Tesla CEO Musk Fires Back At Rawlinson's 2020 'Production Hell' Taunt With 'Sales Hell Too' Jibe After Lucid's Q3 Deliveries Flop

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday clapped back at rival EV maker Lucid Group Inc LCID after it reported underwhelming third-quarter deliveries.

What Happened: Tesla influencer Omar Qazi, who goes by the name “Whole Mars Blog” on social media, reposted data showing Lucid’s falling production numbers with the caption: “‘There’s only one company that experiences production hell’. And that’s Lucid.” 

Qazi alluded to what Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson, a former Tesla engineer who worked on the Model S before leaving to set up his own company, said in 2020: “It’s not for me to criticize Tesla. But… there’s only one car company that has production hell.”

Reacting to Qazi’s post, Musk said: “Sales hell too.”

The “production hell” phrase, notably, was something that Musk himself had used to describe Tesla’s situation in 2018 when the company was on the edge of bankruptcy before it came up with the bestselling Model 3.

Why It Matters: Lucid could only muster deliveries of 1,457 EVs in the third quarter despite its huge ad spending, below a market consensus of 2,118. Year-to-date, the company has produced 6,037 units, and if the 700 EVs the company has shipped to Saudi Arabia for final assembly were included, the production tally is 6,737 units.

Deliveries so far this year totaled 4,367 EVs. Lucid has guided to production of over 10,000 units for the year and this leaves the company with a tall target of 3,263 units to meet for the final quarter of the year.

Musk said in an interview back in June 2022 that both Rivian and Lucid are tracking toward bankruptcy given their high expenses. Unless the two companies cut their expenses ‘dramatically,’ they don’t stand a chance, Musk then said.

Last month, Musk also issued a word of caution over Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson‘s compensation which touched about $379 million in 2022. "Beware any company where leadership compensation is not linked to performance," Musk then said.

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Photo courtesy: Thomas Hawk on Flickr