“We launched products before they were ready”: Lucid delays its affordable EV

New bosses rarely talk like this. On Lucid’s second-quarter earnings call, chief executive Silvio Napoli read out a list of the company’s own failures. “We have disappointed on several fronts, and for far too long,” he said.

“We missed commitments, launched products before they were ready, underinvested in service, responded too slowly to quality issues, and allowed complexity to slow decisions down,” Napoli went on. His verdict on the company he took over in June was blunt: “Potential is not performance.”

The affordable EV slips to 2027

The confession came with a cost. Lucid is pushing back its midsize Cosmos, a roughly $50,000 crossover and its first mainstream car, from this year to the second half of 2027. That is a delay of almost a full year, TechCrunch reported.

The reason is quality. Lucid’s two current cars, the Air saloon and the Gravity SUV, suffer from software glitches, including key fob and infotainment faults, owners told Business Insider. Napoli’s predecessor once apologised to them directly.

Napoli says the next launch will be different. Lucid has added “quality gates,” checks a car must clear before it ships. The Cosmos “will launch only when every process and quality requirement has been met,” he said. He would not repeat the mistakes of the past.

A costly pause

The delay is a gamble of its own. The Cosmos was meant to be the cheaper, higher-volume car that finally lifts Lucid beyond its niche of pricey saloons. Every month it slips, rivals gain ground. Rivian started delivering its R2 in June. Tesla has just brought its three-row Model Y to the US.

The wait is expensive. Lucid posted a $1.26bn net loss for the quarter, even as revenue rose 56% to $405m. Investors were unimpressed, and the stock fell more than 15%. The company has about $3bn in liquidity and says that funds it well into 2027.

Napoli is not only delaying cars. Since taking over he has rebuilt the leadership team, dropped a factory shift, and set out a $1.4bn cost-savings plan that leans on a robotaxi partnership with Uber and Nuro. It all rests on one bet: fix the basics now, and there is a company worth saving underneath.

He has cover to be blunt. Napoli arrived in June, so the failures he named are his predecessors’, not his own. Whether the candour reads as a fresh start or an admission of how deep the trouble runs, it has already cost customers the cheaper Lucid they were promised this year. Weeks earlier, the company had to deny that bankruptcy was on the table.