I don’t know about you, but I’ve been burned enough times by “too good to be true” deals that I now read the fine print like it’s a prenup… and at this point, I just assume every clause ends with “by the way, you lose everything and your grandma’s house.” Apparently, Wall Street just did the same with Lucid’s big Uber partnership (except they did it after the purchase).

Needless to say, things haven’t been looking too hot for the Saudi-backed EV company. Lucid stock is down 33% since July 17, when the company dropped the PR equivalent of a shirtless gym mirror selfie… boasting that Uber was investing $300 million to support a fleet of 20,000 robotaxis.

On the surface, it looked like a resurrection. The stock ripped 50% in a week, and analysts (like they normally do) started talking like Lucid had just cured erectile dysfunction and solved L.A. traffic using the same circuit board. The phrase “$10 trillion robotaxi market” got thrown around like candy at a Halloween parade, as if Uber was about to knight Lucid as the chosen one while Elon sobbed in the corner whispering, “But… but Optimus…”

(Source: CNBC)

But then something wild happened… Investors read paragraph two. And unless you were shorting the stock (or smart enough to load up on puts before the smoke cleared), what you found under the hood was rough.

It turns out… Uber’s not buying 20,000 vehicles upfront. The order is spread out over six years (SIX), which means just 3,300 cars per year… barely enough to cover a few zip codes in Scottsdale. It’s not enough to hit scale, it’s not enough to move the needle, and it damn sure isn’t enough to justify Lucid’s $90,000+ EV lineup and multi-billion-dollar factory.

Then there’s something that’s arguably the most important part… the money. Uber’s $300 million investment is already gone (literally). Lucid blew $539 million in Q2 alone. That cash infusion buys them about 55 days of operations… and that’s assuming they unplug the office electricity and maybe cut Phil Mickelson from LIV Golf.

Another thing the marketing headlines didn’t make crystal clear is that this isn’t a joint venture. It’s not a co-owned fleet. Uber owns the platform… the app, the riders, the revenue, the autonomy IP. Lucid is just the parts guy. They build the cars, hand them over, and hope Uber doesn’t bail halfway through and swap them out for a cheaper date with BYD. 

And that’s a dangerous spot to be in, because Lucid’s core business is still broken. In Q2, they delivered just 2,394 vehicles, a 29% drop from the previous quarter. Only 1,404 of those were Lucid Airs… a car that starts at $82,400 after tax credits. Not to mention Hyundai is outselling them 10-to-1 in the EV space and Tesla is cutting prices to get rid of their inventory.

And if you're a shareholder hoping to wait this thing out, now’s a good time to talk about dilution (your worst enemy).

Lucid has doubled its share count since going public in 2021, skyrocketing from 1.6 billion to over 3.6 billion shares outstanding. That includes a $1.8 billion secondary offering in June, conveniently timed right before they dropped the Uber headline. (Nice little pump-and-print maneuver, fellas.)

So even if this six-year Uber deal magically works (and that’s a flaming-hot if) your ownership slice is now a crumb on a plate someone else already licked.

And let’s not forget who’s been bankrolling this parade: the Saudi Public Investment Fund. They’ve already poured over $5.4 billion into Lucid, and own more than 60% of the company. But even with a kingdom’s worth of oil money backing them, Lucid still can’t scale. They can’t ship cars. They can’t manage costs. They can’t do sh*t.

The truth is, if you give someone a blank check and they still can’t figure it out, maybe they never will. Lucid’s had three years, two stock market pumps, and one of the richest investors on Earth backing them… and they still managed to turn a luxury EV brand into a slow-motion trainwreck with leather seats. If you’re still bullish here, God bless your optimism.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Uber and Tesla as mentioned in the article.