Lucid ex-COO Marc Winterhoff said the company's partnership with Uber and Nuro was meant to deliver robotaxis fast and with capital discipline.
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Lucid Motors made a round of cuts that show how the EV maker is tightening its belt as it pursues an ambitious future in the midsize car market and robotaxis.Lucid said on Monday that it would cut about 18% of its US workforce, including eliminating the chief operating officer role held by Marc Winterhoff. Winterhoff also served as interim CEO for less than two years before Silvio Napoli was tapped for the role in April.In a securities filing, Lucid said it made the move to advance the company's path toward profitability and positive cash flow.The cuts come at a pivotal time for the company. Lucid has yet to prove that it can profitably scale its EV business. At an investor day in March, it laid out a sprawling future to diversify its vehicle lineup with sub-$50,000 midsize SUVs and to lay a stake in autonomous driving and robotaxis.Winterhoff told Business Insider in April that the company's robotaxi bet was deliberately designed to keep spending in check and avoid the kind of capital burn that would be required if Lucid had built a robotaxi operation from the ground up."Our strategy is to offer solutions to individual customers and our robotaxi customers fast and, from our side, minimal deployment of capital investment in order to not hamper our way to profitability," he said, adding that robotaxi was a "second leg" for Lucid to stand on next to personally-owned vehicles.Lucid is pursuing robotaxis through a partnership with Uber and Nuro, targeting a commercial launch in San Francisco later this year. Uber is committing $500 million to supply at least 35,000 vehicles from Lucid, including 10,000 Gravity SUVs, Winterhoff said.
