Key Takeaways
- Lucid stock fell 24% in the past month after its 3,806 third-quarter deliveries missed analysts’ estimates.
- Lucid planned the miss when it cut production to sell down inventory, but the bigger question now is how long its cash lasts.
- On Oct. 6, Lucid borrowed another $400 million from its Saudi-backed loan, which leaves about $400 million to draw, and analysts have cut their targets as low as $3.
- Third-quarter results on Nov. 9 will show whether cash burn fell from the second quarter’s $1.48 billion, and the stock isn’t a buy until then.
Lucid Group (LCID) stock is down 24% in the past month (through Monday’s close), while the S&P 500 rose 0.6%. A delivery miss started the slide, and Wall Street has spent the weeks since cutting its targets.
A miss Lucid saw coming
After the close on Oct. 5, Lucid said it delivered 3,806 vehicles in the third quarter and built just 2,954. Both numbers fell well short of what analysts expected, and output dropped 38% from the second quarter.
But Lucid mostly did this on purpose. It cut the second shift at its Arizona plant in June, and CEO Silvio Napoli warned on the August call that volumes would come in below Wall Street’s numbers. Deliveries ran 852 cars ahead of production, so Lucid was selling cars it had already built and turning them into cash. That’s part of its plan to improve cash flow by $1.4 billion this year.
Still, analysts’ full-year delivery estimate would now take about 6,200 deliveries in the fourth quarter. Lucid’s best quarter ever was 5,345.
Wall Street piles on
BNP Paribas analyst James Picariello kept his Sell rating and $3.50 target on Oct. 6. He said the “lackluster” quarter backs his view that Lucid faces a “long and difficult journey” to fix its operations.
Cantor Fitzgerald held its $8 target. But the cuts kept coming: RBC went to $4 from $7 on Oct. 12, and Morgan Stanley went to $3 from $5 on Oct. 15. That’s right about where the stock closed Monday.
Late on Friday, Oct. 9, Lucid disclosed that it had drawn another $400 million from its term loan with an affiliate of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. That leaves about $400 million still available. RBC’s cut came the next trading day, and the stock fell 9.4%.
Lucid had company, too. Rivian (RIVN) fell 17.7% over the same month, even though its third-quarter deliveries were a record and topped estimates. And Lucid’s worst day, a 10.6% drop on Oct. 16, came with no company news at all. If Rivian can beat estimates and still slide, some of this selling is about EV stocks as a group.
It all comes down to cash
Lucid has burned between $2.9 billion and $3.8 billion of free cash flow every year since 2022.
And it’s getting worse. Free cash flow was -$1.48 billion in the second quarter alone, compared with -$1.24 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025. Lucid had $3 billion of liquidity at June 30, which covers roughly two quarters at that pace.
Management still says its cash lasts “well into 2027.” That only holds if the burn falls fast.
Nov. 9 is the test
Lucid reports third-quarter results on Nov. 9, with its call at 5:30 pm ET. The number to watch is the burn, set against the second quarter’s $1.48 billion. Watch the liquidity update management promised too, and any news on its robotaxi launch, due in late 2026.
Cheap for a reason
The Street’s mean target of $7.39 is more than double Monday’s close. But it was over $23 a year ago, and analysts have been cutting their targets to keep up with the falling stock.
And the low target is now $3.
On sales, Lucid has never looked cheaper. It trades at 0.6x forward sales, the lowest on TIKR’s chart in five years.
My take: Lucid isn’t a buy before Nov. 9. It has about $400 million left on its main loan and burned $1.48 billion in a single quarter, so another raise looks likely (this is speculation). BNP’s “long and difficult journey” sounds about right to me.
Of course, if the third-quarter burn drops sharply and the robotaxi launch happens on time, 0.6x sales could look awfully cheap in hindsight.
So what is Lucid stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR’s valuation model and see what Lucid could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
