New CEO Silvio Napoli says Lucid launched unfinished cars and underinvested in service. The Cosmos SUV slips to 2027, ceding ground to Rivian and Tesla.
Lucid Motors is facing a reckoning. Its new chief executive, Silvio Napoli, took the earnings call Tuesday to tell investors what owners have been saying for months: the company has let customers down.
“We have not executed consistently,” Napoli said. “We missed commitments, launched products before they were ready, under-invested in service, responded too slowly to quality issues, and allowed complexity to slow decisions down.”
Lucid reported a net loss of more than $1 billion for the quarter. The stock, trading under the ticker LCID, has lost roughly half its value over the past year.
The most immediate consequence of Napoli’s reset is the delay of Lucid’s midsize SUV, the Cosmos. Originally slated to start production this year, the roughly $50,000 vehicle will now arrive in the second half of 2027.
Company materials show Cosmos prototypes are undergoing crash development, aerodynamic refinement, cold-weather evaluation, and battery and drive-unit testing. Lucid said more prototype builds, regulatory work, and manufacturing validation remain. Napoli said the SUV “will launch only when every process and quality requirement has been met.”
The delay gives competitors more time to lock in buyers. Rivian began delivering its R2 midsize SUV in June. Tesla brought the three-row Model Y L to the U.S. market this year. Both vehicles target the same price range and audience that Lucid hopes to capture with the Cosmos.
Lucid’s current lineup – the Air sedan and Gravity three-row SUV – has been plagued by owner complaints about software glitches, including key fob and infotainment problems. The company has introduced new “quality gates” intended to catch production and quality problems before launch, a spokesperson told Business Insider. Lucid declined to explain how those checks differ from its previous process.
Lucid was founded by former Tesla engineers seeking to build a more efficient electric vehicle. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is its largest backer. The company has lost money since it began producing cars.
This year it scaled back after overproducing the Gravity SUV. Lucid cut 12% of its workforce in February and another 18% in June, removed the chief operating officer role, and reshuffled the C-suite. The cost reductions come as the company said it has about $3 billion in total liquidity – enough to fund operations into 2026 at the current burn rate, analysts estimate.
Napoli’s blunt tone on the call signaled a break from past management. “We have a clear understanding of the key issues,” he said. “A deep transformation is in motion at Lucid.”
The reset comes weeks after Lucid strongly rejected bankruptcy rumors. Still, the Cosmos delay means Lucid will go more than two years without a new model. That stretch tests whether the existing lineup and service improvements can hold customers and investor confidence long enough for the Cosmos to arrive.
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