Lucid Motors‘ Chief Financial Officer Taoufiq Boussaid said on Tuesday that its production target for 2026 is “conservative.”
In late February, when reporting its fourth-quarter earnings results, the company said it expected to manufacture between 25,000 and 27,000 electric vehicles this year, up from the 17,840 produced last year.
Speaking at the Bank of America 2026 Automotive Summit, Boussaid said the company is “being conservative in [their] assumptions,” despite the current challenges in the industry.
Potential disruptions include supply chain uncertainty given the ongoing geopolitical conflict in the Middle East region, where the EV maker’s assembly plant is located.
Tailwinds
“We didn’t account for some of the tailwinds that we’re seeing,” Boussaid admitted, saying that “there are some specific dynamics going on in the market where we see the potential to capture additional volume.”
Lucid‘s interim Chief Executive Officer Marc Winterhoff previously noted that Tesla‘s phasing out the Model S and Model X, two direct competitors to Lucid’s Air and Gravity, could boost demand for its models.
Additionally, the recent surge in gas prices has boosted consumer interest in electric vehicles.
“But again, given the star year volatility that we see from the macro environment, we want to remain prudent for the time being,” the CFO added.
Headwinds
The finance chief said that the supply chain remains an area of concern for Lucid.
“I think that there are two things that we’re closely watching and monitoring,” he said, adding that the first was “the supply chain disruptions which translate into price increases.”
The second one is the disruption in which “you simply don’t have access to the materials that you need,” Boussaid stated.
The company faced a similar situation last year when China halted exports of the rare earth metals during a tense trade scenario with the US.
Separately, the EV maker’s main aluminium supplier Novelis saw its production affected due to successive fires at its Oswego, New York, plant.
Additionally, Lucid faced a magnet shortage during the second quarter of 2025 and battled an industry-wide chip shortage later in the year.
“It’s very difficult in the current environment to say, ‘Okay, what we expect in terms of supply chain disruption?’,” he hypothesized. “We simply don’t know what we don’t know. Anything can happen.”
Late last week, the interim CEO flagged that the EV maker is currently reworking its supply chain as external disruptions “don’t seem to slow down.”
Production Capacity
The EV manufacturer has a “theoretical capacity” of producing 40,000 vehicles per year.
According to Boussaid, “this is, you know, the max capacity that you can reach if you don’t have disruption in your supply chain, if everything goes well.”
The CFO explained that, during the fourth quarter, Lucid “reached a theoretical production run rate of 2,100 units a month, so you can extrapolate what it means for a year.”
The monthly output would represent 25,200 vehicles produced this year, aligning with the lower end of the guidance provided by the company.
Saudi Plant
Lucid’s plant in Saudi Arabia, which currently assembles semi-knock-down (SKD) kits shipped from Arizona, is being upgraded to produce the mid-size SUV Cosmos by the year’s end.
Once fully operational and ramped up, the plant will have the capacity to produce up to 150,000 vehicles per year.
Boussaid forecasted in January that the maximum capacity would be reached in 2029.
Producing the mid-size platform in Saudi Arabia will allow Lucid to offset tariffs on China-made parts, as the CFO noted late last year.
Production and Deliveries
Lucid delivered 5,345 vehicles in the fourth quarter, while producing 7,874 units — more than doubling the figures both sequentially and year over year.
The fourth-quarter production surge reflected the ongoing ramp-up at Lucid‘s Casa Grande, Arizona, plant as Gravity issues eased.
In mid-December, interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said he was “very confident” Lucid has resolved the supply chain issues that hampered production of its Gravity SUV throughout 2025.
For full-year 2025, Lucid delivered 15,841 vehicles and produced 18,378 units, compared with 10,241 deliveries and 9,029 produced in 2024.
Deliveries rose 55% year over year, while production more than doubled, up 104%.
The company’s annual production figures stood just below the “approximately 18,000” units set in early November, when it lowered the target for the second time.
Lucid began 2025 with a goal of 20,000 vehicles, reduced the range to between 18,000 and 20,000 in August, then cut it further to approximately 18,000 in November.
Production Revision
During the company’s earnings call last month, the EV maker revised its previously announced 2025 production figures.
The company revised its Q4 production figure down from the 8,412 units it had preliminarily reported on January 5, after management determined that 538 vehicles had not completed certain internal procedures required under its final validation process to be classified as produced.
The vehicles are expected to complete validation in 2026.
Lucid said the revision relates solely to the timing of when vehicles are classified as produced and does not affect previously reported financial results.
The company reiterated its annual production guidance then, stating that they would “continue to prudently manage and adjust production to meet sales and delivery needs.”
