Lucid set out four must-win projects on its second-quarter earnings call last week, the first under Chief Executive Silvio Napoli, and the two-seat robotaxi concept it unveiled five months earlier was not among them.
Nor did Lunar appear in the earnings release, the 8-K exhibit filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission or the shareholder presentation, according to an EV review of all three documents and the published call transcript.
The robotaxi programme the company did discuss at length is the one built on the Gravity SUV with Uber and Nuro.
Napoli called that programme a top priority and a must-win project for Lucid, placing it second on a list headed by the $1.4 billion cash savings plan and followed by the AMP-2 plant in Saudi Arabia and the Midsize vehicle programme delayed to next year.
What Lunar Was
Then-interim chief executive Marc Winterhoff unveiled the concept on March 12 at the company’s first investor day in nearly five years, inviting Uber President and Chief Operating Officer Andrew Macdonald to sit inside the doorless model on stage in New York.
Slide 114 of that presentation listed a target driving efficiency of 5.5 to 6.0 miles per kilowatt-hour, more than 42 inches of passenger legroom, operating costs 40% lower per mile than current robotaxis and more than 200 miles of range added per 15 minutes of charging.
The vehicle has no steering wheel and no pedals, seats two abreast and replaces the dashboard with a wide screen.
Winterhoff described it as a concept the company had developed and said a two-seat robotaxi could be implemented in a very short period, while cautioning that this did not mean tomorrow.
He told CNBC after the event that a dedicated robotaxi was a mid-term target, and Lucid told TechCrunch the same day that no active development was under way on it.
The company’s own release described Lunar as still in the concept phase and as an illustration of what the midsize platform could support.
No production cost, timeline or build location has been given for the vehicle, in March or since.
What the Company Said
An engineering fleet of nearly 100 vehicles is running across the San Francisco Bay Area and Houston, Napoli said, and deliveries of production-validation vehicles assembled at Coolidge, Arizona began in July.
Regular production is scheduled for the fourth quarter, with a service launch late this year — a timeline Nuro reaffirmed in July after hosting Uber staff at its facilities.
Lucid is also creating a business unit called Lucid Technologies to house the robotaxi work and other technology opportunities, led by Kay Stepper and reporting directly to Napoli.
The new CEO framed the commercial case in terms that the market has not previously heard from the company.
“We project the margins vastly exceeding those of the traditional retail model,” he said of the programme, which covers an initial order of 35,000 units.
He also set out the size of the prize as Lucid sees it, citing an estimated 2.5 million robotaxis operating globally by 2035 and a $600 billion addressable market by 2040.
The Uber Order
The distinction between the two robotaxi efforts is the distinction between contracted volume and a concept.
Uber expanded its commitment in April to at least 35,000 vehicles from the 20,000 Gravity SUVs agreed in July 2025, lifting its own investment to $500 million and arriving alongside a $550 million commitment from Ayar Third Investment Company, an affiliate of the Public Investment Fund.
That agreement converts a portion of Lucid‘s future output from a demand question into a scheduling question.
Vehicles built against a standing fleet order flow into quarterly production and delivery figures without depending on retail traffic in studios, and they carry automotive revenue with them.
The structure resembles the arrangement Rivian has with Amazon, whose order for 100,000 electric delivery vans by 2030 has underpinned a share of Rivian‘s reported volumes since 2022 and given the company a floor beneath its consumer business.
Lucid needs that floor more than most.
Second-quarter revenue net loss widened 91.8% to $1.03 billion from $539.4 million a year earlier, according to the company’s filing with the SEC.
Loss attributable to common stockholders, which absorbs $224.4 million of accretion on preferred stock held by a related party, came to $1.26 billion, or $3.30 a share.
Shareholders’ equity has turned negative, at a deficit of $1.06 billion, against an accumulated deficit of $17.67 billion.
The company closed the quarter with $3.0 billion in liquidity and drew a further $800 million from a credit facility afterwards, taking the total to $3.8 billion, which management describes as sufficient runway well into 2027.
Production in the second half will fall below second-quarter levels as the single-shift configuration at the Arizona plant takes effect, and the new management has refused to give annual guidance.
The management warned that Wall Street estimates were high, citing the shift to a single production shift to better match demand and reduce costs.
Retail demand has been thinning at the edges, with revenue from the UAE falling to about $32,000 in the quarter while Saudi Arabia revenue rose as the premium brand ramps deliveries to the Government.
The Midsize Delay
Napoli used the same call to move Cosmos production to the second half of 2027 from late 2026, saying the midsize vehicle would launch only once every process and quality requirement had been met.
That delay reaches the Uber agreement directly, because the 35,000-vehicle commitment splits into 10,000 Gravity SUVs retrofitted with Nuro‘s system and 25,000 robotaxis built on the midsize platform.
The midsize robotaxis are not expected to enter production until late 2028.
Lunar, by the sequencing Lucid gave in March, would follow the midsize vehicles rather than precede them.
New Management Team
The investor day was staged by a leadership group that no longer runs the company.
Napoli replaced Winterhoff, who returned to his previous role as chief operating officer, and Senior VP of Engineering and Digital Emad Dlala left in June in the first senior departure under the new chief executive.
The retrenchment has been consistent across the business, with an 18% cut to the US workforce in June — roughly 1,500 jobs, following a 12% reduction earlier in the year — and the board slowing European expansion and reducing regional headcount.
Napoli summarised the discipline in a single line on the call.
“We will not buy volume at the expense of cash or vehicle economics,” he said.
Tesla‘s Cybercab, the vehicle Lunar was immediately compared with on the day of its reveal, entered production in April at a target cost below $30,000 per unit.
The company led by Elon Musk has built more than 2,100 Cybercab vehicles, according to recently spotted VINs.
