Lucid shares soar on news of first electric sedan deliveries
Lucid Group Inc. shares jumped by 31% Thursday and continued higher on Friday as the luxury electric car maker met its goal of preparing to make its first deliveries this weekend.
Shares of the California-based Tesla rival jumped by as much as 47% at one point in Thursday’s session on the delivery news that had actually been announced the previous day.
Lucid (Nasdaq: LCID) said on Wednesday morning that it would put its first 520 vehicles into customers’ hands, specifically a $169,900 special edition of its Lucid Air EVs, at events at its headquarters this weekend.
More than 375 million shares traded on Thursday when the shares reached a high of $39.78 before closing at $35.48. The rally extended into Friday, with the shares reaching another high of $41.60 early in the session before closing at $36.99, a gain of $1.51 or 4.3%. Track the stock here.
As part of the weekend’s events, the first customers to receive their cars will participate in what is being dubbed as the inaugural Lucid Rally. They will join members of the company’s leadership team on a pre-selected route to showcase the Dream’s ride, handling and performance.
Production ramps up in Arizona
The company had announced late last month that customers would be receiving the first batch of its Lucid Air Dream Edition being produced at its Arizona factory by the end of October. As promised, those vehicles will be delivered on Oct. 30 at an exclusive Dream Delivery event in California.
“Creating the Lucid Air has truly been a labor of love, with customer deliveries representing the culmination of years of endeavor from the entire Lucid team,” said Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO, Lucid Group, in a statement. “So I’m truly excited to hand the keys to our first dear customers and accompany them on an inaugural drive through the iconic California countryside.”
After deliveries of customer-configured Dream Editions, the company plans to deliver its Lucid Air Grand Touring and Pure models in 2022.
Lucid started production last month at its new AMP-1 manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, about an hour south of Phoenix.
The Lucid Air sedan is the first vehicle the company will produce, available in three different models. Lucid will also build its second vehicle, an SUV called the Gravity, on site in Casa Grande by 2023.
Also last month, the Environmental Protection Agency said that Lucid’s Air can get 520 miles per charge, beating Tesla’s mark by more than 100 miles.
The AMP-1 spans about 1 million square feet, and Lucid recently announced that it had already started construction on new factory capacity just south of the existing plant. The new construction will add an additional 2.85 million square feet to the company’s footprint.
Lucid Motors had previously disclosed plans to more than triple the footprint of its Arizona factory following the completion of its merger with a special purpose acquisition company (or SPAC) that made Lucid a publicly traded company in July.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal reported that Thursday and Friday’s activity boosted Lucid’s market cap to more than $60 billion, making it the world’s 12th most-valuable public automaker. While that tops companies including Volvo ($58.5 billion), Ferrari ($58 million) and Honda ($51.8 billion), it trails Chinese EV upstart Nio ($66.8B) and is a very long way from challenging Tesla’s valuation, which topped $1 trillion for the first time this week (Nasdaq:TSLA).