Lucid Motors burned $3.8 billion in cash last year while posting its largest quarterly operating loss, according to fourth-quarter results published on Tuesday.
The results mark a stark contrast to the $632 million net profit the EV maker had projected for 2025 in a presentation to investors ahead of its public listing.
The projection, which appeared on a management presentation dated May 13, 2021, and was first highlighted by X user ‘Alojoh’, was prepared as part of Lucid‘s merger with the special purpose acquisition company Churchill Capital Corp IV.
The deal closed later that year, valuing the combined entity at approximately $24 billion.
Lucid delivered 15,841 vehicles in 2025, 88% fewer than the 135,000 it had forecast.
Revenue reached $1.35 billion, against a projection of $13.99 billion — a miss of more than 90%.
Rather than achieving the gross profit of $3.1 billion the company had anticipated, cost of revenue exceeded revenue by $1.26 billion.
Lucid‘s fourth-quarter results presented a mixed picture against Wall Street expectations.
Revenue of $522.7 million exceeded the average analyst estimate of $468m compiled by LSEG by approximately 12%, driven by a sharp increase in deliveries.
However, the company’s GAAP net loss of $3.62 per diluted share was significantly wider than the $2.62 loss analysts had forecast, reflecting elevated costs associated with the Gravity SUV ramp and continued investment in the company’s mid-size platform and autonomy programmes.
Largest Operating Loss
The quarter also produced the largest operating loss in Lucid‘s history.
The EV maker recorded an operating loss of $1.065 billion in the final three months of 2025, surpassing the previous quarterly record of $942 million set in Q3 2025 — a 13% sequential increase.
The company has not recorded a single quarter of declining operating losses since the first quarter of 2025.
On a full-year basis, Lucid‘s operating loss widened to $3.50bn in 2025 from $3.02 billion in 2024, an increase of 16%.
The figure has risen in three of the past four years: $2.59bn in 2022, $3.10bn in 2023, $3.02bn in 2024, and $3.50 billion in 2025.
The Context
Lucid‘s listing took place during a period of intense speculation in electric vehicle equities, when investors assigned valuations to pre-revenue or early-stage EV companies that in several cases exceeded those of established automakers producing millions of vehicles annually.
Nikola, Lordstown Motors, Fisker, and Canoo — all of which presented similarly ambitious financial forecasts at the time of their respective mergers — have since filed for bankruptcy.
Nearly every EV startup stock reached its all-time high during this window and has not returned to those levels.
Nio peaked at $66.99 in January 2021 and closed Tuesday at $5.30, a decline of more than 90%.
XPeng reached $72.17 in November 2020 and has since fallen by more than 70% to around $18.73.
Rivian, which completed the largest IPO of 2021 in November of that year, hit $172.01 six days after its debut and now trades near $15.12, a decline of 91%.
Lucid itself, reached a split-adjusted intraday high of $577.50 in November 2021. Its shares closed this week near an all-time low of $9.12, representing a decline of more than 98% from that peak.
Cash Position
Lucid‘s negative free cash flow of $3.8 billion in 2025 comprised $2.93 billion in cash used in operating activities and $868 million in capital expenditures.
The latter was directed primarily toward expansion of its Casa Grande, Arizona, manufacturing facility, the build-out of a second plant in Saudi Arabia, and development of a forthcoming mid-size vehicle platform.
Cash consumption accelerated in the fourth quarter, when Lucid recorded negative operating cash flow of $916 million and capital expenditures of $325 million, producing quarterly free cash flow of negative $1.24 billion.
The company ended 2025 with approximately $1.0 billion in cash and short-term investments, down from $4.0 billion a year earlier.
Total liquidity, including an undrawn delayed draw term loan facility provided by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, stood at approximately $4.6 billion.
Lucid‘s interim Chief said it expects this to be sufficient to fund operations “well into 2027.“
Projections VS. Results
The 2021 presentation set out financial projections through 2026, assuming production would scale from fewer than 1,000 vehicles in 2021 to 20,000 in 2022, 49,000 in 2023, 90,000 in 2024, and 135,000 in 2025.
For 2025, the company projected sales of 42,000 luxury sedans, 86,000 SUVs, and 7,000 units from additional future models.
Actual production figures have fallen well short of each annual target.
Lucid produced 7,180 vehicles in 2022, 8,428 in 2023, 9,029 in 2024, and 17,840 in 2025 — a cumulative total of approximately 42,500 across four years, less than one-third of the 159,000 projected for the same period.
Sales volume in 2025 was projected to be at 135,000 units versus 15,841 actual, while revenue was forecasted to reach $13.99 billion. It stood at $1.35 billion.
Gross profit was estimated to be $3.1 billion, a stark contrast to the negative $1.26 billion reported by Lucid on Tuesday.
