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Lucid Group details strong Q3 with $4.8B in cash, increased Air orders, plant expansion begins
Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID) today reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2021, detailing a strong financial balance sheet thanks to its SPAC merger and private investment in public equity (PIPE), increased pre-order counts of its initial sedan, the Air, and an expansion of its Casa Grande factory that will add 2.85 million square feet of manufacturing space.
Lucid said that its balance sheet strengthened significantly through the closing of the de-SPAC reverse merger and PIPE, which provided approximately $4.4 billion to the company. “Lucid’s strong balance sheet following the closing of the merger enabled us to drive the growth of our business and execute on our larger mission to inspire the adoption of sustainable energy,” Lucid Group CFO Sherry House said. “Moving forward, we anticipate continuing vehicle deliveries to customers, investing in capacity and capabilities, and providing value to all of our stakeholders.”
Lucid’s Water-Based paint facility. (Credit: Lucid Motors)
As initial deliveries of the Air sedan began on October 30th with its Dream Edition sedan, Lucid is also working to expand production lines and ready a growth of manufacturing and deliveries. The company said it has also continued to add team members to its Research and Development and Selling, General, and Administrative teams. Production is set to expand within the coming years as well, as Lucid also stated the expansion of its Arizona factory has already started. Production capacity will reach 90,000 units by the end of 2023, which will supplement the development and production of Lucid’s initial SUV, known as “Project Gravity.”
“We are tremendously excited by our accomplishments in our first quarter as a publicly-traded company,” CFO/CEO Peter Rawlinson said. “Our progress this quarter demonstrates our focus on execution, our cutting-edge technology, and our vision to help with solutions to address the climate challenges we all face. We look forward to ramping up production of our Grand Touring, Touring, and Pure models and expanding our footprint internationally.”
Q3 was arguably Lucid’s most highlighted in its brief history. Amongst the initial deliveries and expansion of its facility, Lucid also obtained the longest EPA-certified EV range rating at 520 miles with the Air Dream Edition R. “Lucid’s technological prowess is a key differentiator for the company, with a ‘clean-sheet approach to vehicle development that resulted in the ground-breaking Lucid Air, with six trim variants whose range exceeds 450 miles on a single charge. The Dream Edition R achieves 520 miles of range on a single charge,” the company wrote in its release.
Credit: Lucid Motors
Perhaps one of the most substantial developments that Lucid detailed in its Q3 Shareholders’ Press Release was the increase in reservations the company has experienced since the end of Q3. While customer reservations rose from 10,000 to 13,000 in Q3, Lucid has added an additional 4,000 reservations to its backlog. Its 13,000 Q3 reservations booked more than $1.3 billion of business for Lucid Group. “We see significant demand for the award-winning Lucid Air, with accelerating reservations as we ramp production at our factory in Arizona. We remain confident in our ability to achieve 20,000 units in 2022,” Rawlinson added. “This target is not without risk given ongoing challenges facing the automotive industry, with global disruptions to supply chains and logistics. We are taking steps to mitigate these challenges, however, and look forward to the launch of the Grand Touring, Touring, and Pure versions of Lucid Air through 2022.”
Lucid shares closed at $44.88 on Monday, up 2.16%. After hours trading saw the stock up over 6% at the time of writing, trading at $47.59. Lucid’s Q3 Earnings Call will take place at 5 PM ET/ 2 PM PT.
Lucid Group’s full Q3 Shareholder deck is available here.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is not a LCID Shareholder.
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A new report claims that Apple is in the process of developing what would be the missing link for Tesla to get CarPlay.
Apple and Tesla have been reportedly working together for some time to give Tesla owners the opportunity to utilize CarPlay within their vehicles. While many owners are more than happy with Tesla’s in-house UI, which is seamless, effective, and smooth, some still want CarPlay, which does have its advantages.
A report from 9to5Mac now states that a new CarPlay technology that was highlighted during the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) would potentially be the bridge between Tesla and Apple. With the addition of a feature known as “Route Sharing,” which gives a navigation app the ability to share routing data with the vehicle, Tesla would be able to launch CarPlay in its vehicles, the report states.
CarPlay has not been a priority for Tesla because it has done extremely well with its in-house UI, but some drivers are just used to it. Additionally, it could improve Tesla’s subpar Navigation or offer improved app capabilities, especially with iMessage.
Route Sharing is an intended addition to CarPlay’s iteration in iOS 26.4, which was released in March:
The addition of CarPlay would undoubtedly be welcome, but at the same time, it seems like Tesla realizes it is not of the utmost priority. There are so many things that Tesla is working on currently within its own vehicles, especially attempting to solve self-driving.
Back in February, Bloomberg had reported that Tesla was still working on bringing CarPlay to its vehicles, but it had not due to app compatibility issues and incredibly low adoption rates of iOS 26.
This bottleneck could buy Tesla the proper amount of time to develop CarPlay for its vehicles. It would be a welcome addition, and could be brought on with either the Summer or Fall 2026 Software Updates.
Tesla deliveries got a big boost in expectations from Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs, who believes the company will report some stronger-than-expected numbers when the second quarter comes to an end in the coming weeks.
Goldman Sachs has raised its vehicle delivery forecast for Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) in the second quarter of 2026, signaling growing confidence in the electric vehicle leader’s near-term momentum despite mixed market signals. Analyst Mark Delaney lifted the bank’s Q2 estimate to 420,000 units from a previous 405,000, surpassing the Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 400,000.
The upward revision stems from stronger-than-expected sales data across key regions. Europe stands out with projected year-over-year growth of 85-90 percent, driven by robust demand for Tesla’s Model Y and refreshed offerings. China posted high single-digit gains, while markets like South Korea and Australia also contributed positive momentum. These gains help offset mid-teens declines in U.S. deliveries through May, where broader EV market headwinds and competition persist.
Goldman extended its optimism to the full year, increasing its 2026 delivery projection to 1.73 million vehicles from 1.72 million. Longer-term forecasts remain unchanged, with 1.88 million units expected in 2027 and 1.96 million in 2028. The bank also nudged its 2026 earnings-per-share estimate higher to $1.35 from $1.30, reflecting anticipated margin benefits from higher volumes and operational efficiencies.
Despite these positive adjustments, Goldman maintained its Neutral rating and $375 price target on Tesla shares. At current trading levels near $411, the stock sits about 8-9 percent above the target, highlighting ongoing valuation concerns even as delivery momentum builds. Tesla’s Q1 2026 deliveries totaled 358,023 units, setting a baseline for recovery expectations in the current period.
This update arrives as Tesla prepares to report official Q2 figures shortly after June 30. Investors and analysts will closely watch not only headline delivery numbers but also regional breakdowns, average selling prices, and progress on energy storage deployments and autonomous technology initiatives.
The move by Goldman Sachs underscores a broader narrative for Tesla: while legacy auto markets face softening demand and tariff uncertainties, Tesla’s global footprint and product pipeline provide resilience. Europe’s surge reflects pent-up demand and policy support for EVs, while China’s steady growth highlights Tesla’s competitive positioning against local rivals.
Tesla still has its work cut out for it, including U.S. price sensitivity and intensifying competition. Yet Goldman’s revision adds to a series of analyst notes suggesting Q2 could mark a turning point. As Tesla pushes toward higher production rates at facilities in Fremont, Shanghai, and Berlin, sustained execution will be key to validating these higher forecasts.
We have said numerous times that deliveries are becoming a less important metric in the grand scheme of things, as AI truly takes precedence in the company’s thesis.
For Tesla bulls, the Goldman note reinforces faith in underlying demand trends. For skeptics, the unchanged rating serves as a reminder that delivery beats alone may not immediately resolve valuation debates in a high-interest-rate environment. Tesla’s stock reaction will likely hinge on the official numbers and management commentary in the coming weeks.
SpaceX has exercised its option to acquire Cursor, the innovative AI coding company, in an all-stock transaction valued at $60 billion. The deal, announced on June 16, marks a significant step in SpaceX’s expansion into advanced artificial intelligence, building on months of close collaboration between the companies.
Cursor, officially operated by Anysphere, Inc., is an AI-native code editor and coding agent designed to transform software development. Founded in 2022 by a group of MIT graduates in San Francisco, Cursor builds on the familiar foundation of Visual Studio Code but integrates powerful AI capabilities directly into the core experience.
Unlike traditional code editors or simple extensions, Cursor functions as a full “coding agent” that turns natural-language instructions into actionable code.
SpaceX has exercised the option to acquire @cursor_ai in an all-stock transaction with the goal of building the world’s most useful AI models.
For the past few months, SpaceXAI has been jointly training a model with Cursor, which will be released in Cursor and Grok Build soon.… https://t.co/X5mepgXgjJ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 16, 2026
Developers interact with Cursor through features like its Composer agent, which can search entire codebases, edit multiple files, run terminal commands, debug issues, and complete complex multi-step programming tasks autonomously.
Users describe high-level goals, such as “build a scalable API endpoint with authentication,” and the AI plans, implements, tests, and refines the solution while the human oversees decisions. Additional tools include advanced autocomplete (Tab), context-aware chat, and infrastructure for handling billions of daily requests.
The platform has gained considerable traction, surpassing $3 billion in annual recurring revenue by early 2026 and earning adoption by over half of the Fortune 500 companies. Its agentic approach accelerates development dramatically, allowing engineers to focus on architecture and creativity rather than repetitive coding.
The acquisition integrates Cursor’s leading product, expert team of roughly 300 engineers, and distribution network among top software developers with SpaceX’s unparalleled computational resources. SpaceX’s Colossus supercomputer, equivalent to a million H100 GPUs, has already powered joint training of next-generation models. These models are expected to launch soon within Cursor and SpaceX’s Grok Build environment.
This combination positions SpaceX to develop the world’s most capable AI systems for coding and knowledge work. Access to Cursor’s real-world usage data from millions of professional developers provides unparalleled feedback loops for model improvement. Training on Colossus enables rapid iteration on massive datasets, potentially creating AI that outperforms current leaders in reliability, context handling, and complex reasoning.
For SpaceX, the benefits extend far beyond software tools. Rocket engineering, satellite constellation management, autonomous flight systems, and Starship development involve millions of lines of highly specialized, safety-critical code.
Cursor’s AI agents, supercharged by proprietary models trained on SpaceX’s domain expertise, could slash development timelines, reduce errors, and enable faster innovation cycles. This vertical integration of AI tooling strengthens SpaceX’s competitive edge in both aerospace and the broader AI race, complementing its xAI initiatives.
The deal reflects the exploding value of AI-native developer platforms. By owning Cursor outright, SpaceX secures a strategic talent pool and product pipeline that will accelerate internal projects while potentially offering enhanced tools to the wider engineering community. As AI continues reshaping software creation, this acquisition underscores SpaceX’s commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology for ambitious goals, from Mars colonization to global connectivity.
Apple is developing the missing link for Tesla to get CarPlay: report
Tesla deliveries get a big boost in expectations from Wall Street
