Lucid Motors is elevating one other $1 billion from its greatest monetary backer, Saudi Arabia, because it seems to be to blunt the excessive prices related to constructing and promoting its luxurious electrical sedan.
The corporate introduced in a Monday morning regulatory submitting that Ayar Third Funding, an affiliate of Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, has agreed to buy $1 billion value of Lucid’s inventory, which can add to the Kingdom’s present stake of round 60% possession.
The contemporary funding comes only a few weeks after Lucid informed traders that it solely plans to construct round 9,000 of its Air electrical automobiles this yr, a slight bump over final yr’s output. It misplaced $2.8 billion in 2023 and completed the yr with simply shy of $1.4 billion in money and equivalents.
The corporate has struggled to search out keen consumers for its costly Air sedan, and has reduce costs a number of instances in latest months in an effort to spice up gross sales. Lucid additionally plans to begin constructing its electrical Gravity SUV on the finish of this yr.
Lucid introduced the funding lower than three weeks after CEO Peter Rawlinson informed the Monetary Occasions that he was cautious of relying too closely on Saudi Arabia to maintain shoveling cash into its proverbial furnace. “If I undertake a mindset that there’s bottomless wealth from PIF, that may be very harmful, that’s one thing I’ll by no means do, I respect them far an excessive amount of for that,” Rawlinson stated on the time.