Apparently some Lucid Air EVs can randomly have power cut from the motors
So apparently 637 Lucid Air electric vehicles (EVs) have been recalled in the U.S over a seemingly small issue where a contactor could open unexpectedly, cutting the supply of electricity to the motors. This is a very dangerous problem. Could Lucid prove to be exactly the same as Tesla in terms of reliability? I hope not.
Okay, so the contactor is supplied to Lucid for use in the Air EVs by Sensata Technologies and is an electrically-activated switch that makes contact at vehicle startup, and breaks it when the vehicle is shut down, controlling the flow of electricity to the motor. Naturally, if this goes off at the wrong time, things will get very ugly.
Moreover, in some of the Lucid Air EVs, a spring that keeps the switch from making contact when the motor is supposed to be off is too strong. That means that it can force it to break contact even while driving which leads to the motors shutting down and could cause multiple crashes.
In its documents filed with the NHTSA, Lucid stated that even if the motor shuts off, the driver should be able to continue coasting off the road. What’s more, all of the other electronic components in the car are not affected by this issue, and the car may even restart, and operate as usual if the driver attempts to start it again.
However, losing power at high speeds can be a lot more dangerous and Lucid also added that if the contactor opens unexpectedly, the driver will get a message about a system error on the dashboard, but they will not receive any prior warning that the issue is coming. Why does this kind of silly answer sound so familiar?
On top of that, Lucid initially believed that only around 259 vehicles had to be recalled, but recently updated that number to 637 units of it 2022 to 2023 Lucid Air models and the owners of these cars will be broken up into two groups with 273 of them being in the first group and their contactors will be replaced for free.
The second group is made up of 336 vehicles which will require software updates to determine whether or not these Lucid Air EVs actually have these issues and these owners will be contacted by first-class mail and replacement appointments will be scheduled if the cars actually have the issue.
So now I am starting to question just how seriously Lucid takes its quality control. Tesla also started out as a popular brand until every single one of its cars started exhibiting so many bugs and defects that has led to accidents, crashes and just all-around, bad experiences. I hope Lucid does not go down the same road.
We got all this from Carscoops and their full article is linked here. Thank you Carscoops for the information and images.
