Update: I added this paragraph to the top because it now seems that the Lucid stock community has caught wind of this blog post. I did not anticipate for that to happen and to be 100% clear, please read the full details below about what customers are saying about their deliveries. Most, but not all, of the sources come from a Lucid Owner online forum, with customers patiently awaiting delivery of their cars. For those worried about the stock price, delivery slowdowns do not mean production slowdowns. As the story below originally said, we see production ongoing from the flyovers of the factory, so a possible temporary delivery hold does not seem to be impacting production.
Update #2: On July 28th, Bear’s Workshop did a flyover and it did show the lot getting more and more full with cars but there was a transporter nearby ready to be loaded. I do strongly believe Lucid will deliver cars soon, even if these sources/rumors are indeed true. But it is unusual to see so many cars pilling up in the lot, based on the history of these flyovers.
Update#3: On July 29th, one customer was reportedly told that deliveries are now back on, out of the Goose Island location. The delay was to make sure all the cars being delivered were on the latest software released, according to this individual. Here is what he wrote, “DA just told me that deliveries (again, specifically those at Goose Island) were being held back ONLY so they could perform the latest software update before delivery (nothing new, just the latest version already out). Now finalizing financing and hoping to get my car next week!”
Update #4: On August 3rd, Lucid had its earnings call (transcript here). Peter Rawlinson said in the call “But in Q2, we also made a significant number of vehicles that we did not factory gate instead electing to hold them back in order to ensure that these cars met the highest standard of quality. Remember, quality must take a priority over volume as a luxury brand, and I’ll touch on quality a little bit later.” He later added “Our decision to prioritize quality had an effect on our deliveries and quality is an organizational priority. I’ve been working with the team to make sure that nothing leaves our house without meeting our high standards. Now in fact, I’m joining today’s Q2 earnings conference call directly from our AMP-1 factory right here in Arizona. I’m right here on the front line, and I’ve been spending a vast majority of my time here, right here on the shop floor. As I believe it’s my responsibility as the CEO to be here resolving issues and helping to onboard the new executives.” He goes on to explain more, but it sounds like this story was somewhat accurate. The rest of the story below is unchanged
For the past few days, I have heard from several sources that Lucid Motors has put a hold on delivering its EV, the Lucid Air, to customers. Lucid Motors has not officially or publicly said another on this matter, we have emailed Lucid Motors to find out but I doubt we will get anything back from them on this matter.
It seems there was a big meeting at the Lucid Motors headquarters over the past week or so where management decided to put a hold on delivering cars to customers. This includes cars that have passed pre-delivery inspection (PDI) and are already at delivery centers waiting to be sent to the next destination for customers to accept their cars.
There are two or more public posts about this in the Lucid Owners Forums but I received two other sources, that I cannot publicly name, about this delay.
The first post is over here and says “My VIN was assigned in May and my Grand Touring was expected in late July and has been produced and set at factory in Arizona for at least 6 weeks. Apparently, for quite a while there is a hold on all deliveries, supposedly for software updates. Lucid has no info on when they expect to release cars. I’m starting to think they can’t get the car’s software right. Makes me wonder if I should have waited for the 2023 model when they fix all the bugs. Does anyone else have any info on the ongoing delivery delays? When is 2023 going to be released?”
The second public post is over here and says “Update on my pending delivery out of Goose Island. As of last Friday, my car was ready to be delivered (actually got the call from GI) but since paperwork had not been generated I was told to expect a few days delay. Unfortunately, today my DA told me that “there was a meeting” at HQ in CA and they were told deliveries were now on hold, indefinitely (at least at Goose Island), and that it was not restricted to my car (which had already passed PDI). No further information was given, despite various lines of questioning (is it software or hardware, etc).”
However, a different Lucid customer said later that his Lucid delivery advisor was unaware of any stoppage. He wrote “I just talked to my DA, and he said he wasn’t aware of any system-wide delivery hold. He said that one of his customers just got his GT yesterday.” We did see delivery this week, as mentioned below, but it is unclear which cars and/or delivery centers are affected or if there is some miscommunication about this in general. And another posted, “Just talked with my service guy and he is not aware of anything like this. In fact, he has a truckload of cars getting loaded up right now to come to Riviera Beach. He confirmed that my issue was a coolant leak caused by a metal clamp that failed, causing the coolant line to rub against the axle and develop a leak.”
The last flyover of the factory showed a lot of cars piling up and not moving out – of course, that is a static shot in time. I guess tomorrow’s flyover might show more.
Obviously, the speculation around this delay is not that it is software related – those can easily be fixed with an over-the-air update. The speculation is that there is another hardware issue and there may be a recall. Again, this is just speculation if anything official happens, we will see it pop up on the NHSTA website and via email communication to customers.
Again, I have several sources now telling me about this delivery stoppage and hold on delivery of Lucid Air EVs. None of my sources knew why there was a stoppage, just that there was a stoppage. I do know that deliveries have slowed big time based on the Lucid Air GT delivery tracker I help manage. We had one car picked up this week and that car may have had the delivery scheduled already.
Did you hear anything about this or want to share anything, feel free to comment below or email us.
Later today, Lucid Motors released a software update, version 1.276, to the Lucid Air EVs that give drivers a warning in case of the unlikely event of a battery operation issue.