Lucid is fixing software errors in drive unit for thousands of Lucid Air EVs

Luxury electric vehicle (EV) maker Lucid has recalled more than 7,000 Air sedans to fix software errors in the driver power unit and HVAC system.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has published two letters for these two issues respectively. Both of these are published on July 8, 2024. The first recall is due to faults in a high-voltage coolant heater (HVCH), which fails to detect the windshield and can obstruct the driver’s view. This issue affected around 7,506 Lucid Airs models from 2022-2024.

A vehicle with a failed HVCH will not produce warm air for the windshield defroster. Drier would also experience a loss of cabin heat when this component fails.

Lucid Air (Credit: Lucid)

It is fixed with a software update rolled out on February 5, 2024, and triggers a warning to drivers if HVCH fails. It will work even if the driver has not enabled cabin heat or defrost. Before this software update, there was no visual indicator or warning for an HVCH failure.

The carmaker says that 74 failures have been detected with HVCH manufactured from July 2022 to February 2023, accounting for 1 percent of the entire Air series.

The second recall was reported on July 1, 2024, on 2022-2023 Lucid Air models. It was caused by software error which may lead to a loss of drive power.

When a hardware communication fault is detected, the high voltage interlock (HVIL) software could disconnect the high voltage contactors while the vehicle is in motion. It could cause the car to lose driving power and could lead to an accident.

However, Lucid released an OTA software update on June 24, 2024, to fix this issue. Overall, this bug has affected 5,251 Lucid Airs, but none have reported any harm. On Monday, the company published its second quarter 2024 results and performed well with 2,394 deliveries and 2,110 EV production.