Media outlets should stop using the expression ‘Tesla killer’. In fact, they should probably stop using this metaphor completely.
There are two reasons for that. First, it’s overused and abused. It no longer works. It no longer sounds good, or fun, or dynamic, or sharp.
Second, so far at least, every single ‘Tesla killer’ always ends up being killed by Tesla.
You may think what you want of Elon Musk but Tesla shifts units. Yes, the company’s stock price is probably overvalued, and yes, there are build quality issues sometimes.
But it is the only EV brand that truly sells. Every other EV brand is struggling. And every legacy brand that also sells EVs isn’t doing well either. Volkswagen openly said the VW brand is no longer palatable.
Why? Because they stopped focusing on the Golf and the Polo and the Passat, and began focusing on ID cars no one buys.
With that in mind, Lucid’s trajectory shouldn’t surprise us.
Headquartered in California (but the cars are built in Arizona), Lucid Motors makes good-looking cars with great finishing and amazing performance.
But their goal is to sell 8,000 – 10,000 units a year, and sometimes they can’t even get to that.
Tesla sells 10,000 cars on a bad month.
This would be okay, because Lucid and Tesla aren’t necessarily in the same bracket since Lucid cars are generally more luxury-focused, were it not for the fact that Lucid stock is stupendously overpriced.
This explains why Lucid stock ($LCID) is no longer part of the Nasdaq 100 index. Nothing bad happened. It’s just that Lucid no longer meets the criteria.
Lucid loses money on every car it builds, which would be okay (that’s the case with most EVs) if they actually scaled up production, which they can’t.
Lucid has what it takes to get back on track. But a few things need to change.
And the fact that the CEO walked home with a nine-figure (!) salary last year probably didn’t make investors happy either.
_Flabbergasted LF 