Lucid Motors reported third-quarter production of 2,954 electric vehicles, its lowest quarterly output since early 2025, and deliveries of 3,806 vehicles, down 7% from a year ago. Both sources agree the production cut was intentional: new CEO Silvio Napoli is working through a backlog of unsold cars built in the first half of the year, and Q3 was the first quarter of 2026 in which Lucid delivered more vehicles than it built.
The company has eliminated a second shift at its Arizona plant, laid off roughly 1,500 employees, and is targeting $1.4 billion in cash flow improvements. Napoli has acknowledged past execution failures and said Lucid will not rush its next EV, the Cosmos, which is delayed to the second half of 2027.
The two outlets differ on the scale of the production decline. TechCrunch puts the year-over-year drop at 54%, while Electrek calculates a 24% decline on a like-for-like basis, or about 40% when adjusting for how Lucid previously counted vehicles shipped to Saudi Arabia. They agree that Rivian's Q3 deliveries of roughly 19,000 to 20,000 vehicles dwarf Lucid's total.