Lucid cuts 18% and wipes the COO job, eliminating Marc Winterhoff’s role entirely

Lucid is cutting about 18% of its U.S. workforce and eliminating the COO role entirely, according to an 8-K filed with the SEC on Monday. Marc Winterhoff, Lucid’s COO who had served as interim CEO earlier this year, has departed, and Lucid says it will not replace him.

The filing also points to an operational lever with a very simple logic: reduce production when demand is softer. Lucid will eliminate the second shift at its AMP-1 factory in Arizona, aligning its “production plans with anticipated demand” and reducing inventory. Lucid expects these actions to deliver about $158 million in annualized cost savings, along with approximately $32 million in restructuring charges.

That combination matters because it is not just a headcount story. It is a signal that Lucid is changing how it runs the business at the highest levels, and doing it fast enough to reach C-suite org charts, not just factory schedules. The company’s stated goal is to “simplify the company” and “sharpen execution,” and the spokesperson ties the move directly to “declining market conditions.” Translation: when revenue growth is not matching production intent, even the operating layer gets redesigned, not merely trimmed.

The COO elimination is especially striking in an EV company that has already been through executive churn. Lucid has had about a year and a half of upheaval since former Tesla engineer Peter Rawlinson stepped down as CEO in February 2025. Winterhoff served as interim CEO after Rawlinson’s resignation, then resumed as COO once a new CEO was announced. In other words, Winterhoff was not an “extra” executive. He was plugged into the company’s leadership continuity. Now the company is removing the role itself.

The restructuring lands alongside other leadership exits. Business Insider notes that SVP of engineering and software Emad Dlala and SVP of strategy Claudia Gast both left earlier this year. Chief engineer Eric Bach was fired in November after 10 years at the company and has since filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Lucid. The EV maker previously called Bach’s legal claims “absurd” in a statement on the lawsuit.

Lucid’s approach has been iterative, not one-and-done. The company previously cut 12% of its U.S. workforce in February. So this week’s 8-K is not the first “reset” this year, it is the next one. In manufacturing-heavy businesses, second-order effects often stack: when production shifts are reduced, it can change supply ordering, inventory targets, hiring plans for technicians, and contractor needs at the plant. The filing explicitly includes full-time employees, contractors, and hourly manufacturing workers at AMP-1, so the cost base is being adjusted across multiple labor categories, not just salaried staff.

Then there is the corporate timing. On June 1, Lucid installed Silvio Napoli as permanent CEO. Napoli’s background, as Business Insider frames it, includes serving as the former boss of The Schindler Group, an elevator maker. For boards and investors, that matters because a new permanent CEO typically inherits a balance sheet and a roadmap under pressure. Lucid is hoping to launch the Cosmos, its first sub-$50,000 mass-market SUV, later this year to challenge the Tesla Model Y and Rivian R2. It also has robotaxi ambitions after inking a partnership with Uber and Nuro. But those ambitions require capital and execution bandwidth, and the 8-K suggests the company is trying to buy that bandwidth through cost cuts rather than expecting demand to magically catch up.

The operational pressure is not theoretical. Business Insider points to a supplier issue that delayed delivery times on its Gravity SUV, as well as software complaints from some owners. At the same time, the company continues to receive praise for engineering, including the Lucid Air sedan being among the most efficient EVs on the market. That mix creates a familiar tension for EV operators: product credibility and engineering strength do not always translate into unit economics quickly enough to avoid restructurings.

For Winterhoff personally, the departure comes with some protection. Business Insider reports that in addition to severance, Lucid said it “agreed to provide certain continued security support and have him keep his company vehicle.” But the real takeaway for other execs and boards is not the vehicle. It is the message that restructuring logic can eliminate entire functional roles when the company decides the operating system itself needs to be simplified.

In a market defined by demand swings, investor expectations, and relentless burn-rate math, Lucid’s move is a live case study. If production is being adjusted by cutting the second shift and the workforce by around 18%, leadership has to follow the math too. The elimination of the COO role says Lucid wants a leaner, more direct execution path under permanent CEO Silvio Napoli, with $158 million in annualized savings as the explicit target. For executives elsewhere, that is the part to watch: when demand alignment becomes the priority, the org chart is the next place where cost shows up.