Tesla Competitor Lays Off Hundreds of Workers As Other EVs Lose People

Things are not looking good for the EV market.

Zero Juice

Elon Musk's Tesla is not the only electric vehicle company laying off workers en masse; one of its rivals, Lucid, announced last week that it's laying off about 400 people, SFGate reports, more than a year after another round of layoffs that saw 1,300 people get the boot.

"I’m confident Lucid will deliver the world’s best SUV and dramatically expand our total addressable market, but we aren’t generating revenue from the program yet," Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson wrote in a May 24 email to staff, warning of "slowing sales in the broader EV segment."

According to some auto analysts, there was a softening in the electric vehicle market in the first quarter of the year, Bloomberg reports, which had Ford retrenching its EV plans after seeing weak sales, and Tesla laying off ten percent of staff. Rivian also plans to let go of 120 workers this year.

In short, things are looking grim for the EV market — and it's certainly not just Tesla feeling the squeeze.

Battery Anxiety

However, more established automakers like Toyota and Kia, still saw significant EV sales in the the first quarter, according to Bloomberg.

In other words, changing consumer preferences may be giving the false impression that the EV market is in for some dark days ahead.

That's especially true as Tesla is seriously struggling under Elon Musk's chaotic leadership right now, making a royal mess of its recent Cybertruck launch.

"We’re still seeing growth in [EV] demand, just not at the same pace for every brand," Cox Automotive director of industry insights Stephanie Valdez-Streaty told Bloomberg. "Right now Tesla doesn’t have new models, Ford doesn’t have a lot in the pipeline. But Hyundai, BMW, Kia, Cadillac — they’re really moving the needle forward."

More on electric cars: Tesla Competitor Lucid Beats Model S Prototype Record on Racetrack