How Lucid Went Public and Lost Investor Billions in Just Four Years

LiquidationAlert · 2025-12-26T06:41:32+00:00

Lucid Group went public with high expectations but has since faced production failures and stock declines, leading to investor losses over 90%. Despite backing from Saudi Arabia, the company must execute flawlessly to restore confidence and improve its standing in the EV market.

LiquidationAlert

2025-12-26 06:41:32

Abstract generation in progress

Is Lucid public? Yes, but that public status has become a cautionary tale. Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID) made its Nasdaq debut on July 26, 2021 through a SPAC merger, arriving with tremendous hype. The electric-vehicle maker’s shares soared on day one, eventually climbing to $57.75 by mid-November 2021. An investor who threw in $1,000 at the IPO price had seen their stake balloon to over $2,000 within months. Today? That same thousand dollars is worth roughly $89.

The Spectacular Collapse of a “Next Tesla” Bet

What happened between then and now reads like a textbook failure. Lucid went public promising to deliver 20,000 units of its flagship Air sedan in 2022—it actually made just 7,180. The Gravity SUV, supposedly launching in 2023, didn’t arrive until 2024. Production delays stacked on top of each other. Cash burned faster than expected. Quarterly guidance kept getting slashed. By the end of 2022 alone, the stock had cratered 82%.

Investors who believed Lucid would challenge Tesla watched their wealth erode by over 90%. The company that once looked like it could reshape the EV industry instead delivered one disappointment after another, each one chipping away at shareholder confidence.

Why Lucid Stock Keeps Struggling

Even with recent signs of operational improvement, the damage lingers. Is Lucid public and struggling? Absolutely. The company now targets roughly 20,000 units for 2025—the exact goal it missed in 2022, three years later. Leadership changes add more uncertainty: longtime CEO Peter Rawlinson recently departed, leaving the company searching for direction.

The one structural advantage Lucid retains is backing from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which provides the capital runway most startups could only dream of. But capital alone doesn’t guarantee success in the cutthroat EV space.

What Investors Should Know

Is Lucid public and salvageable? Perhaps, but it requires flawless execution. Production must scale meaningfully. Deliveries must accelerate. The new leadership team must restore credibility after years of missed targets. Until the company proves it can match its promises with real results, the stock remains a speculative play rather than a turnaround story. For those who bought at the IPO, this four-year journey has been a painful lesson in the difference between promise and performance.

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