Lucid Motors announces major layoffs in the USA

Electric car manufacturer Lucid Motors is firing around 18 per cent of its employees. As part of a restructuring plan, the US company wants to reduce its costs after going deep in the red in 2022. In addition, Lucid also has to recall some units of its Lucid Air.

Lucid Motors plans to lay off a total of around 1,300 employees in the USA. All divisions are affected, as CEO Peter Rawlinson wrote in a blog post.

“This action is aligned with the cost discipline announcement we made in late February when we reported earnings. We are also taking continued steps to manage our costs by reviewing all non-critical spending at this time,” Rawlinson said. “We have been reviewing and implementing several other ways to optimize our cost structure, but unfortunately these measures alone won’t achieve our objectives. Consequently, we’ve made the painful but necessary decision to let some of our talented team members go,” he adds.

Aroung the end of last year, about 7,200 people were employed by Lucid. The layoffs could cost the company between $24 million and $30 million. Still, it should bring in much-needed financial stability for the company that had posted a $1.3 billion loss in 2022. This was despite the fact that the sales trend was positive and the manufacturer had slightly exceeded its reduced production target.

According to the Reuters news agency, some US companies were preparing for an economic downturn. In addition, Tesla’s price cuts and the availability of affordable electric car models led to increased demand for new vehicles from start-ups like Lucid Motors.

In the US, Lucid also has to recall 637 units of the Lucid Air electric sedan. The reason behind the recall was that some of the electric cars had shut down unexpectedly on the road. The fault is related to a contactor supplied by Sensata Technologies, an electrically activated switch that controls the flow of electricity to the drive system. In some cases, a spring was installed that was too strong and prevented the switch from making contact with the motor, causing the latter to spontaneously switch off.

lucidmotors.com, reuters.com (staff cuts), carscoops.com (recall)