Lucid Cuts Prices and Complexity

CHICAGO – Lucid Motors has a problem: Demand is slipping for EVs; rival automakers are cutting prices; and Lucid is still battling for brand awareness.

It is reacting to these challenges by cutting prices for 2024 and listening to customers and prospects to make more features available at lower prices.

Getting Lucid’s story out is Job 1. To that end, Rob Whitley, manager for product and pricing at Lucid, stood for hours in a mostly empty hall at McCormick Place here that show organizers set aside for product walk-arounds and indoor test drives.

“We have been listening and reacting to make product improvements via over-the-air updates as fast as we can,” said Whitley. “We are not gated by model year when it comes to making product enhancements.” One such recent change was an OTA changing the rearview mirror to have an auto-tilt function when the vehicle is backing up.

The Lucid Air has three trims: Air Pure, Air Touring and Grand Touring Pricing for 2024 has been cut by 6% to 9%.

Wall Street and auto industry analysts warned Lucid last year about strategically lowering its prices or facing getting squeezed at the lower end of the segment where entries are increasing.

The least expensive Lucid trim, the Pure, for example, now starts at $78,900 including destination charges, before any taxes or incentives, down nearly 6% from $83,900 for the ’23 model. Air Touring is priced at $87,400, down 9.4% from $96,500 for the ’23. Air Grand Touring starts at $110,000, down from $125,600 last year, a 12.4% price reduction.

In addition to price cuts, Lucid has reworked feature offerings. The new options structure gives buyers of the lower trims the ability to add features à la carte instead of having them tied to specific trims. The Pure now comes with a single-motor rear-wheel-drive propulsion system with 420 miles (676 km) of range, up 9 miles (14.5 km) from last year’s AWD model. Power is reduced by 50 hp to 430 hp. The $2,500 Comfort and Convenience package is now available on all three trims, adding four-zone climate control, soft-close doors and rear sunshades. A package with ventilated, 12-way powered and massaging seat option can be had for $3,750 across trims.

Heated steering wheel, plus heated/ventilated seats with 20-way adjustable and massaging seats are available across multiple trims, as well. A real leather interior is also available.

Another available Comfort and Convenience package adds all the items from the Pure, plus a power frunk and heated wipers.

A “Stealth” appearance package that includes black accents and black interior is meant to appeal to those attracted to Mercedes-Benz’s AMG lineup.

Lucid killed the $180,000 Air Grand Touring “Performance” trim but is still offering the Air Sapphire at $250,800, which is virtually unchanged in price, but it has sold in very small volume.

All this price adjusting makes Lucid more competitive with rivals such as the Tesla Model S and Mercedes-Benz EQS, coming in cheaper than the $74,770 Tesla and the $104,000 Mercedes.

Part of Lucid’s story, like Tesla’s, is direct sales with no franchised dealers. Just about any non-body-damage problem with a Lucid can be diagnosed, and in many cases solved, via over-the-air updates with the car never leaving the customer’s driveway. If there is hardware damage, the customer can drive it to a regional repair center located at or near its “sales studios.”

Lucid’s 2023 production and sales were pretty low at 4,369 sales for 2023 out of 7,800 built.

But the outlook brightens in late 2024 when the Gravity CUV, which figures to follow a similar pricing and feature structure as the Air, joins the lineup.

Lucid was once a high-flyer stock until the realities of consumer demand and public infrastructure came to light. It had a capitalization of more than $90 billion in late 2021, but just over two years later it has lost 90% of its value.

The company has a stated aim to produce about 500,000 units annually by 2030, but investors aren’t anticipating that kind of growth to happen. Currently, it builds vehicles in Saudi Arabia where it is having difficulty recruiting and retaining talent, as well as assembling in Casa Grande, AZ.