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Lucid to lay off 1,300 employees for $24-$30M restructuring plan

Credit: Lucid Group

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On Tuesday, March 2, Lucid Group, Inc. announced plans to lay off 18% of its workforce, amounting to about 1,300 employees. The news comes after Lucid released its fourth quarter and full year (FY) 2022 financial results last month. 

Lucid plans to lay off workers to cut costs while initiating its restructuring plans. According to a regulatory filing, the Lucid layoffs will be completed by Q2 2023. The electric vehicle company expects to incur around $24 million to $30 million in charges due to its restructuring plan. Most charges will go to severance payments, employee benefits, and stock-based compensation. The layoffs will include executive positions. 

Lucid’s CEO and CTO, Peter Rawlinson, explained in an email to workers that the company has reduced costs. Unfortunately, it did not reduce costs enough to avoid layoffs. Rawlinson added that Lucid’s restructuring plan results from its “evolving business needs and productivity improvements.” 

“Consequently, we’ve made the painful but necessary decision to let some of our talented members go,” Rawlinson wrote in his email. “We are also taking continues steps to manage our costs by reviewing all non-critical spending at this time.” 

In its fourth quarter and Full Year 2022 financial results, Lucid set its 2023 annual production guidance between 10,000 to 14,000 vehicles. Last year Lucid Motors produced approximately 7,180 vehicles, topping its forecast of 6,000 to 7,000 in 2022. However, analysts pointed out that Lucid’s production forecasts for 2022 were slashed multiple times. Lucid was initially expected to produce 20,000 vehicles last year. 

Lucid stock slid after the release of its Q4 and FY 2022 report when it revealed a significant revenue miss in the fourth quarter. The company delivered 1,932 vehicles in Q4 2022, missing analysts’ estimates of 2,813 cars. 

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Many analysts believe Lucid’s performance is due to waning demand for luxury electric vehicles. Indeed, EV manufacturers are leaning towards producing affordable all-electric cars. For instance, Volkswagen beat Tesla to the punch when it announced the launch of the affordable VW ID.2 car. Tesla is expected to unveil its $25,000 electric vehicle soon, too. 

Lucid Announces Q4 & Full Year 2022 Financial Results by Maria Merano on Scribd

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, contact me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Ford CEO favors Waymo’s LiDAR approach over Tesla’s vision-only self-driving

Farley stated that Waymo’s LiDAR-based approach made “more sense.”

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Credit: Jim Farley/X

Ford CEO Jim Farley shared some skepticism about Tesla’s camera-only approach to self-driving during a recent appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival. When asked to compare Waymo and Tesla’s autonomous driving systems, Farley stated that Waymo’s LiDAR-based approach made “more sense,” citing safety, consumer trust, and the limitations of camera-based models.

Waymo’s LiDAR vs. Tesla’s Vision-Only Approach

Farley was speaking with author Walter Isaacson when he made his comments about Tesla and Waymo’s self-driving systems. As they were conversing about autonomous cars, Isaacson asked Farley which approach to self-driving he preferred.

“To us, Waymo,” Farley said, though he also stated that both Tesla and Waymo have “ made a lot of of progress” on self-driving, as noted in a Fortune report. He also confirmed that he has had conversations about the matter with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Despite this, he said that Ford still considers LiDAR as a pivotal part of autonomous driving. 

“When you have a brand like Ford, when there’s a new technology, you have to be really careful. We really believe that LiDAR is mission critical… Where the camera will be completely blinded, the LiDAR system will see exactly what’s in front of you,” the Ford CEO stated. 

Tesla and Ford’s self-driving plans

Tesla recently launched a limited Robotaxi service in Austin, which uses autonomous cars with safety monitors in the front passenger seat. While controversial, Musk has maintained that Tesla’s vision-only approach will ultimately prove safer and more cost-effective in the long term. Tesla seems to be making headway towards this goal, with Musk stating recently that the first Model Y has been delivered autonomously to a customer in Austin.

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Ford, for his part, is not pursuing its own fully autonomous, urban-driving system anymore. Instead, the company is focusing on “high-speed, eyes-off” experiences like BlueCruise. Ford does plan to partner with a company that has achieved true autonomous driving in the future, as soon as the technology is available.

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A Tesla just delivered itself to a customer autonomously, Elon Musk confirms

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the first self-delivery occurred today, one day ahead of schedule.

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Credit: Joe Tegtmeyer/X

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that a vehicle has, for the first time ever, delivered itself to a customer autonomously, one day ahead of the company’s original schedule.

To date, this is the first car to ever roll off a production line at a factory and transport itself to a customer for delivery.

Late last month, Musk announced that the first-ever fully autonomous delivery of a Tesla would take place on June 28. The plan was to have the car roll off the production lines at Gigafactory Texas and drive to a local customer without the assistance of anyone on board or remotely controlling the car through teleoperation.

Teslas will self-deliver to customers, Elon Musk says: here’s when

Musk said on Friday that it has officially happened:

The vehicle traveled as fast as 72 miles per hour, according to Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Head of AI and Autopilot.

Musk continued on X:

“There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous! To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully autonomous drive with no people in the car or remotely operating the car on a public highway.”

He said a video of the delivery would be uploaded soon.

We have seen cars autonomously transport themselves from production line to logistics lot at Gigafactory Texas, but this is a whole new level.

Tesla’s Giga Texas vehicles now drive themselves to outbound lot

Tesla just recently launched its Robotaxi for the first time in Austin on Sunday. Opened to a limited number of people, the company rolled out an Early Access Riders Program, but has been expanding it to more people in recent days. These cars featured a Safety Monitor in the passenger’s seat to ensure safety.

This seems to be something Tesla would like to perform more frequently in the coming months, especially locally. Eventually, it seems that Tesla will plan to have every vehicle it manufactures self-deliver, as a hauler would transport it to local delivery centers, then the car would drive itself to the customer’s house.

This is likely a few years off, but Tesla has already completed one self-delivery, which is an incredible accomplishment.

Yesterday, I wrote about Tesla’s two big milestones that are still planned for launch before the end of Q2. This was one of them. One to go: unveiling of the affordable models.

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Tesla dispels reports that it hired ex-Cruise Autonomy head Henry Kuang

Tesla has denied reports that it hired former head of GM’s Cruise Henry Kuang.

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(Credit: Tesla)

Tesla has dispelled reports that it has hired ex-Cruise Head of Autonomy Henry Kuang.

This morning, several media outlets reported that Tesla had filled the position of Director of AI and Deep Learning for Autonomous Driving with Kuang, who was the Head of Autonomy at General Motors’ failed autonomous vehicle company, Cruise.

The rumor then circulated to X, but Tesla has now denied that those reports are true.

Tesla’s Head of Autopilot and AI, Ashok Elluswamy, revealed that the reports are false:

It would be easy to see how the hire might have been construed as real. Someone appears to have created a fake LinkedIn profile for Kuang, listing the new role at Tesla as their latest career move. The account appeared legitimate and bore all the hallmarks of a genuine page for Kuang, but it has since been removed from the site.

Additionally, there has been some rather high-level turnover at Tesla in recent days. The company recently let go of Omead Afshar, who was widely recognized as CEO Elon Musk’s right-hand man. Afshar assumed the role of North American sales head and European operations head late last year. He has been relieved of his duties, according to a Bloomberg report.

Tesla’s Omead Afshar, known as Elon Musk’s right-hand man, leaves company: reports

Alongside the loss of Afshar, Tesla’s Human Resources Head in Austin, Jenna Ferrua, also left the company this week.

This past week, Tesla launched its Robotaxi platform to a handful of people, marking the first time the company has given driverless rides to members of the public.

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