy in urban scenarios.
“Significantly underestimating. It’s like refining gold to 99.9999% — the first few nines are easy, but it’s that last 0.01%. I can’t see it really happening till the 2030s,” Lucid‘s chief executive stated.
“I can’t see it really happening till the 2030s,” he added.
When asked if he was surprised by Musk’s turn over the past year, Rawlinson said, “I know him very well. Not really”.
In Monday’s pre-market session, Lucid shares are down 1.14%, trading at $2.66 per share. Over the last month, the stock has lost 24% percent of its value and closed at $2.63 per share.
Last week, BofA Securities analyst John Murphy reiterated a Neutral rating on the stock setting a price target of $3.40.
Murphy highlighted Lucid as one of the most promising electric vehicle startups, stating, “We view the company as one of the most attractive among the universe of start-up EV automakers.”
Lucid said Thursday it expects third-quarter revenue to range between $199 million and $200 million, slightly below the $200.6 million reported in the second quarter, despite having delivered an additional 387 vehicles between July and September.
Ayar Third Investment Company, an affiliate of Lucid’s biggest shareholder PIF (Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund) will purchase 374,717,927 shares of common stock from Lucid in a private placement concurrent with the public offering.
Lucid is preparing to start mass production of its second model Gravity late this year. A third model is also in the pipeline for late 2026 and a price target at about $48,000.
The model will target the Tesla Model Y, the world’s best-selling vehicle which will have an upgraded version early next year.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
