Summary
- EV sales have been stalled out for around a year and a half now
- Many manufacturers big and small are still developing and releasing EV cars
- Lucid Motors has recently cut nearly 30% of the price off of their Air EV premium luxury car
- This has resulted in increased sales and genuine consumer interest
- Lucid is the first company in a long time to have sales outpace production when it comes to an EV, and their CEO is enthusiastic about the momentum that is starting build
- We think this momentum could be the first signs of the predicted EV resurgence that is expected between 2007 and 2030, but might come earlier.
Over the past while, we’ve covered lots of news and statistics that EV’s are either levelling off or, for some companies, dropping in sales. Consumers are picking hybrids over full EV’s in droves, with many companies having picked what many might see as the “wrong time” to develop a battery powered electric vehicle to be released in 2024 or 2025.
However, there are some manufacturers that are banking on the cause of the EV stalling in sales being that there is not enough of a charging network established quite yet. Range anxiety is one of the key factors in EV purchase decisions, as we’ve covered many times, as is the overall price of an EV being a significant percentage, often around 25% or more, of a “normal” hybrid or petrol powered car.
Why, then, does Lucid Motors, makers of the luxury Air EV and set to release its Gravity EV SUV by the end of 2024, think that right now is the perfect time to release an EV?
Pricing & Timing
Up to this point in the history of EV sales, battery powered vehicles have been on the more expensive end of things. It wasn’t until Tesla’s Model 3 that a properly “consumer priced” EV was released, and even then, it’s still a fair chunk of change more than an equivalent small sedan with a more traditional power plant.
Lucid’s Air has always hovered near the $100,000 mark in the USA, being a boutique vehicle for those that want an premium luxury sedan without needing to go up to ultra-luxury prices. This is a bit of a surprise, as the small California-made sedan has some serious money behind it in the form of the Sovereign Wealth Fund investment program of the Saudi Arabian royal family, as well as Aston Martin investing in them in exchange for powertrain technology for their current Formula One and upcoming EV road car programs.
Despite the steep price Lucid moved 1,967 global units in Q1 2024 . This was the most successful quarter the company has had since they started selling cars in 2021, yet despite this, the worries of the EV market caused their stock price to fluctuate between $2.5 to $3.25 per share over the entire Q1 timeframe.
Despite the successful first quarter, Lucid still wants to attract more customers to their vehicles, and so in late May 2024, they slashed the price of the base model Pure Air from near $104,000 to $69,900, a cut of just under 30%, They also consequently adjusted trim prices downwards across the Touring (now $77,900), Grand Touring (now $109,000), and Sapphire (now $249,000) trims.
These adjustments have brought it down into the range of competitiveness against cars such as the Tesla Model S, Audi eTron GT, and BMW i5. Just this past week, Lucid posted their Q2 report, and the effect of these drops is readily apparent, as 2,394 units shipped globally in Q2 2024.
Analysis
So how does an increase of 427 units quarter-to-quarter speak to an EV resurgence?
The fact of the matter is that Lucid Motors is a boutique manufacturer. In fact, most of their actual revenue comes from their provision of batteries and technology through partnerships with companies such as Aston Martin, one of their biggest investors. They have a production output capacity of roughly 8,450 units per annum.
However, what has them raising eyebrows around the EV world is that in Q2 2024, they produced 2,110 cars, but sold 2,394. For the first time in almost 2 years across the entire EV market, sales outpaced production for a manufacturer in the EV space.
Compare this against rivals such as Rivian and Tesla. Rivian stayed mostly flat at 1:1 production to sales, with sales not quite keeping up with production. Tesla had a mild increase in sales against its fairly disastrous Q1 2024, with overflowing inventory accounting for most of their sales in Q2 2024, but they are down year-over-year by just over 14.3%.
Added to this is Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson stating that “I feel we’re on the cusp of escape velocity.” Sales momentum is definitely in their favor, and pre-release testing of the upcoming Gravity SUV has shown very strong consumer interest.
Maybe The Start Of The Resurgence
Most analysts and experts agree that EVs will come back into play sooner rather than later. It’s not so much consumer interest (or lack thereof) that is behind that fact, as it is the manufacturers themselves that are still developing and releasing EVs to replace petrol powered models. Audi, Porsche, VW, Ford, General Motors, Aston Martin… name any manufacturer, even ultra-luxury brands, and you’ll find at least one EV in development, often times more than one.
What most of those analysts and experts also agree on is that the resurgence isn’t expected until between 2027 to 2030. The strongest driving factors behind that estimate remain the two biggest disadvantages that EVs have: range anxiety and “slow” charging despite the introduction of superchargers and DCFC level 3 chargers.
That’s where Lucid Motors might be the first bright light in the resurgence, as they have demonstrated through real-world data that a Lucid Pure Air model can make it from Los Angeles to San Francisco, a trip of roughly 400 miles, on a single charge in normal operation conditions. Most manufacturers claim maximum range with comfort features not factored in, but Lucid is one of the first to have their range estimates factor in things like running air conditioning, using the sat-nav, maybe have some music playing, and the like.
The other factor is that because Lucid uses an 800 Volt network in the car, with the only other manufacturer at this time being Porsche that has an 800 Volt network in the Taycan and Macan EV, on a level 3 charger it can recharge up to 250 miles of range in as little as 15 minutes.
We think that it is very possible that what we’re seeing now are the first little trickles of the EV resurgence. Lucid already has thousands of orders for the Gravity SUV, the Air in all its trims is projected to have an even stronger Q3 2024, and consumers, now that EVs are getting less expensive and charge faster, are starting to pay attention again.
The full on market flip that many project still won’t likely happen until 2027 or 2028, but as the saying goes, “Every flood starts with a single drop of water.”
