New ICE Vehicles Banned in California by 2035

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Lantanafrs2

[lucid video]

The CEO is probably going to kill the company. They made 1,550 cars, which isn't a lot for the investment, but they could grow to a Tesla/normal sized manufacture someday. Tesla was in the red and so was Amazon for years before they had a return on their investment. Everyone was talking then how each Tesla sold was losing tens of thousands of dollars.

Tesla burns cash, loses more than $4,000 on every car sold (2015 article)
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/10/tesl...-car-sold.html


Lucid Air CEO might be to blame for this one:

Lucid Built Just 1,550 Airs In Q3, Is Said To Be Losing $338,000 On Each EV Sold
https://www.carscoops.com/2023/10/lu...each-car-sold/

Lucid CEO’s $379 million annual pay draws criticism from billionaire Elon Musk: ‘Beware any company where leadership compensation is not linked to performance’
https://fortune.com/2023/09/05/lucid...-compensation/

$338,000 x 1,550 = $523,900,000.... that - $379,000,000 = $144,900,000 left, so maybe not as much as $338,000 on each car, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the losses are coming from payouts to the C-suite executives. I would imagine the company has plenty of room to lower prices without actually affecting their bottom line.

Oh wait, here we go for 2021. I wonder what the 2023 packages are in total for top executives...

https://www.lucidinsider.com/2022/06...tive-officers/

[alex87f]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

The CEO is probably going to kill the company. They made 1,550 cars, which isn't a lot for the investment, but they could grow to a Tesla/normal sized manufacture someday. Tesla was in the red and so was Amazon for years before they had a return on their investment. Everyone was talking then how each Tesla sold was losing tens of thousands of dollars.

Tesla burns cash, loses more than $4,000 on every car sold (2015 article)
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/10/tesl...-car-sold.html


Lucid Air CEO might be to blame for this one:

Lucid Built Just 1,550 Airs In Q3, Is Said To Be Losing $338,000 On Each EV Sold
https://www.carscoops.com/2023/10/lu...each-car-sold/

Lucid CEO’s $379 million annual pay draws criticism from billionaire Elon Musk: ‘Beware any company where leadership compensation is not linked to performance’
https://fortune.com/2023/09/05/lucid...-compensation/

$338,000 x 1,550 = $523,900,000.... that - $379,000,000 = $144,900,000 left, so maybe not as much as $338,000 on each car, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the losses are coming from payouts to the C-suite executives. I would imagine the company has plenty of room to lower prices without actually affecting their bottom line.

Oh wait, here we go for 2021. I wonder what the 2023 packages are in total for top executives...

https://www.lucidinsider.com/2022/06...tive-officers/

You're comparing Q3 builds with his yearly package .

Also, his 2021 package was 98.3% stock. So:
-it is absolutely linked to company performance despite what Musk says
-it is not cash and has no bearing on the loss per vehicle

Still, this is a huge package for a company that has few actual sales. 380x times the compensation of Rivian's CEO !

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by alex87f

Also, his 2021 package was 98.3% stock.!

That's also the year Rivian went public so likely this is the result of his private shares gaining a monetary value.

[alex87f]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

That's also the year Rivian went public so likely this is the result of his private shares gaining a monetary value.

Was the same last year. $379M including $372M stock.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by alex87f

Was the same last year. $379M including $372M stock.

Basically same answer though, and as you said, tied to company business so not really any real dollar value unless he immediately cashed it out.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by alex87f

You're comparing Q3 builds with his yearly package .

Also, his 2021 package was 98.3% stock. So:
-it is absolutely linked to company performance despite what Musk says
-it is not cash and has no bearing on the loss per vehicle

Still, this is a huge package for a company that has few actual sales. 380x times the compensation of Rivian's CEO !

I think you are confused. The stock awards are currently valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is like them giving him a hundred houses or a small island. The property values can go up if he develops them further, but they are already valued at a lot of money, so yes, the stocks can go up, and he is incentivized to develop the company to perform, but he also could just cash out his stock each year and pay himself from that stock award.

The company can sell their own stock instead of giving it to him, so they can use that investment revenue to balance their books, so to say, so it kind of is tied to the loses.

Also, compare Musk’s stock options/awards at the same point in time in Tesla’s development/sales volume. Big difference.

[alex87f]

I think we're saying the same thing. Yes he has a huge package compared to the company's performance and this is not a good signal (though I'd be surprised if Musk said something positive about one of his competitors).

But on the other hand, he is incentivized by being paid with stock and not the main reason Lucid is losing money. I'm also not sure he can sell such a huge amount of shares every year without upsetting the market somewhat. I'm not a trader but you'd have to compare what he has with how much value is being traded every day / week / month.

Likely the main issue is massive investment to bring their SUV to the market, combined with surprisingly dropping production numbers: https://insideevs.com/news/676539/lu...veries-2023q2/

[Dadhawk]

Beyond the corporate compensation, Lucid to me appears to have either a production, transport or sales problem as pointed in the InsideEVs article.

As a company they are not sustainable at their current level of sales. Tesla, even in its early days, had other financial resources besides car sales (SMOG credits sales, etc) and they ramped up volume on a reasonable scale to become profitable.

Lucid, as far as I can tell isn't doing any of that and is burning cash. 10,000 vehicles is nothing if it is your primary product line. Cadillac has produced @ least 13,047 LYRIQs in the 2024 model year and they are thought to be doing nothing. (That's the VIN on mine, built on 11/15)

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

That's also the year Rivian went public so likely this is the result of his private shares gaining a monetary value.

Why are you mentioning Rivian? :dunno:

These are new shares, not old shares. They had a value at the time they were awarded of hundreds of millions of dollars. He could cash them out or continue to invest and develop the company.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Basically same answer though, and as you said, tied to company business so not really any real dollar value unless he immediately cashed it out.

Again, not really. It has real dollar value like everything in life. They could have paid him in Bitcoin, property, loafs of bread, cash, etc. It all has value. If they gave him stock options and cash, and he bought hundreds of millions in stock then it would still be the same outcome that he owns those stocks and is now invested in the company, but the point is the company is young and still fairly modest in their scale, yet they are paying huge wages/packages to their CEO disproportionate to their profit.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by alex87f

I think we're saying the same thing. Yes he has a huge package compared to the company's performance and this is not a good signal (though I'd be surprised if Musk said something positive about one of his competitors).

But on the other hand, he is incentivized by being paid with stock and not the main reason Lucid is losing money. I'm also not sure he can sell such a huge amount of shares every year without upsetting the market somewhat. I'm not a trader but you'd have to compare what he has with how much value is being traded every day / week / month.

Likely the main issue is massive investment to bring their SUV to the market, combined with surprisingly dropping production numbers: https://insideevs.com/news/676539/lu...veries-2023q2/

I'm going off this, and I am assuming their losses are tied to all expenses relative to revenue:

What is Stock Based Compensation?

Under US GAAP, stock based compensation (SBC) is recognized as a non-cash expense on the income statement. Specifically, SBC expense is an operating expense (just like wages) and is allocated to the relevant operating line items:

SBC issued to direct labor is allocated to cost of goods sold.
SBC to R&D engineers is included within R&D expenses.
SBC for management and those involved in selling and marketing is included in SG&A and other operating expenses.
Link

The EV makers’ net loss grew to $630.9 million in Q3. Lucid’s losses reached $2.17 billion through the first nine months of the year. Link





This graph starts with the Model S and not the Roadster, so that is what was sold from June of 2012 to December of 2012, which is like two quarters of 1300 cars, which is about what Lucid is doing now. More like one quarter of 900 and the second quarter of 1700, or something, but yeah, about what Lucid is doing now per quarter.

Compare that to what Musk received. Stock awards and stock options are two different things. Musk was given the right to buy 5.3 million shares of the company, which at $31 would be about $150 million, so he was investing his own money into the company, meaning if he cashed them out and ran then he would be right where he started, so he was incentivized to see the company grow. Read about his ability to cash them out too. The stocks didn't vest until later, and he needed to hit milestones. Completely different scenario.

Unless I am mistaken about Lucid's CEO's stock awards, he could cash out tomorrow, and he would be hundreds of millions of dollars, if not almost a billion dollars, richer. This doesn't mean he will, but if things get too hard, or if he just loses motivation, there is little skin off his back unless the stock rapidly tanks overnight, but in general, this is poor management, IMO. You don't give a CEO $500 million in stock/cash when the company is only bringing in $150 million in revenue per quarter, stock is crashing 90%, and net loses are in the billions.Link


Tesla’s Elon Musk paid $70,000 in 2013
https://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/25/tesl...0-in-2013.html

Tesla Motors
CEO Elon Musk was paid just under $70,000 in 2013. But he could be in line for much, much more.

According to a Tesla filing with regulators Thursday, Musk made a base salary of $33,280 in 2013. That was the minimum he was required to make under California law. He got an additional $36,709 in company bonuses.

Tesla says Musk, the billionaire founder of PayPal and rocket-building company SpaceEx, only accepts $1 and returns the rest to the company.

Tesla’s Elon Musk May Have Boldest Pay Plan in Corporate History
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/b...-musk-pay.html

The company is planning to announce on Tuesday Mr. Musk’s new compensation plan, and it is perhaps the most radical in corporate history: Mr. Musk will be paid only if he reaches a series of jaw-dropping milestones based on the company’s market value and operations. Otherwise, he will be paid nothing.

Tesla has set a dozen targets, each $50 billion more than the next, starting at $100 billion, then $150 billion, then $200 billion and so on, all the way to a market value of $650 billion. In addition, the company has set a dozen revenue and adjusted profit goals. Mr. Musk would receive 1.68 million shares, or about 1 percent of the company, only after he reaches milestones for both.

But to put these numbers in perspective, Tesla is worth only about $59 billion today.

[Lantanafrs2]

The price chart says the company is on its way out. It might need a bankruptcy to continue but institutions generally don't buy penny stocks, which is where this is heading. Btw I've learned this the hard way.

[Dadhawk]

@Irace86.2.0 yes, Musk accepted less in salary during those "lean" years. At that point Musk was already a billionaire so he could well afford to do that for what were, for him, passion projects. I respect him for putting his money where his passion is, but I'm not sure it's as magnanimous as you are seemingly making it out to be.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

Why are you mentioning Rivian? :dunno

Sorry meant Lucid June 21,2021. I was having a side conversation in my office at the same time with a guy thinking of purchasing a Rivian. Just more proof I can't multitask!