Lucid is unquestionably making progress regarding its production goals. At the same time, the backbone of its Air sedan is software and some owners are reporting serious problems with it. Some of them have cars that go in the wrong direction and others come out to their car to find that it’s more of a brick than a mode of transportation.
Complaints made to the NHTSA by customers are available for all to see. Since September 2 of this year, five different complaints about the Lucid Air have come in and all of them have to do with software. Only one of those five, a lightning-strike-related software issue that left the car inoperable, seems to have an external source as the root cause.
One owner from California reports that their vehicle would go in the opposite direction of the gear chosen. “We could have easily hit a pedestrian,” the complaint says. It goes on to clarify that no warning light, messages, or other symptoms appeared in connection with the condition.
Read: Lucid Slaps Texas With Lawsuit Over Dealership Laws
Another owner in Illinois says that their vehicle’s drive system broke while they were driving down the highway at 70 mph. Evidently, the system immediately slowed down and gave the driver 30 seconds to get to the shoulder. That complaint came in on October 26 and according to Business Insider, there are many Lucid customers with software complaints that don’t make it to the NHTSA.
It says that it spoke with 19 Lucid owners and every single one of them reported software or hardware issues. “If the car sits in the sun for the afternoon, DreamDrive won’t read speed-limit signs,” an owner in Arizona told Insider. “I have displays that periodically crash. You ask Alexa to do something and two of your displays crash, and until you reset the car it stays that way.”
On top of similar concerns, some owners contend with a seemingly random condition called “Turtle Mode” where the car essentially goes into “limp mode’. When in Turtle Mode the Air is either undrivable entirely or can only reach a speed of about 30 mph (48 km/h).
For what it’s worth, Lucid has been rolling out updates with the newly released version of its software, simply named 2.0, being touted as “the most extensive to date, with significant advancements and improvements.” A representative told Insider that “This latest software release incorporates numerous refinements — many based on owner feedback and ideas — which make Lucid Air even more enjoyable, convenient, and capable for our customers.”
So it seems that the EV automaker is working on improvements rapidly. A developer at Lucid said as much to Insider “Things are improving at a much faster rate now,” when compared to the state of Lucid software in the past. It’s vital that improvements continue since the Air’s base trim is now available for order.
