Saudi Oil Money Keeps the Lights On as Lucid Sends $2.7B Up in Electric Smoke

Public Reminder: just because Saudi royalty keeps wiring you billions… doesn’t mean gravity suddenly stops applying to your income statement. -signed Lucid and LIV Golf.

Fun fact: The PIF has more money than Bezos, Ellison, Gates, and Warren Buffett combined… yet somehow convincing Americans to watch 54 holes of shotgun-start golf remains harder than turning an EV startup profitable.

After widely missing earnings expectations in Q4 2025… the Tesla wannabe (-4%) decided the best defense was a full-court press on “structural progress” and “repeatable operating cadence.”Translation? “We’re losing money. But we’re losing it more efficiently now. Please clap.”

Here’s what actually happened.

Lucid reported $523M in Q4 revenue, beating estimates by about 12%. For the full year, revenue jumped 68% to $1.35B. And yes, considering that’s real growth… it's commendable.

Then came the part that really took the wind out of its metaphorical sail…

Last month, Lucid said it produced 18,378 vehicles in 2025. This week? Scratch that. It’s 17,840. Why? Because 538 vehicles didn’t complete final validation procedures. Imagine telling Wall Street, “Yeah, the cars exist… they just aren’t officially cars yet. By the way, have you seen our Timothy Chalamet ad?”

(Source: Yahoo Finance)

Still (even with the revision) Lucid nearly doubled production versus 2024’s 9,000 units. So credit where it’s due. The assembly line is at least moving (and not like the Nikola moving where it’s actually just rolling downhill).

And because no earnings call is complete without it, here comes the grand vision. Lucid says it will produce 25,000 to 27,000 EVs in 2026, a 40% to 50% jump from 2025 levels. Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff described it as “healthy,” not “outrageous.” In other words: “We’re ambitious, but we’ve learned our lesson about overpromising.”

With PIF playing billionaire life support, Lucid finished the year sitting on $4.6B in liquidity and says it’s funded into early 2027. Which again, sounds amazing on paper. Only small issue? They still lost $2.7B in 2025… and managed to flush $814M down the toilet in Q4 alone.

Oh… and they laid off 12% of U.S. salaried staff to “streamline operations.” Corporate America’s favorite magic trick: disappear the expenses.

Looking ahead, the Gravity SUV is expected to carry most of the 2026 volume. The cheaper midsize SUV (starting around $50,000) begins production later this year but won’t materially impact 2026 totals. Robotaxis are also in the pipeline with previously announced partners.

So here we are. Lucid says production is stabilizing. Margins are improving structurally. Costs are being cut. And profitability remains… albeit, “somewhere over the horizon.”

But for me, the real question isn’t whether they can build 27,000 cars. It’s whether they can actually sell them. Welcome to another quarter where Lucid swears it’s on the path to profitability. Wall Street would like to see the map.

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