Lucid’s turnaround plan hinges on $1.4B in cash savings, robotaxis

Lucid 的转型计划取决于 14 亿美元的现金节省和自动驾驶出租车业务

Lucid Motors said Tuesday that its “operational reset” will focus on $1.4 billion in cash reductions along with three other “must win” and potential money-making priorities that include robotaxis, its factory in Saudi Arabia, and launching a mid-sized electric vehicle. The turnaround plan, led by its new CEO Silvio Napoli, aims to pull Lucid out of its spiral of growing EV inventory and unchecked spending.

Lucid Motors 周二表示，其“运营重置”将聚焦于削减 14 亿美元的现金支出，以及其他三个“必须赢”且具有盈利潜力的优先事项，包括自动驾驶出租车（robotaxis）、其在沙特阿拉伯的工厂，以及推出一款中型电动汽车。这项由新任首席执行官 Silvio Napoli 领导的转型计划，旨在将 Lucid 从电动汽车库存积压和支出失控的恶性循环中拉出来。

To reach that $1.4 billion in cash savings, Lucid said it will reduce capital expenditures by $500 million and projected savings of between $600 million and $800 million in inventory, according to its second-quarter earnings statement. The company said it will also reduce operating expenses by $200 million. The effort, if successful, will provide sufficient liquidity runway well into 2027, Napoli said during Tuesday’s earnings call with investors.

根据第二季度财报，为了实现 14 亿美元的现金节省，Lucid 表示将减少 5 亿美元的资本支出，并预计在库存方面节省 6 亿至 8 亿美元。公司还表示将削减 2 亿美元的运营费用。Napoli 在周二与投资者的财报电话会议上表示，如果这一努力取得成功，将为公司提供充足的流动性，足以支撑到 2027 年。

Napoli didn’t mince words during his first quarterly earnings call as CEO. “The way we operate has to change,” he said. “While there is no question that Lucid brought leading innovations and outstanding products to the market, we have disappointed on several fronts, and for far too long. We have not executed consistently, we miss commitments, launched products before they were ready, underinvested in service, responded too slowly to quality issues, and allowed complexity to slow decisions down.”

Napoli 在担任首席执行官后的首次季度财报电话会议上直言不讳。“我们的运营方式必须改变，”他说。“毫无疑问，Lucid 为市场带来了领先的创新和出色的产品，但我们在多个方面令人失望，而且这种情况持续太久了。我们执行力不一致，未能履行承诺，在产品未准备好时就匆忙发布，对服务投入不足，对质量问题的反应过于迟缓，并让复杂性拖慢了决策速度。”

Napoli has already set some of this plan in motion. The company has shaken up its leadership ranks and hired several top execs, including a new chief financial officer, chief technology officer, chief customer officer, chief digital officer, and chief transformation officer. Napoli has also cut in half the number of people who directly report to him and in June directed the company to lay off 18% of its workforce, or around 1,500 employees, just four months after the EV maker made a cut of 12%.

Napoli 已经开始实施部分计划。公司调整了领导层，聘请了多位高管，包括新的首席财务官、首席技术官、首席客户官、首席数字官和首席转型官。Napoli 还将直接向他汇报的人数减少了一半，并在 6 月份指示公司裁员 18%（约 1,500 名员工），而就在四个月前，这家电动汽车制造商刚刚裁员 12%。

Lucid also eliminated the second shift of EV production at its factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. The layoffs and elimination of that second shift generated $158 million in projected annualized savings, Napoli said during the company’s earnings call. Despite these moves, Lucid’s second-quarter earnings show a company that continues to lose money. The EV maker reported revenue of $405 million, up from $259.4 million in the same quarter last year. It reported a net loss of $1.26 billion, or $3.30 a share, compared with a loss of $855.3 million, or $2.80 a share, a year earlier. Lucid said it ended the second quarter with $3 billion in total liquidity.

Lucid 还取消了其位于亚利桑那州卡萨格兰德工厂的第二班电动汽车生产。Napoli 在财报电话会议上表示，裁员和取消第二班生产预计每年可节省 1.58 亿美元。尽管采取了这些措施，Lucid 的第二季度财报显示公司仍在亏损。这家电动汽车制造商报告营收为 4.05 亿美元，高于去年同期的 2.594 亿美元。净亏损为 12.6 亿美元（每股亏损 3.30 美元），而去年同期亏损为 8.553 亿美元（每股亏损 2.80 美元）。Lucid 表示，第二季度末的总流动资金为 30 亿美元。

While a reduction in spending is central to this reset, Napoli listed several must-win projects, including its upcoming mid-sized EV, finishing its AMP-2 factory in Saudi Arabia, and its robotaxi program with Uber and Nuro, that will eventually make it profitable. The midsize EV, known as Cosmos, will be the first model from Lucid’s mid-sized platform, which “remains an essential element of Lucid’s strategic plan,” Napoli said.

虽然削减支出是此次重置的核心，但 Napoli 列举了几个必须赢的项目，包括即将推出的中型电动汽车、完成沙特阿拉伯的 AMP-2 工厂，以及与 Uber 和 Nuro 合作的自动驾驶出租车项目，这些项目最终将使公司实现盈利。Napoli 表示，这款名为 Cosmos 的中型电动汽车将是 Lucid 中型平台上的首款车型，该平台“仍然是 Lucid 战略计划的重要组成部分”。

Napoli is also bullish on its robotaxi program with Uber and Nuro and sees it as an opportunity to boost earnings outside of selling directly to consumers. In a sign of this program’s value to Lucid, the company has created a new business unit called Lucid Technologies that will be led by chief digital officer Kai Stepper. The new unit will focus on AI, advanced driver assistance system, and digital technology.

Napoli 也非常看好与 Uber 和 Nuro 合作的自动驾驶出租车项目，并将其视为在直接面向消费者销售之外提升收益的机会。作为该项目对 Lucid 价值的体现，公司成立了一个名为 Lucid Technologies 的新业务部门，由首席数字官 Kai Stepper 领导。该部门将专注于人工智能、高级驾驶辅助系统和数字技术。

“We project the margins vastly exceeding those of the traditional retail model,” Napoli said, referring to the robotaxi program that integrates Nuro’s self-driving technology into Lucid’s Gravity SUVs. Uber will operate the premium robotaxi service, which will allow users to hail the self-driving vehicles on its app. Nuro and Uber are testing fleet of 100 vehicles in Houston and the San Francisco Bay Area and Houston. The company said that last month it began delivering production validation vehicles assembled at a facility in Coolidge, Arizona. Regular vehicle production for the robotaxi will begin in the fourth quarter with an expected launch in late 2026.

“我们预计其利润率将远超传统的零售模式，”Napoli 在谈到将 Nuro 的自动驾驶技术集成到 Lucid Gravity SUV 中的自动驾驶出租车项目时说道。Uber 将运营这项高端自动驾驶出租车服务，用户可以通过其应用程序呼叫这些自动驾驶车辆。Nuro 和 Uber 目前正在休斯顿和旧金山湾区测试一支由 100 辆车组成的车队。公司表示，上个月已开始交付在亚利桑那州柯立芝工厂组装的生产验证车辆。自动驾驶出租车的常规生产将于第四季度开始，预计于 2026 年底推出。

On the call, Napoli also took a moment to slap down speculation from last month that the company had hired consulting firm AlixPartners to consider bankruptcy. “Their engagement has been focused solely on supporting our cost savings plan and streamlining our operations, we will be wrapping up their assignment once that work is complete, which we expect at the end of this month,” he said.

在电话会议上，Napoli 还花时间驳斥了上个月关于公司聘请咨询公司 AlixPartners 考虑破产的猜测。“他们的工作仅限于支持我们的成本节约计划和精简运营，一旦工作完成，我们将结束他们的任务，预计在本月底完成，”他说。