According to interim CEO Marc Winterhoff, Lucid Motors has been working through several high-quality “hiccups” in the early stages of delivering the much-anticipated electric SUV.
“It’s true that there were some technical issues around software that we had to overcome,” Gravity Heads-Up Display said in a conference call Tuesday. “There were some hiccups. Very frankly, I think this is absolutely normal in the first stage of starting the vehicle.”
In particular, Winterhoff cited supply chain issues with Gravity’s head-up display as the cause of the trouble. The company has regained that option for now while working with suppliers to increase production of parts.
Winterhoff said these early quality obstacles are the slowest reason why Lucid is causing gravity to showroom locations that contain the SUVs that should be used for test drives. However, he said the company is “knocking those (issues).”
“I want to push days or weeks out, rather than putting half-hearted products in front of customers,” he said.
Lucid’s first SUV arrives at a critical time for the company. So far, no air sedans could be sold anywhere near the level they once promised to Wall Street. The total loss so far is now over $13 billion, according to a new regulator’s filing. And in February, the long-term CEO suddenly resigned, leading to the establishment of Winterhoff.
Gravity was originally supposed to be on the market in 2023. The launch was brought back to a year thanks to the disruption caused by the community pandemic. Lucid technically began offering Gravity SUVs in late 2024, but only for employees and people close to the company.
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The SUV, which now starts at $94,000 and has earned the 450-mile range, has begun shipping to patrons in recent weeks. However, progress has slowed down thanks to some of these early production challenges.
Lucid said he does not expect to increase delivery volumes until later this year. And it doesn’t just address early quality issues. Automakers of all sizes tend to address issues, big and small, as they begin construction of new vehicles. Elon Musk once told her in a 2021 interview that he told his friends to wait until Tesla was building a new car on a massive scale before buying it.
Partnership as a Service
Car sales make up the vast majority of Lucid’s business. The company often says it wants to be a supplier of EV tech for other automakers. To date, it only carved out a deal with Aston Martin, but Winterhoff teased other possible partnerships in Tuesday’s call.
The interim CEO said “several players” were reaching out to explore US “co-manufacturing” at the former Nicola plant in Coolidge, Arizona, and Lucid is currently leasing.
“The president and administration want to have a strong manufacturing sector in the United States and are looking at potential ways to leverage the assets,” he said.
Winterhoff also said Tuesday that “a sophisticated discussion with partners who said that Bright Gravity is the most located AV-enabled platform on the market.”
He said aspects such as the advanced sensor suite of gravity, redundant electrical and control architecture, and fast charging capabilities make SUVs attractive in this context. Winterhoff claimed that “multiple L4-focused software and mobility companies are clearly involved in potential collaborations.”
These potential supplementary lines can theoretically provide another revenue stream for the Ming D and its finances, as they will function to deploy vehicles built on medium-sized, more affordable platforms than late 2026.
During the early months of President Donald Trump’s second administration, the global economy became unstable, which could pose risks to businesses like The Moiid. Winterhoff said in a call Tuesday that Lucid is “valuing “its) supply chain branching” to protect vehicle price changes, tariff risk reduction and volatility.
The story previously stated that Lucid Motors has enough cash to reach the launch of a mid-sized EV platform in the second half of 2026. The company says it is liquid enough to reach mid-2026. The story was revised to reflect this.