Lucid‘s Senior Vice President of Engineering and Software Emad Dlala has decided to leave the company, EV learned on Wednesday.
The departure removes one of the two longest-serving figures in Lucid‘s leadership and leaves design chief Derek Jenkins as the only remaining member of the executive team that led the company just a few years ago.
In a statement to TechCrunch, the Saudi-backed EV maker confirmed Dlala’s departure and said the company is “transforming its organization to accelerate innovation and strengthen execution under CEO Silvio Napoli.”
“Emad Dlala has elected to leave the company to pursue other opportunities. We thank Emad for his many contributions over the years and wish him continued success in his future endeavors,” the company said.
“Lucid remains focused on streamlining our organization and processes to fully leverage the strength of our team and will communicate further actions soon,” the statement added.
As part of the transformation, Lucid said Vivek Attaluri, the company’s vice president of vehicle engineering, and Marc Solsona Palomar, its vice president of software, will now report directly to Napoli.
The exit marks the 14th departure of a C-level executive, senior vice president or vice president since October 2023, by EV‘s count, extending a leadership exodus that has turned over nearly the entire senior team of the Saudi-backed automaker.
Nearly 11 Years at Lucid
Dlala spent 10 years and 11 months at Lucid, making him, together with Senior Vice President of Design and Brand Derek Jenkins, the longest-serving senior figure at the company.
He joined in August 2015, when the company still operated as Atieva, as a senior staff engineer responsible for motor design of the EV drivetrain.
Two years later, in July 2017, he was named Technical Fellow, a role he held for more than three years as the company developed the Air sedan and the in-house powertrain technology that became its calling card.
In September 2020, Dlala was promoted to senior director of efficiency and energy technology, taking ownership of the efficiency targets that allowed the Air Grand Touring to become the longest-range EV sold in the US.
He rose to vice president of powertrain in November 2021, leading powertrain and battery engineering through the Air’s full rollout and the development of the Gravity SUV, and was elevated to senior vice president of powertrain in February 2025.
His final promotion came in November 2025, when Lucid handed him oversight of all product development as senior vice president of engineering and software.
A Seven-Month Tenure at the Top of Engineering
Dlala’s elevation to the top engineering job came on November 5, 2025, the same day Lucid parted ways with Eric Bach, its Senior Vice President of Product and chief engineer, and James Hawkins, its Vice President of Engineering.
At the time, Lucid said Dlala would “drive Lucid’s technology leadership, lead vehicle development, improve cost efficiency and manufacturability, and advance Lucid’s software-defined vehicle architectures.”
Bach, a former Tesla director of engineering who had joined Lucid in April 2015, was ousted by then-interim CEO Marc Winterhoff after years of misattributed production delays, a person close to the matter told EV — information the executive confirmed in a subsequent wrongful-termination lawsuit against the company, which Lucid called “absurd.”
Hawkins, who joined Lucid in November 2015 and spent 10 years and two months at the company, served as vice president of engineering until December 2025, according to his LinkedIn profile, which lists him as director of engineering at Google DeepMind since February 2026.
Dlala inherited a software organization in crisis after the Gravity’s troubled launch, and the cleanup extended well below the executive level.
“I basically replaced the whole software leadership team,” Winterhoff said at CES in January, according to InsideEVs, with a Lucid spokesperson confirming the number of departures was “more than a handful.”
Under Dlala’s watch, Lucid shipped OTA 3.4.0 in late January, the most comprehensive software update in its history, and later said an update had resolved “close to 95%” of the issues flagged by owners and reviewers.
His exit now comes barely seven months into that expanded role, less than two months after Napoli took over as permanent CEO on April 14, and less than a year before Lucid is scheduled to start production of its midsize model on the new Cosmos platform.
Only the Design Chief Remains
With Dlala gone, Jenkins stands as the sole survivor of the leadership team that ran Lucid only a few years ago.
Every prior EV report on the company’s executive churn had noted that only two members of the original leadership remained, Dlala and Jenkins.
Lucid has lost its CEO, CFO, general counsel, chief engineer and most of its senior leadership since October 2023.
Former CEO Peter Rawlinson transitioned to a senior advisory role in February 2025, announced minutes after the company released its fourth-quarter 2024 earnings.
CFO Sherry House had departed in December 2023, and General Counsel Matthew Everitt left in September 2024, ten months after joining.
Other exits include Michael Bell, senior vice president of digital, in May 2024; Steven David, senior vice president of operations, in February 2025; Jeri Ford, vice president of quality, in October 2025; and Claudia Gast, senior vice president of strategy and business development, who resigned in February 2026, as first reported by EV.
Gast resurfaced weeks later at General Motors as deputy chief financial officer and vice president of strategy, corporate development and technology partnerships, reporting to CEO Mary Barra and CFO Paul Jacobson.
Earlier this month, EV reported that a senior director of supply chain had also left the company ahead of the unveiling of its third model.
A New Structure Under Napoli
Napoli, the former Schindler Group executive chairman and CEO, ended a 14-month CEO search when he took the permanent job in April, with Winterhoff moving to the chief operating officer role.
The decision to have Attaluri and Solsona Palomar report directly to Napoli flattens the engineering organization and removes the senior vice president layer that Dlala occupied, at least for now.
Lucid said it “will communicate further actions soon,” signaling that the reorganization under Napoli may not be finished.
The shake-up lands at a delicate moment for the company, which is counting on the Cosmos midsize platform — set to underpin three vehicles, including an off-road variant — to take Lucid beyond the low-volume Air and Gravity and toward the mass market.
