EV Maker Lucid cuts production prospects in half

“This quarter has proven to be a very challenging time, and while we have faced supply chain and logistics challenges along with the entire industry, the constraints of our logistics systems have compounded the challenge,” said CEO Peter Rawlinson.

He said supply chain issues and infrastructure upgrades contributed to two and a half weeks in which the company was without daily production at its Arizona plant. He said the company had identified internal bottlenecks and was working to mitigate them.

Shares of Lucid fell nearly 13% in premarket trading Thursday. Before the updated guidance, the stock had fallen 46% in 2022.

Lucid and other EV makers have faced increasing competition, rising prices and supply problems. A wave of battery-powered vehicles, from startups including Vietnam’s VinFast to giants like Toyota Motor Corp.

and Volkswagen AG

, are scheduled to hit showrooms in the coming months. A rapidly growing group of consumers wants to buy them, analysts and carmakers say.

The challenge is profit. Costs are rising for key electric vehicle components, including steel for vehicle bodies and lithium for batteries. And a global shortage of semiconductors has resulted in factories operating at less than full capacity while they await deliveries of computer chips.

Lucid said in May it would raise the price of its only vehicle, the Air sedan, to $87,000, citing rising raw material costs.

For the quarter ended in June, Lucid’s loss narrowed to $220 million from $261 million a year earlier, despite rising expenses. Lucid said it delivered 679 vehicles to customers during the quarter, compared with 360 vehicles in the first quarter.

As investor appetite for electric vehicle startups wanes, these businesses are saving cash. Manufacturer of electric trucks and SUVs Rivian Automotive Inc.,

laid off 6% of its workforce last week, saying it wanted to ensure it could meet its production targets without raising more cash.

Lucid said it had $4.6 billion in cash, up from $5.4 billion as of March 31, which the company said will allow the company to continue operating through 2023. Revenue for the quarter rose to 97 million dollars, up from $174,000 a year earlier.

Lucid faces a number of competitors from luxury car makers such as Mercedes-Benz and Tesla Inc.

Another rival, Fisker Inc.,

said Wednesday that its second-quarter net loss widened to $106 million, compared with $46 million last year. Fisker said it has more than $850 million in cash and cash equivalents, up from $1.2 billion at the start of the year.

Fisker plans to start production of its first product, the Ocean SUV, in November. The company said it had 5,000 pre-orders of the original Ocean offering, which costs $69,000. More than 56,000 people overall have reserved the SUV, Fisker said, up from 45,000 at the end of the first quarter.

Fisker said it also had 4,000 reservations for a crossover SUV with a base price under $30,000. It expects to start production of the cheapest vehicle by 2024 as part of a partnership with Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group.

Fisker’s stock is down nearly 38% this year through Wednesday.

Write to Sean McLain at sean.mclain@wsj.com and Ryan Felton at ryan.felton@wsj.com