How Did Lucid Avoid a 2025 EV Sales Slump?

For many automakers selling electric vehicles in the U.S. this year, the fourth quarter was not a reason for celebration. Tesla’s vehicle deliveries were down 16% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. Rivian’s overall sales for the year were also down compared to 2024. For the U.S. market, it isn’t hard to find a culprit for this: the Trump administration’s decision to end the federal tax credits for EVs.

That was good for EV sales in the third quarter of the year, as buyers rushed to buy vehicles while the tax credit still applied. But it’s led to an overall drop in sales — as InsideEVs pointed out this week, EV sales in the U.S. are scheduled to drop year over year in 2025 for the first time in six years.

There’s one bright spot in this, however: Lucid Motors, which announced that their production and delivery in 2025 were both up compared to 2024. In doing so, they also achieved their production goal for the year, which seemed like a long shot fairly recently.

What helped fuel Lucid’s victory lap while their competitors have struggled in a shifting environment? Some part of it may be powered by clever promotions — like addressing some Tesla owners’ frustrations with Elon Musk by offering a discount on Lucid vehicles if a buyer is trading in a Tesla.

Lucid Looks to Close Out 2025 With an Ambitious Manufacturing Goal

Can they reach it?

But there’s also the matter of Lucid addressing the elephant in the room of the expiring tax credit. In a post on August 14, 2025, Lucid’s Vice President of Revenue Erwin Raphael announced that the company would implement its own version of the federal tax credit for drivers interested in the Lucid Gravity through the end of 2025.

Raphael’s post pointed to the role that the federal tax credit had played in getting people to buy and lease EVs in the first place. “[W]e are committed to doing our part through the end of the year to ensure an equivalent benefit remains available for our Lucid Gravity lease customers who are unable to take delivery before September 30,” he wrote. What Lucid’s 2026 will look like is anyone’s guess — though Electrek reports that the company will begin production on a midsize vehicle later this year. Will that be enough to continue the company’s hot streak?

Meet your guide

Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…