Electric vehicle sales continue to rev up, especially among affluent buyers who are insulated from higher interest rates and other economic challenges.
Still, industrywide EV sales are surging and, for the first time, are on track in 2023 to exceed 1 million vehicles sold. Helped by, the number of cars and trucks sold jumped 45% in the first quarter to a record 259,000 vehicles, putting the electric share at an all-time high of 7.2% of all vehicles sold, according to Cox Automotive and its Kelley Blue Book team.
Sales of luxury vehicles have rolled along because affluent households are"less susceptible to the shifting economic turmoil,” said Mark Schirmer, a spokesman at Cox Automotive. Higher interest rates on auto loans are affecting lower-income customers much more, he added. Many high-end auto buyers instead pay in cash.
However, Lucid’s sales are slowing and output has pared back. In this year’s first quarter, Lucid made 2,314 cars and delivered 1,406 of them. Both figures were down noticeably from the fourth quarter of 2022, when Lucid made 3,493 cars and delivered 1,932. Deliveries closely track sales, though the timing might differ in some cases.
. Most of the layoffs, around 968, involved workers at the Casa Grande complex, along with 133 or so at the company’s headquarters in Newark, California, with the rest scattered at showrooms and other locations.