By Michael Elkins
Shares of Lucid Group (NASDAQ:LCID) are up 3.63% in pre-market trading on Tuesday after Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage on the luxury electric vehicle company with an Overweight rating and a $23 price target.
A Cantor Fitzgerald analyst wrote in the note that "Lucid is a technology and automotive company that designs, engineers, and builds luxury EVs, power trains, and battery systems that it sells online or through retail studios. We believe LCID's luxury and premium vehicles provide greater efficiency, longer range, faster charging, and more space relative to its peers."
The Lucid Air currently offers an industry-leading range of up to 520 miles on a single charge. This range is a significant differentiator relative to other EVs and is enabled by an efficient, powerful powertrain that Lucid develops and builds in-house. Lucid's vehicles also come with an ultra-fast and bidirectional "wunderbox" boost charge technology system of >900V, which is capable to charge 300 miles in ~22 minutes.
The company also enjoys a rather large commitment from the government of Saudi Arabia for the sale of "up to 100,000 vehicles" over a 10-year period. The agreement, which was announced on April, 26th of this year, includes an initial commitment to purchase 50,000 vehicles, and an option to purchase up to an additional 50,000 vehicles. Vehicle deliveries are expected to begin no later than 2Q23, and initial orders are expected to range from 1,000-2,000 vehicles annually and increase to 4,000-7,000 starting in 2025.
The analyst wrote in his note that he believes that this agreement is "meaningful" and will help LCID ramp up production quickly.