Lucid Group News and Forecast: LCID drops 6% afterhours on sequential fall in production

Lucid (LCID) stock sold off 6.3% late Thursday to $7.70 after the electric automaker reported first quarter production and delivery numbers well under the previous quarter. Analysts had been expecting a slow first quarter but nothing like the figures that were actually reported. Though Lucid did not mention any hiccups in their brief statement, it appears that production difficulties are still a major headache for ex-Tesla executive Pete Rawlinson, who currently runs the C-suite. 

Lucid stock news: Production harder than a prototype

The Newark, California-based maker of luxury EVs produced 2,314 vehicles in the first quarter and delivered 1,406. Those figures were a far cry from the previous quarter's figures of 3,493 vehicles produced and 1,932 delivered between October and December of 2022. Sequentially, that amounts to a 34% pullback for production and a 27% decline for deliveries QoQ.

In February Lucid management said they were gunning for between 10,000 and 14,000 units in 2023. That was already well below Wall Street's expectation for 21,800 units, but it appears Lucid may have trouble even meeting that lowered bar.

In response to the poor quarter, Twitter pundits repeated Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk's oft-repeated quip that "prototypes are easy – production is hard." Tesla may have something to do with the pullback although not the production. Tesla cut prices across their family of models worldwide in the first quarter, and a Hong Kong newspaper announced earlier this week that further cuts were set to emerge in China. Some Lucid customers might have opted for the sale on Teslas.

We will know more once CEO Peter Rawlinson holds his earnings call on May 8. At the moment Wall Street consensus forecasts adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $-0.40 on revenue of $211.5 million. That last figure will most likely change though based on these current Q1 figures. Lucid cut about one-fifth of its workforce, including executives, in late March – a policy that will cost the automaker between $24 milliion and $30 million in severance.

In the meantime Lucid unveiled a cross-country tour that will allow customers to test drive Lucid Air models. The tour will hit 40 cities across the United States this spring and summer. 

Lucid stock forecast

Lucid sure seems like its ready to descend to early January support at $6.20. This of course comes at a poor time for LCID stock as it recently produced two separate bullish signals. The first is that on Tuesday the 9-day moving average surpassed its 21-day counterpart. Secondly, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator performed a bullish crossover on March 22. Lucid stock could halt its sell-off at $7.30, but there is no certainty there. Expect short selling to pick up massively and $6.20 to come into view.

LCID daily chart