Lucid Gives the Robotaxis Their Own Business Unit. Make It Permanent.
Lucid halved the number of direct reports to its chief executive, hired operators, and walled the robotaxis, the AI and the autonomy into a business unit with its own president. It did the right thing by accident. It must not take it back.
The news: Lucid's own release calls it the maker of the world's most advanced software-defined vehicles, then spends the page hiring operators. It produced 4,774 vehicles and delivered 3,953 in the quarter ended June 30, figures its own footnote calls only one measure of operating performance, not to be relied on as sole indicators of quarterly financial results. I print both and, like the document, decline to say what sits between them.
The number of direct reports to the chief executive was halved, and Kay Stepper was named President of Lucid Technologies and Chief Digital Officer, effective immediately, accountable for robotaxis, AI, autonomy, driver assistance and the office computers. Lucid Technologies will become its own business unit, chasing "shareholder value creation in this high growth, fast changing sector." The software-defined vehicle is not a car anymore so much as a department, which is where I want it. The AI leaves the cabin, takes a street address, and answers to one officer who signs for it by name.
The concession is real: most chief executives never halve anything of their own, and Silvio Napoli says the priorities are "customers, quality, and innovation." The earnings call is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. PT today. Announce simplification and deliver a new leadership team, a new business unit and a new Business Process function, and you have not simplified a company, you have promoted the paperwork.
The man at the red light beside you has been promised a self-driving car twice in his adult life. Hank Whitaker will call that proof the future was always a memo.
So: custody of every autonomous system in every car sold here moves out of the vehicle into a building it does not leave. One form, three fields: the address, the officer who signs, the date the machines left the cabin. Inspection quarterly, in person. One line at the bottom: nothing signed out comes back. Lucid drafted this by accident, for money. Sign it and lose the pen.
Editorial disclosure: Lucid sent a corporate portrait photographer and a two-person lighting crew to Drive Observer for a full day, shot every person in the building against the same grey backdrop, and returned a week later to hang the frames down the corridor in one unbroken row, each with a brass nameplate and a title, with a final empty frame at the end engraved 'incoming.' Per our strict ethical policy, we do not let this influence our coverage.