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Lucid Group details strong Q3 with $4.8B in cash, increased Air orders, plant expansion begins

Credit: Lucid Motors

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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.

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Disclosure: Joey Klender is not a LCID Shareholder.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Why automakers keep turning down Elon Musk’s Tesla Full Self-Driving offer

Elon Musk confirms no automaker has ever accepted Tesla’s offer to license Full Self-Driving software.

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Elon Musk gave a brief answer on X Monday that confirmed that Tesla’s standing offer to license Full Self-Driving to other automakers still has zero takers. Sawyer Merritt wrote that “Tesla has for years openly invited other automakers to license FSD. None of them have accepted,” responding to a prediction from Boom Supersonic founder Blake Scholl that Tesla would eventually open FSD the way it opened its Supercharger network to rival brands. Musk’s reply to Merritt was one word: “Exactly.”

It is not the first time Musk has made this point. He said something similar in November, when he called legacy automakers reluctance to adopt FSD “crazy,” and Tesla has floated the offer publicly since at least 2021. Scholl’s prediction touches on something real. Once NACS became the de facto charging standard, adoption from Ford, GM, Rivian and others followed within about a year. FSD licensing was supposed to work the same way once Tesla built enough of a lead that switching made sense for everyone.

The case for licensing now is stronger than it was two years ago. Waymo and Zoox are logging hundreds of thousands of unsupervised autonomous miles, along with Tesla’s own Robotaxi fleet. Every automaker still selling driver assist systems that lag FSD has given the robotaxi conversation to Tesla, Waymo and Zoox by default. Licensing FSD would let a GM or a Ford compete on the same field without spending a decade and billions of dollars building a stack from scratch, the same argument Tesla made when it opened the Supercharger network to bring more EVs onto its chargers.

But FSD is not a connector standard. As one reply to Musk’s post pointed out, licensing FSD is not a software license the way NACS was a plug spec. It requires adopting Tesla’s eight camera layout and its onboard compute architecture, meaning a licensee’s cars would effectively become Tesla hardware wearing someone else’s badge. That is the visible obstacle. The less visible one is data. A licensed FSD stack would report back the same telemetry Tesla collects from its own fleet, giving Tesla a continuous read on how a competitor’s cars are actually driven, where they struggle, and how often drivers intervene. For an automaker trying to build its own autonomy program, or simply trying to keep its build quality and safety record private, handing Tesla that visibility could be a bigger cost than the hardware bill. It is the reason the Supercharger comparison only goes so far. Opening a charging plug cost Tesla very little. Opening FSD would cost a rival something it cannot get back.

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Tesla Roadster is available for order once again following brief hold

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(Credit: luxunsheep/Instagram)

Tesla has reopened reservations for its long-delayed next-generation Roadster, asking buyers for a $50,000 deposit just days before an October 1 reveal event in Waco, Texas. The move revives a reservation process first launched in 2017 and later paused when Tesla pulled pricing from its website in 2021.

The reservation page requires an immediate $5,000 credit-card payment, described as fully refundable, followed by a $45,000 wire transfer due within 10 days, which is identical to what was expected previously. Reservations are not considered final until the wire clears.

The structure matches the 2017 terms Tesla used when it first collected deposits after unveiling a prototype. Tesla has not published a confirmed retail price or production start date on the order page.

The October 1 event is scheduled in Waco, about 90 minutes north of Tesla’s Austin headquarters and near SpaceX’s McGregor rocket test site. Tesla sent invitations to existing reservation holders and posted a “Go for launch” teaser on September 12.

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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established a temporary flight restriction over the McGregor area from September 18 through October 2, consistent with plans for a demonstration involving SpaceX-designed cold-gas thrusters. Elon Musk has previously described the optional package as enabling extreme acceleration or brief hovering. Tesla has said the event will include pricing, specifications, and production targets.

The second-generation Roadster was first shown in November 2017 during Tesla’s Semi launch. Musk promised production in 2020, with claimed performance of 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, more than 250 mph top speed, and roughly 620 miles of range.

Those targets have slipped repeatedly.

Tesla later pointed to 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025-2026 before indicating production would not begin until 2027 or 2028 at Gigafactory Texas. Design work has continued, with reports of a sharper, Cybertruck-influenced look replacing the original curvy prototype.

Original reservation holders who paid $50,000 in 2017, or $250,000 for the Founders Series, have waited nearly nine years without a production car. Some high-profile customers canceled. Tesla’s decision to reopen orders now, after previously shutting them down, tests whether new buyers will commit substantial funds before seeing a finalized production vehicle. The October 1 event is intended to answer remaining questions about what those buyers will actually receive and when.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving expands to another European country

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is heading to Czechia after the Czech Ministry of Transport recognised the Dutch RDW’s provisional type approval, making the country the seventh EU member state to clear the system for public roads. Tesla Europe announced on 21 September 2026 that “FSD Supervised is now approved in Czechia” and that rollout “will begin soon.”

The decision marks a notable reversal. Earlier in 2026, Prague had declined to automatically recognise the Netherlands’ April approval, citing concerns over speed-limit compliance, traffic-sign recognition and driver-attention monitoring, and arguing that a coordinated EU approach was preferable. Officials said months of expert review, talks with Tesla and other member states, and real-world data from countries already using the system resolved those issues.

“Safety remains the top priority,” the ministry stated.

FSD Supervised remains a Level 2 driver-assistance system: the driver must stay engaged and is legally responsible. Eligible vehicles need AI4, the company’s most up-to-date hardware version. Tesla is expected to push the feature over the air in the coming days, following the pattern seen after earlier national approvals.

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Europe’s rollout began when Dutch regulator RDW issued a provisional EU type approval on 10 April 2026 after extensive testing. Mutual recognition then produced a rapid cascade: Lithuania (20 May), Estonia (29 May), Denmark (9 June), Belgium (10 June) and Slovenia (7 September). Czechia now completes that list of seven.

The approvals cover only a modest share of the EU population, but they add political weight ahead of a 6 October vote by the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. A qualified majority, at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population, could open the remaining markets, including large ones such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain that have so far preferred to wait for a bloc-wide decision.

For Czech Tesla owners, the immediate prize is access to the same supervised highway and city driving already available in the other six countries. For Tesla, each new market generates additional European driving data and strengthens the case that FSD Supervised can operate safely under the continent’s varied road rules. The Czech approval is therefore both a local milestone and another incremental step toward a wider European launch.

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