Lucid’s High-End EV Is Drawing Safety Complaints. Another Problem for the Stock?
The Center for Auto Safety is the nation’s premier independent, member driven, non-profit consumer advocacy organization dedicated to improving vehicle safety, quality, and fuel economy on behalf of all drivers, passengers, and pedestrians.
“If you’re broken down on the interstate where you don’t have room to pull over and get out of traffic, it’s only a matter of time before something bad happens,” says Michael Brooks, the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety.
By Bill Alpert
November 18, 2022
Lucid Group has carved a niche in the luxury end of the electric-vehicle market, with $150,000 sedans that offer the best power, range, and aerodynamics of any car produced. Owners fill online forums with delighted reports of long trips and snapshots of their beautiful, streamlined “Luci.”
The forums and government websites also show dozens of complaints of serious product defects. A year after Lucid (ticker: LCID) started delivering its sole product—the Lucid Air sedan—owners’ forums feature dozens of reports from people who say the cars drove forward when in reverse gear, or lost all power in the middle of the road, to become what one owner called a “5,000 pound brick.” Federal auto-safety regulators have received six complaints of power loss or gear malfunction from Lucid owners since mid-September.
Car-safety experts say the volume of complaints to the forums and to the government are significant for a company that has shipped about 2,500 of its high-price cars through September.