Exactly one year ago, EV reported that Lucid Motors had nearly 800 open positions across the US, Saudi Arabia and Europe, as it struggled to ramp up manufacturing of its second model.
As of Tuesday — and as the premium brand prepares to unveil its mid-size platform and start production by year-end — the company has 180 positions open, about 25% of last year’s levels.
The drop has accelerated over the past six months as Lucid cut staff and continued to lose senior leaders.
The hiring slowdown has been steep and steady.
In November 2025, the company had 598 open roles. By March, the number had dropped to 224.
The shrinking hiring pace contrasts sharply with the ambitions Lucid leadership has laid out in recent months, despite the efforts to decrease its cash burn rate.
At its first-ever Investor Day in New York on March 12, the company outlined a production path to 100,000 vehicles by 2028.
Lucid also detailed plans for a Cosmos midsize SUV — set to be priced below $50,000 and to begin production in Saudi Arabia by year-end — followed by a second midsize model called Earth roughly one year later.
A month later, the company announced the hiring of Silvio Napoli as its new CEO, after a 14-month search.
In his first interview as CEO, published the day of his appointment, Napoli said his top priority would be deciding “what we don’t do” — signaling a push toward capital discipline and narrower strategic focus.
Napoli officially assumed the role of Chief Executive at Lucid earlier this month.
Sales and Service
Service technicians and retail sales staff make up the largest share of Lucid‘s North American hiring.
As of the end of 2025, Lucid operated over 60 locations — including both studios and service centers — in the US.
In Canada, it opened two studios near the border — one in Montreal, Quebec, and another one in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Its retail presence also includes eight studios across its European markets, three in Saudi Arabia, and two in the UAE (located in Dubai and Abu Dhabi).
The service division alone accounts for nearly 50 open positions, dominated by mobile service technicians spread across California, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest and Texas.
In April, SVP of Revenue Erwin Raphael framed service infrastructure as central to the ownership model when Lucid launched a purpose-built mobile service unit based on the Gravity SUV — replacing the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans it had used since 2021.
With a growing fleet of Air sedans and Gravity SUVs on the road — and persistent software and hardware complaints from owners — the need to staff that network is immediate, even as other departments contract.
Alongside associate service technicians and service advisors, there are about 15 sales-related openings, including a small number of part-time brand ambassador roles in several US cities.
Two additional listings are inactive “future opening” pipeline postings for the US and Canada.
Engineering and Software
The Engineering and Software department lost its Senior VP Emad Dlala last week after nearly 11 years.
Additionally, over the last few weeks, several workers announced on their LinkedIn profiles that they were leaving the company.
Engineering and software has roughly nine open US roles. The ADAS department has 10 open roles across Newark, California, and Southfield, Michigan.
Positions include perception, motion planning and controls, ADAS systems integration, embedded software, machine learning, and infrastructure, along with technical program management and QA/testing roles.
There are also hardware and vehicle-focused openings such as battery build technicians, crash testing, vehicle dynamics and prototype technicians, drive unit reliability engineers, and embedded security and data engineering roles.
Lucid is developing both consumer driver-assistance features and a robotaxi program with Uber covering at least 35,000 vehicles, and at its Investor Day in March laid out a tiered autonomy subscription service starting in 2027.
Saudi Arabia Roles
Of the 180 total, only 51 are based in Saudi Arabia, where Lucid is planning to begin Cosmos production by the end of the year at its plant.
The roles cover stamping operations, powertrain manufacturing, advanced manufacturing engineering, facilities, logistics, quality, finance, and a handful of people and HR roles.
Lucid‘s President of the Middle East Faisal Sultan said in February that the company is “on time” to launch the midsize model “end of this year out of this plant,” speaking at a panel during the PIF Private Sector Forum.
He added that the factory’s expansion will bring its capacity from the current 5,000 units annually to 155,000 and that about 65% of the Saudi workforce is Saudi nationals who have been trained at the US plant.
During Lucid’s Investor Day, interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said the midsize program would not contribute meaningfully to 2026 volumes.
The company guided for 25,000 to 27,000 total vehicles produced this year, with the Gravity SUV accounting for the vast majority.
Production for the mid-size platform is expected to ramp gradually in 2027 and 2028, reaching maximum capacity of 150,000 units at AMP-2 in 2029.
Europe
In Europe, Lucid is mostly hiring interns across several departments. The company is switching to a mixed business model, including deals with local distributors — which requires less in-house employees.
In March, Lucid said it planned to add 25 new locations in Europe this year.
Winterhoff said in May the company was still on track to enter “seven or eight” new European markets in 2026, building on the four where it currently operates — Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Norway.
However, and as EV reported exclusively last week, Lucid has already pushed its Spain and Austria market entries to 2027, with the UK launch planned for 2028.
Lucid registered 35 vehicles across Europe in May, a 12.9% increase from the 31 units recorded a year earlier and a six-unit gain over April.
Year-to-date registrations now stand at 118 units across the four markets, approaching the 157 vehicles the company sold in the first half of 2025.
14 Execs Out Since Late 2023
The hiring and staffing contraction has unfolded alongside a sustained executive exodus.
Since October 2023, Lucid has lost 14 C-level executives, senior vice presidents, or vice presidents — a tally that does not include the director-level and non-VP departures that have continued in recent weeks.
SVP of Engineering and Software Emad Dlala left the company last week after nearly 11 years — the first departure under new CEO Silvio Napoli, and arguably the most consequential given the engineering and software demands of the Cosmos launch and the Uber robotaxi program.
Dlala had been promoted to the expanded SVP role only seven months earlier, after the exit of Senior VP of Product and Chief Engineer Eric Bach.
Bach was ousted in November after more than a decade at the company, as exclusively reported by EV.
He subsequently filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit against Lucid and has sold approximately $3.97 million in stock since his departure.
VP of Engineering James Hawkins also left in December 2025 after 10 years, joining Google DeepMind.
Founder-era CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson transitioned to a strategic advisory role in February 2025, announced minutes after the company released its Q4 2024 earnings.
After Dlala’s exit, only one member of the pre-2024 leadership team remains: Design Chief Derek Jenkins.
New CEO Priorities
Former Schindler Group chairman and CEO Silvio Napoli — a Swiss-Italian executive who spent more than three decades at the elevator and escalator company — formally assumed the role of Lucid CEO on June 1 after a US work-authorization wait.
Speaking with Bloomberg in April, upon his appointment, Napoli said the goal would be to channel engineering resources into “the projects that have the highest return for our shareholders, and then taking them one at a time.”
He added that “the last thing Lucid needs today is someone coming in with a ready-made recipe, looking over the engineers.”
In confirming Dlala’s departure, Lucid said it is “transforming its organization to accelerate innovation and strengthen execution” under Napoli and that it “will communicate further actions soon” — a signal that the reorganization may not be finished.
The personnel upheaval is unfolding against a bleak financial backdrop.
Lucid shares reached a new record low of $4.47 last week — equivalent to $0.447 on a pre-reverse-split basis.
The company delivered 3,093 vehicles in the first quarter, a 42% decline from the same period a year ago, after a delivery halt on the Gravity SUV.
A federal securities class action alleges Lucid and two C-level executives — former interim CEO Marc Winterhoff and CFO Taoufiq Boussaid — concealed the supplier defect that halted Gravity SUV deliveries for 29 days during the quarter while publicly touting improved manufacturing capabilities.
