By Akash Sriram
(Reuters) -Lucid Group Inc said on Tuesday orders for its luxury electric cars slipped in the third quarter from the second, partly due to canceled orders and people fearing long waiting period, sending shares down more than 10% after market hours.
The company said it had more than 34,000 orders in the reported period, down 3,000 reservations from the second quarter, after it delivered about 1,400 vehicles and saw cancellations.
Lucid said it had $3.85 billion in cash, which would sustain the company at least into the fourth quarter of next year.
“The combination of widening losses, a declining reservation count and its ongoing cash burn will do little to alleviate investor concerns surrounding the company,” CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson said.
Chief Finance Officer Sherry House told Reuters in an interview that Lucid would tap into the capital markets as it looks to build a factory in Saudi Arabia.
The company separately said it would raise about $1.5 billion in total through a share sales program and an additional investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
High prices for battery materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have been eating into margins of electric vehicle makers, hurting their bottom line.
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is Lucid’s largest shareholder with a 61% stake, said last week that it would make electric cars in the kingdom under a joint venture named Ceer with Apple Inc supplier Foxconn.
“There’s no direct collaboration (with Ceer) technically, but I think there is a synergistic direction in terms of leveraging supply chain efficiencies,” Lucid Chief Executive Officer Peter Rawlinson told Reuters.
Lucid’s revenue rose to $195.5 million in the third quarter after it delivered 1,398 vehicles, up from 679 vehicles last quarter.
The company’s net loss for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 widened to $670.2 million, or 40 cents per share, from $524.4 million, or 43 cents per share, a year earlier.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)