All discussion of Lucid Motors

[mltv]

I find this Lucid's confusing road to going public describe the SPAC deal best.

 

[Doggydogworld]

You've just described pretty much every SPAC, and I'm not joking.

...... Every single SPAC merger candidate I've seen was not ready to be public and wouldn't have passed muster in a traditional IPO.

Great comment overall, but I had to laugh at this part remembering the garbage companies that "passed muster" and did traditional IPOs at the tail end of the dotcom bubble.

Traditional IPO requres jumping through a bunch of disclosure of audit hoops, but neither process requires the company itself have any value whatsoever.

 

[uujjj2]

The decision on when to ship a product is a business decision, not a technical decision. It's impossible to fix all the bugs and ship in a reasonable timeframe. It's a question of how many bugs are ok.

If finances are tight, that threshold level of bugs tends to go up. If finances are abundant, competition is far behind, and your reputation is on the line, the threshold level of bugs goes down.

This is where last minute delays come from. Management thinks the current level of bugs is ok, but then early access customers/investors/regulators push back.

 

[uujjj2]

Elon, at least in the early days, had a pretty high bug threshold. Here's the ugly truth: You can fix bugs faster if you're shipping lots of units to customers than if you just have a few dozen units in house. Customers are great at finding bugs! So to reach some X threshold of bug-free-ness, you can get there faster if you ship prematurely and let your customers find all the bugs. And you can get away with this if you're developing some really radical technology and marketing it only to early adopter customers.

I worked at a machine learning chip startup, one with some pretty radical technology, and the CEO explained the sort of customers you wanted for the first batch and which customers were a no-no. As he explained it, you want customers that aren't in a time crunch. They want your product for bragging rights but they don't really need it to make next month's payroll. Universities and national labs are the best. Then researchy companies like OpenAI. Big Japanese companies? Automakers? Yeah, they can wait for gen 2.

So here's the deal with early Tesla versus Lucid. Early Tesla was selling cars mostly to techies here in California. Lucid is marketing "true luxury" to Saudi royals. You can see how the bug threshold is going to be a lot different.

 

[RobStark]

So here's the deal with early Tesla versus Lucid. Early Tesla was selling cars mostly to techies here in California. Lucid is marketing "true luxury" to Saudi royals. You can see how the bug threshold is going to be a lot different.

So all the members of the House of Saud live in the USA and reserved 3 Airs each?

 

[DonaldBecker]

The decision on when to ship a product is a business decision, not a technical decision. It's impossible to fix all the bugs and ship in a reasonable timeframe. It's a question of how many bugs are ok.

The decision to ship a software product is a business decision. (I've been in that business.)

Shipping a vehicle isn't that kind of decision. If you don't have a way to build the product, or you don't have parts, you aren't shipping the product.

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

How Churchill Capital IV's Soaring Stock Led to a Better Deal for Early Investors | The Motley Fool

 

[alloverx]

Perhaps the question is,
If you have the resources to build the cars but dont have sufficient resources for speedy/thorough QA then what do you do?
Also depends on how much authority QA has. Perhaps they find issues but they are ignored by "management".

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I find this Lucid's confusing road to going public describe the

This article seems to imply investors simply don't understand SPACs enough, but that investors should very happy with CCIV. I see no clarifying details at all.

Looks like essentially reverse FUD.

 

[tivoboy]

Do you think the delay in initial deliveries will be me with suspicion for further delays?

 

[mltv]

Do you think the delay in initial deliveries will be me with suspicion for further delays?

I think it is tough to build a factory outside of Detroit. I believe that the Lordstown, Rivian getting some help from Detroit automakers go along way and will be deliver ahead of Lucid. Fisker do not even try. It is hard to do what Tesla does.

 

[Doggydogworld]

I think it is tough to build a factory outside of Detroit. I believe that the Lordstown, Rivian getting some help from Detroit automakers go along way and will be deliver ahead of Lucid. Fisker do not even try. It is hard to do what Tesla does.

Lucid plans to use the parts and supply infrastructure that has built up in northern Mexico the past couple decades. Peter Hochholdinger started up the Audi plant in San José Chiapa before joining Tesla, so he presumably knows about sourcing parts in Mexico. Though the Audi plant isn't in the north, and is actually almost as far from Arizona as Detroit.

What surprised me a bit is Lucid won't stamp their own body panels to start out. I don't know who does that for them.

 

[uujjj2]

What surprised me a bit is Lucid won't stamp their own body panels to start out. I don't know who does that for them.

Tesla's arrangement of stamping on-site is actually unusual, inherited from NUMMI, at least according to the tour guide at the Fremont plant. Most traditional automaker assembly plants don't have on-site stamping.

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

Anyone know when the official merger date is ?

and what the new ticker for CCIV will be ?

LUCD would be ideal.

 

[DonaldBecker]

Tesla's arrangement of stamping on-site is actually unusual, inherited from NUMMI, at least according to the tour guide at the Fremont plant. Most traditional automaker assembly plants don't have on-site stamping.

I can guess a reason for that.
NUMMI was a tariff avoidance scheme, errmm, optimization. 'Knock-down' assembly plants avoid tariffs by importing a whole vehicle as parts, and assemble them locally. That wasn't a high enough percent content to avoid the tariff here. So the high-value components, engines and electronics, were imported. Large and heavy-for-their-value parts were fabricated locally.

 

[mltv]

Tesla's arrangement of stamping on-site is actually unusual, inherited from NUMMI, at least according to the tour guide at the Fremont plant. Most traditional automaker assembly plants don't have on-site stamping.

I assume that building own stamping is capital intensive for low volume manufacturing. Probably wise for them to invest in stamping at a later date or for higher volume vehicle.

 

[RobStark]

Anyone know when the official merger date is ?

and what the new ticker for CCIV will be ?

LUCD would be ideal.

It will be LCID. The deal is expected to close by the end of June 21.

Lucid Motors Is Going Public: A First Look at a Huge EV Deal | The Motley Fool

 

[uujjj2]

I assume that building own stamping is capital intensive for low volume manufacturing. Probably wise for them to invest in stamping at a later date or for higher volume vehicle.

Indeed. Stamping presses are really expensive, unless it's 2009 and you can get them almost for free from a recently shuttered car factory. But a single press line can produce stampings for hundreds of thousands of vehicles.

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

Lucid Motors CEO takes Air out for public test drive without camo - Electrek

Lucid Motor's CEO Peter Rawlinson recently took a release candidate Air out for a test drive to evaluate its dynamics before production.

electrek.co

Video of Rawlinson driving an uncamoflaged pre-production Air.

if you pause the video, you can get a look at the interior.

 

[chronoreverse]

I really do like the look of the Air both inside and outside. The more the merrier anyway.