Lucid delivered 3,806 vehicles in the third quarter, 6.7% fewer than a year earlier, and cut production by 38% from the previous quarter as it sold vehicles from inventory, the company said on Monday.
The Saudi-backed EV maker built 2,954 vehicles in the three months to September 30, down from 4,774 in the second quarter and its lowest quarterly output since the first quarter of 2025.
Deliveries were also below the 3,953 of the second quarter, a decline of 3.7%.
“Demand for the Lucid Gravity continued to regain momentum,” the company said, without giving figures by model.
Deliveries of the SUV were disrupted for 29 days in the first quarter by a supplier problem with second-row seats.
Lucid shares were trading 1.2% lower at $4.12 in after-hours trading immediately after the release, having closed the regular session 1% higher at $4.17.
Selling From Stock
Deliveries exceeded production by 852 vehicles, the first time that has happened since the third quarter of 2025.
Lucid said this was deliberate.
Production fell in line with “the previously announced elimination of a second shift” at its Arizona plant in June, it said, while deliveries ran ahead “as the company reduced existing vehicle inventory.”
The company described the quarter as part of an operating reset that targets $1.4 billion of cash flow improvements in 2026.
The gap narrows a surplus that had built up over six quarters.
Lucid had built 5,227 more vehicles than it delivered between the start of 2025 and the end of June, and that figure now stands at 4,375.
Its inventory was valued at $1.38 billion at the end of June, more than three times the level at the end of 2024.
The Year So Far
Lucid has built 13,228 vehicles and delivered 10,852 in the first nine months of 2026.
Nine-month deliveries are 3.4% above the 10,496 of the same period last year.
To match the 15,841 vehicles it delivered in 2025, Lucid would need 4,989 deliveries in the fourth quarter, which would be its second-best quarter on record after the 5,345 of the final quarter of last year.
Cantor Fitzgerald cut its forecast for 2026 deliveries to 15,499 in August, which would be Lucid’s first annual decline and implies 4,647 in the fourth quarter.
Management said in August that second-half deliveries would be above those of the first half, which were 7,046.
That requires more than 3,240 in the fourth quarter.
No Target to Measure Against
The figures cannot be set against a company target, because Lucid has none for 2026.
It guided to between 25,000 and 27,000 vehicles in February, reaffirmed the range in April and suspended it in May.
Chief Executive Officer Silvio Napoli declined to give a new target on August 4, saying Lucid was “not yet in the position to provide detailed guidance.”
Management said then that second-half production would be below the second-quarter level and that deliveries would exceed production, and both held in the third quarter.
Nine-month production is 53% of the low end of the withdrawn range.
Lucid has lowered or withdrawn its production target in four of the past five years, with six reductions between 2022 and 2025.
It began 2022 aiming for 20,000 vehicles and built 7,180, and it cut its 2023 range of 10,000 to 14,000 to between 8,000 and 8,500 before building 8,428.
The only year in which it met its opening target was 2024, when it guided to about 9,000 and built 9,029.
It built 17,840 vehicles in 2025 against an opening target of about 20,000, a total it revised down by 538 after first reporting it.
Comparisons With 2025
Production in the quarter was 24.1% below the 3,891 of a year earlier, but the two figures are not counted the same way.
Lucid said in April that from this year it includes all vehicles built at the Arizona plant, among them those shipped to Saudi Arabia for final assembly.
Last year’s third-quarter figure excluded more than 1,000 such vehicles, so the real decline is larger than the headline comparison shows.
The delivery figures are comparable.
The US Estimate
Outside estimates had pointed to a stronger end to the quarter in Lucid’s home market.
Research firm Motor Intelligence put Lucid’s US sales at 1,038 in September, the highest since February, and at 2,735 for the quarter, three quarters of them Gravity SUVs.
Those estimates cover the United States only, while Lucid’s figure is global and includes Saudi Arabia, Canada and Europe.
The Gravity and the Air sedan remain the only models Lucid sells, with production of its midsize vehicle not expected until the second half of 2027.
Lucid will report third-quarter financial results on November 9.
