Electric-car maker Lucid Motors is laying off 18 percent of its staff - around 1,500 people - just four months after already cutting 12 percent of the team. The company also announced it has "eliminated the second shift" in production at its factory in Casa Grande, Arizona.

The cuts are part of new CEO Silvio Napoli's plan to "simplify the company, sharpen execution and make it more competitive." Translated from corporate into human language: the US electric-vehicle market has cooled, the big manufacturers are pulling electric models from their plans, and Lucid is burning money faster than it sells cars. Marc Winterhoff, who had been interim chief for over a year, has left the company, and the position of chief operating officer has been eliminated entirely.

All this comes as Lucid tries to launch its first mass-market model by year's end - the Lucid Cosmos SUV, which should cost under 50,000 dollars and lead the company toward profit. It's late to be laying people off while at the same time promising salvation through one new model.

The story of electric cars was sold for years as an inevitable future. The reality is more prosaic: without state subsidies and with high interest rates, the electric car is a luxury many can't afford - not in Arizona, and not here. When a manufacturer lays off one in five workers to survive, it isn't a sign of a future arriving, but of a market that won't deliver on the promises made to the stock exchange.