A Lucid veteran of almost 13 years who rose from powertrain engineer to vice president has left the EV maker for Amazon‘s robotaxi unit Zoox, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Jean-Philippe Gauthier, who served as Lucid‘s Vice President of Digital from June 2024, ended his tenure in July after 12 years and 10 months at the company and joined Zoox the same month as Principal Electrical System Architect.
Gauthier is now based at the robotaxi developer’s Foster City, California headquarters.
Lucid has not announced the departure, and neither the company nor Gauthier has publicly characterized the exit.
The exit lands in the middle of the most sweeping leadership turnover in Lucid‘s history, as chief executive Silvio Napoli — in the role since June 1 — rebuilds the executive ranks around new arrivals, several from outside the auto industry.
A 2013 Hire
Gauthier joined in October 2013 as a powertrain control engineer, three years before the company adopted the Lucid name, making him one of the longest-tenured employees to depart under the current restructuring.
His LinkedIn history traces a steady climb through the company’s vehicle-control organization.
Gauthier was engineering manager for vehicle control, body control and integration from late 2015, senior technical specialist for vehicle and powertrain control from 2017, Technical Fellow for vehicle controls and low-voltage systems from 2020.
In 2022, he was promoted to Senior Technical Fellow for 12-volt and communication architecture before the move into the VP of Digital role in June 2024.
The VP post carried a public profile.
At the Gravity SUV’s European launch in September 2025, staged at Lucid’s Munich showroom during the IAA Mobility show, Gauthier was part of the executive team that presented the model in a session attended by EV, alongside then-Senior VP of Product and Chief Engineer Eric Bach and led by then-interim chief executive Marc Winterhoff.
In under a year, all three have left the company.
Bach was pushed out in November — an exit Lucid announced as a departure, EV first reported as a firing, and the executive’s subsequent wrongful-termination lawsuit put on the record — while Winterhoff followed in June and Gauthier in July.
A Digital Role Redrawn Above Him
The departure coincides with a redrawing of Lucid‘s digital organization.
On July 2, as part of a leadership overhaul announced alongside second-quarter delivery figures, Lucid named Kay Stepper President of Lucid Technologies and Chief Digital Officer, effective immediately, with accountability for robotaxis, AI, autonomy, ADAS and enterprise IT.
Gauthier’s tenure ended the same month, per his profile.
The July 2 announcement also halved the number of executives reporting directly to the chief executive, a change Lucid restated in this week’s second-quarter release, in which Napoli launched a $1.4 billion operational reset after the company produced 4,774 vehicles and delivered 3,953 in the quarter.
Napoli Rebuilds the Leadership Bench
Napoli has moved quickly since taking charge.
Chief Operating Officer Marc Winterhoff, who ran the company on an interim basis during the 14-month CEO search, was ousted in June, as EV exclusively reported and Lucid confirmed within hours, with the COO role eliminated in Napoli’s flattened structure.
In the same month, the company cut about one-fifth of its US workforce, eliminated the second production shift at its Arizona plant.
Alongside the departures came a largely new leadership bench, announced on July 2: Alexander De Bock as chief financial officer from TI Automotive, Raja Ramana Macha as chief technology officer from Eaton, Billy Hayes as chief customer officer after years at Nissan and Stellantis, and Hugo Martinho as Chief Transformation Officer, effective August 1.
The announcement paired the outside hires with internal promotions.
Stepper’s elevation came 14 months after Lucid announced his arrival as VP of Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems and Autonomous Driving in May 2025, when the Bosch and Qualcomm veteran joined amid a wave of executive departures.
Christian Appel was promoted to VP, Program Management, with responsibility for platform program delivery and product portfolio management.
Martinho arrives from the Schindler Group, the Swiss elevator maker where he most recently served as global head of HR — and where Napoli spent three decades, latterly as chairman and chief executive, before taking the Lucid job.
Announcing the appointments, Napoli said: “We are building a new team who will transform the company.”
Talent Flowing Toward a Robotaxi Rival
Gauthier’s destination adds an edge to the move.
Zoox, acquired by Amazon in 2020, develops purpose-built robotaxis — the same market Lucid is entering through its partnership with Uber and Nuro.
The program was placed under Stepper’s new Lucid Technologies unit and which is supported by a fleet of nearly 100 test vehicles across the San Francisco Bay Area and Houston.
Gauthier arrived in the same month his new employer cleared a threshold no rival has reached.
On July 30, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration granted Zoox an exemption from federal rules requiring steering wheels and pedals, marking the first US approval for paid robotaxi rides in a vehicle with no human controls.
The move now clears commercial deployment of up to 2,500 purpose-built robotaxis in the first year and doubles to 5,000 in the second.
Paid service is set to begin in Las Vegas, with additional markets to follow as the company completes state-level requirements.
An electrical-architecture specialist with nearly 13 years inside Lucid‘s vehicle-control and low-voltage systems work now applies that experience at a direct robotaxi competitor.
Napoli told analysts on Tuesday’s earnings call that the company expects to wrap up its work with restructuring adviser AlixPartners by the end of August, as the broader business review behind the reset continues.
