Lucid Has $1.47 Billion Of EVs Sitting Unsold, So Its New CEO Hit Pause
The Saudi-backed EV startup missed Wall Street by $158 million, and that wasn't even the worst number on the sheet
https://www.carscoops.com/author/stephen-rivers/
by Stephen Rivers
Lucid paused its 2026 forecast as new leadership audits the company.
Weak deliveries forced the EV maker to rethink output targets this year.
First-quarter cash burn still topped $1.4 billion at Lucid this year.
Lucid’s already difficult road to profitability just got a little bumpier. The EV startup has suspended its 2026 production guidance while incoming CEO Silvio Napoli reviews nearly every aspect of the company’s operations, and the timing says a lot about where Lucid currently stands. The company admits that it has too many cars and not enough orders.
Just a month ago, Lucid reaffirmed plans to build between 25,000 and 27,000 vehicles this year despite a supplier issue that disrupted Gravity SUV deliveries for nearly a month. Now that guidance is gone entirely. Instead, it now says that it has “elevated inventory.” In other words, production is ahead of demand.
Read: Lucid Cuts 12% Of Its Workforce As The EV Shakeout Intensifies
Lucid’s inventory problem appears to be getting worse, not better. During the first quarter alone, the company built 5,500 vehicles but delivered just 3,093 of them, leaving roughly 2,400 extra EVs sitting in inventory. That imbalance helped push inventory levels to nearly $1.47 billion by the end of March, up sharply from late 2025.
Napoli, who previously led industrial giant Schindler Group, appears focused on imposing stricter financial discipline almost immediately. During Lucid’s earnings call, he said the company needs to become “more cost-efficient” and make “clear choices on where to invest and, just as importantly, where not to.”
Lucid’s quarter was messy beyond just inventory. Revenue climbed 20 percent year over year to $282.5 million, but that still fell dramatically short of Wall Street’s expectations of roughly $440 million. Meanwhile, losses continued piling up. The company posted a staggering net loss of more than $1 billion during the quarter and burned through roughly $1.44 billion in free cash flow.
For now, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund remains Lucid’s financial lifeline. The automaker says that it should keep operations funded into the second half of 2027. Between now and then, Lucid will want to flip the balance between production and demand. Otherwise, things could get a lot worse.
