Lucid Group issued a recall for hundreds of Air sedans over a flaw that could cause the vehicles to lose power and increase the risk of a crash, according to a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The Newark, California-based automaker first filed a recall notice with NHTSA in February for 273 model year 2022 and 2023 Air vehicles after discovering that some electrically activated contact switches that transfer energy to the drive motors may unexpectedly open, cutting off power to the electric motors. That recall has since been updated to add another 336 vehicles, which require a software update to assess whether any contactor replacements are required, according to a spokesperson.
“For Lucid, the safety of our customers and their families is the highest priority, and we are working to resolve this issue as quickly as is possible,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Lucid will soon begin contacting the owners of affected vehicles to notify them of the recall and to provide further information.”
Lucid said its service centers will update the vehicle software and replace the contactor switches, as necessary, free of charge.
CEO Peter Rawlinson actually mentioned the recall during the company’s earnings call in February, noting that the company’s software capabilities were demonstrated through its recent decision to initiate a voluntary recall of a small number of Lucid Airs related to a supplier issue. The recall wasn’t posted on the NHTSA website until recently and was included in its email digest Monday morning.
“I want to be clear — we were not required by the government to do this. But we have an unwavering commitment to our customers,” he said at the time. “We were able to identify potentially impacted vehicles by sending a software update to our vehicles that allowed us to scan for a particular electrical signature within each car and thereby identify the less than 300 cars estimated to be potentially affected by this supplier issue.”
Lucid has struggled with supply chain constraints for more than a year. The company produced 7,180 vehicles in 2022. Of those 4,369 were delivered. Lucid set 2023 annual production targets of 10,000 to 14,000, which is roughly half of the 20,000 to 22,000 deliveries analysts had expected for the year.
