Lucid Motors‘ Chief Financial Officer Taoufiq Boussaid said on Tuesday that the 12% workforce cut announced last week will allow the EV maker to save $500 million in the next three years.
Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff justified in an internal e-mail last Friday that the decision was made on the company’s need for cost reduction, as it improved its “path toward profitability.”
Following mixed fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday, the CFO stated the workforce cuts would allow Lucid to reallocate resources to “support the next stage of execution, operation and discipline and margin progression.”
The executive revealed at the earnings call that Lucid expected the initiative to “deliver approximately $500 million in cost savings over the next 3 years.”
According to Boussaid, benefits will be weighted “towards the near and medium term, supporting our path towards gross margin breakeven.”
Later in the call, BNP Paribas analyst James Picariello pressed management on the timeline for the savings, questioning why it would take three years if the full 12% reduction had already been executed.
“I’m just curious on the cadence there because it sounds as though you’ve executed the full 12% workforce reduction already. So why does it take 3 years?,” he asked, noting it “sounded like it was more front-end loaded.”
Lucid‘s CFO clarified that “that’s not the intent of the message,” explaining the savings “will be an equivalent proportional amount equivalent year-over-year and cumulative impact will be $0.5 billion.”
Investors should “look at it as $500 million divided by 3,” he added. “That’s the yearly impact, and it will be the same for the three years.”
Layoff Impact
The CFO reiterated during the call that the layoffs affected only the US-based operation and that “only production workers in manufacturing, logistics and quality are excluded from this action.”
Last week, EV learned that the cuts affected professionals in battery testing and R&D, EV test and validation, continuous improvement and reliability engineering, simulation and thermal engineering, vehicle logistics, and corporate innovation.
Additionally, former-Nikola staff hired less than a year ago — as part of the acquisition of the bankrupt company’s select facilities and assets — were also affected.
With Gravity SUV production scaling up and a mid-size platform launch on the horizon — manufacturing of which was only confirmed for its Saudi Arabia plant as of Tuesday — Lucid‘s factory operations remain “fully staffed,” Boussaid reaffirmed.
“These organizations remain fully staffed to support current and future production plan,” he said, adding that the company’s “ability to build and deliver vehicles is unchanged.”
Lucid clarified on Tuesday that it produced fewer vehicles in 2025 than it had previously announced, revising its full-year production total to 17,840 units from the 18,378 it reported on January 5.
Financial Results
The company’s revenue surged 123% year over year and 55% sequentially to $523 million, beating Wall Street expectations.
However, gross margins remained negative at 81%, despite improving by 18 percentage points from the prior quarter and eight points year over year.
The company’s GAAP net loss of $3.62 per diluted share was significantly wider than the $2.62 loss analysts had forecast, according to consensus compiled by LSEG.
Between October and December, Lucid reported its largest quarterly operating loss ever.
The company’s $3.8 billion cash burn last year brought its cumulative total to around $18 billion — trailing only Rivian among pure EV makers.
Stock’s All-Time Low
Lucid hit an all-time low of $9.12 on Monday — a 98.6% loss from its $648.60 peak exactly five years ago.
The stock opened at $9.52, just two cents above the previous record low reached on January 20, and dropped up to 40 cents before ultimately closing at $9.44.
On Tuesday’s trading session, the stock recovered by 5.1%, closing at $9.92.
However, in after-hours trading, it dropped sharply to a new low of $8.90.
With shares still under pressure, Lucid continues to grapple with an executive exodus and an ongoing CEO search after Peter Rawlinson’s abrupt exit exactly a year ago.
A total of 13 C-suite officers or vice presidents have departed since October 2023, including the CFO, general counsel, and heads of strategy, software, and supply chain.
As of press time, the EV maker’s stock was trading 0.4% higher at $9.96.
