I am going to inform anybody who will hear that the Lucid Air is, in my humble estimation, just about the perfect electrical automobile you should buy in America right this moment. The one downside is that it is an costly electrical luxurious sedan tasked with retaining a promising startup afloat at a time when the market is transferring away from all of these issues. Some assistance is lastly on the best way within the type of the Lucid Gravity SUV, but it surely too arrives at a second of profound uncertainty.
Can the family-friendly Gravity transfer the needle for Lucid Motors in 2025 and past? We’ll have a look at that on right this moment’s version of Crucial Supplies, our morning roundup of business and tech information. Additionally on faucet right this moment: South Korea has been cooking up a battery increase within the U.S., however now it is getting nervous about its prospects beneath the incoming Trump administration, and Rivian’s inventory worth appears poised to finish 2025 on a excessive notice. Let’s dig in.
30%: Defying Gravity
Picture by: Lucid Motors
Manufacturing of the Lucid Gravity formally kicked off final week on the startup’s Casa Grande, Arizona manufacturing facility, making good on a promise to take action earlier than 2024 drew to an in depth. Lucid Motors’ CEO Peter Rawlinson marked the event with these social media posts exhibiting the primary automotive driving off the meeting line:
It is laborious to overstate simply how a lot Lucid wants this automotive—and wishes it to be a hit. The California-based EV startup, now majority-owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, has carried out about all it in all probability can for now with the Air sedan and its starting-at-$70,000 price ticket. Now it wants extra mainstream fashions that may attraction to a wider viewers, which can hopefully pay the payments till it will possibly get extra reasonably priced mass-volume EVs on the street. Should you consider the Lucid Air as a stand-in for the Tesla Mannequin S, then the Gravity is the Mannequin X till Lucid’s “Mission Midsize” can successfully change into its Mannequin Y.
Besides I would wager that the Mannequin X was by no means fairly the hit Tesla wished it to be, and Lucid has no room for error at this level in its rise. Here is the newest from Automotive Information on its monetary scenario:
Lucid wants the Gravity to be successful, analysts stated. The EV maker reported a third-quarter internet lack of $950 million. That was wider than its second-quarter internet lack of $790 million and its first-quarter internet lack of $681 million. Lucid is majority owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund. The corporate stated in its third-quarter earnings report that it had $1.9 billion in money and money equivalents as of Sept. 30.
Lucid’s inventory worth was down by about 50 % from the beginning of the 12 months to its closing worth Dec. 5.
After which there’s the query of worth. The three-row Gravity will begin gross sales with the pretty loaded Grand Touring trim, and that can imply beginning at $96,550 out of the gate. Extra reasonably priced variations are anticipated to roll out however not till late 2025, and it is unclear if buyer deliveries will begin subsequent 12 months or within the remaining weeks of this one. At any time when that begins taking place, we’ll be wanting carefully at whether or not Gravity gross sales can propel Lucid to a extra secure monetary footing and show to be a winner with consumers.
By itself, the Gravity appears to be a really spectacular SUV; I’ve solely sat in a number of examples at auto reveals thus far but it surely’s fairly the stunner. The Grand Touring will pack an impressive 440 miles of vary as effectively. We’ll have extra on InsideEVs this week about what to anticipate from Lucid’s subsequent act.
60%: Korea’s $54 Billion ‘Battery Growth’ In The U.S. Appears to be like Unsure Below Trump
Picture by: InsideEVs
GM Ultium platform with Samsung SDI prismatic batteries
Latest unpleasantness apart, America has each cause on this planet to need to preserve South Korea as a great buddy. It is a essential buying and selling companion, a like-minded ally in a area more and more dominated by China and an enormous know-how investor on this nation as effectively. South Korea’s battery experience and business are in all probability second total to China’s (albeit a really distant second, sadly) so the U.S. does want its assist to catch up there.
But the copious battery plant investments within the U.S. from firms like LG, SK On, Samsung and varied suppliers are beginning to look a little bit unsure if the incoming Trump administration does in truth revoke the Inflation Discount Act’s EV tax breaks and different subsidies. Here is Bloomberg to elucidate:
Some Korean firms have slowed or hit the pause button on any ongoing building of some crops as a result of they’re involved about lowered demand for EVs and what Trump would do throughout a second time period within the White Home, folks accustomed to the matter stated, asking to not be recognized as a result of sensitivity of the difficulty. Posco Future M, which makes cathodes for Basic Motors Co., stated in a submitting in September that it’s delaying the completion of its plant in Quebec resulting from “native circumstances.”
Though firms haven’t taken any motion but, many are “anxious” about to what diploma Trump would slash authorities incentives for the EV market, stated Kenny Kim, chief govt officer at SNE Analysis, a Seoul-based analysis agency that focuses on Korean battery makers.
Ending lots of of billions of {dollars} in subsidies, tax credit and different incentives would threaten tens of hundreds of US jobs and undo years of labor shifting the worldwide EV provide chain away from China. It might additionally hit the earnings of Korean corporations, key US companions within the effort to cut back reliance on Chinese language suppliers, at a time once they’re already affected by weaker demand for EVs and falling battery costs.
After which there’s the issue with China. Trump’s calculus there could possibly be fairly completely different from Biden’s, together with permitting extra of that nation’s battery crops to speculate right here as a part of some sort of broader commerce deal. This is able to be devastating to such an necessary U.S. ally:
Korean firms additionally fear Trump may permit Chinese language battery firms to enter the US. China’s Up to date Amperex Know-how Co. Ltd, or CATL, stated it is going to take into account constructing a US plant if Trump opens the door, Reuters reported final month.
The IRA has thus far blocked investments from China, asking carmakers to step by step cut back sourcing crucial battery minerals from “international entities of concern.”
“China’s entry to the US could be a catastrophe for Korea,” stated Park Chulwan, a professor within the automotive engineering division at Seojeong College. “Chinese language battery corporations would supply a lot decrease costs.”
We’re in for a really attention-grabbing 12 months forward.
90%: Wall Road Will get Extra Optimistic About Rivian
Picture by: InsideEVs
However hey, it isn’t all doom and gloom on the EV entrance. Should you’re a fan of Rivian, or have cash within the firm, issues are wanting up with its inventory worth. RIVN has gained fairly a bit over the previous month amid its funding from Volkswagen, declining gross sales of electrical opponents, a $6.6 billion Division of Power mortgage and a more healthy total steadiness sheet. From The Motley Idiot:
Rivian’s R1T is one in every of just some electrical pickup truck choices. Tesla has entered the market with its distinctive Cybertruck, however the R1T’s largest competitors is arguably Ford’s F-150 Lightning. And it is information in regards to the Ford EV that will have had Rivian inventory leaping by almost 10% Friday morning. At 1:55 p.m. ET, Rivian shares nonetheless held on to a acquire of 4.5%. The transfer has helped Rivian inventory log a rise of greater than 20% within the final month.
Final month, Rivian advised buyers it expects to ship between 50,500 and 52,000 EVs this 12 months. That will solely barely surpass 2023 deliveries. However the firm additionally just lately supplied encouraging information associated to its future capital place. And it’s getting ready to begin manufacturing of its next-generation R2 platform subsequent 12 months as effectively.
That has bolstered the inventory just lately, and yesterday it acquired one other enhance when Ford launched its November automobile gross sales replace. That is as a result of gross sales of Ford’s F-150 Lightning plunged by 17% final month 12 months over 12 months.
Nonetheless, Rivian is a protracted methods off from the launch of the R2. We’ll see the way it can preserve this momentum going within the meantime.
100%: What EV Maker Are You Most Optimistic About?
Picture by: Lucid Motors
Conventional, startup and even Chinese language: Which firm or firms do you assume have the juice in 2025 and past? Tell us within the feedback beneath.
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