Drive System Warning

[regzgz]

Hello,
I was driving to work yesterday and my car starting displaying the "drive System Warning" contact customer support.
My SOC was at 35% and started to go down quickly after the warning, it was a cold day (28º) so maybe not related at all.
Contacted Lucid Support in the morning and the Tech contacted me in the afternoon with an update, the car shows a charge imbalance (8%) in the battery pack. At the end of my day I arrived home last night with 10% SOC and my commute home is only 14 miles.
My life time with 26,036 miles is 3.62mi/kWh, yesterday is the first time I see a 1.78mi/Kwh.
I charged the car to 80% this morning and the message is gone.

 

[ScottWilliamsEsq]

My Air with roughly the same miles had the same warning, and the service center says it needs a new high voltage battery. Will be down for three weeks

 

[regzgz]

My Air with roughly the same miles had the same warning, and the service center says it needs a new high voltage battery. Will be down for three weeks

Good luck with the repairs, are you close to the service center?
My air is showing the message on and off, the technician monitoring the air activity inform me that the imbalance was going down to 6% last week.
Forward to yesterday and the imbalance jumped up again and the warning is now on even with a high SOC, Lucid aims for a 10% imbalance in order to replace the battery; I'm waiting for costumer service to schedule the high voltage battery replacement.
Did they offer you a rental while your car is on the shop?

 

[RivAir]

Mine was in October last year when the “drive system warning” first appeared, took it to service center and found 4% imbalance on HV battery.

This can’t be good, Now four months later “drive system warning” is back again. Called customer care, and same advice as before, keep driving it until the appointment date or when drive system is critical. 2023 Pure AWD with 33k miles.

Lately I been driving the car a lot, for the first year and half owning it, we didn’t use it for road trips since we had the Rivian R1T, now that the R1T is gone, been using the air for road trips to Bryce Canyon, Phoenix 3 times, Los Angeles multiple times (I lost count), and San Diego. Hopefully it’s nothing major.

 

[socktucker]

Mine was in October last year when the “drive system warning” first appeared, took it to service center and found 4% imbalance on HV battery.

This can’t be good, Now four months later “drive system warning” is back again. Called customer care, and same advice as before, keep driving it until the appointment date or when drive system is critical. 2023 Pure AWD with 33k miles.

Lately I been driving the car a lot, for the first year and half owning it, we didn’t use it for road trips since we had the Rivian R1T, now that the R1T is gone, been using the air for road trips to Bryce Canyon, Phoenix 3 times, Los Angeles multiple times (I lost count), and San Diego. Hopefully it’s nothing major.

That would be extremely frustrating. I guess it’s not unsafe but I don’t want to drive a car which may just leave me stranded without warning.

 

[borski]

Mine was in October last year when the “drive system warning” first appeared, took it to service center and found 4% imbalance on HV battery.

This can’t be good, Now four months later “drive system warning” is back again. Called customer care, and same advice as before, keep driving it until the appointment date or when drive system is critical. 2023 Pure AWD with 33k miles.

Lately I been driving the car a lot, for the first year and half owning it, we didn’t use it for road trips since we had the Rivian R1T, now that the R1T is gone, been using the air for road trips to Bryce Canyon, Phoenix 3 times, Los Angeles multiple times (I lost count), and San Diego. Hopefully it’s nothing major.

If you can: the vehicle needs to charge to 100 percent (ideally; you just want it to be 80 or above, so charging it to 100 guarantees it won't dip below 80) and sit for 72 hours, untouched. That's how you rebalance the battery. No current can run through it in those 3 days (meaning don't plug it in or get in it). That's what the service center will do to rebalance it (but, of course, they'd give you a loaner while they do it).

 

[tmichael]

If you can: the vehicle needs to charge to 100 percent (ideally; you just want it to be 80 or above, so charging it to 100 guarantees it won't dip below 80) and sit for 72 hours, untouched. That's how you rebalance the battery. No current can run through it in those 3 days (meaning don't plug it in or get in it). That's what the service center will do to rebalance it (but, of course, they'd give you a loaner while they do it).

Man, how do you learn this kind of stuff????

 

[scal_air]

@borski knows everything

 

[borski]

Man, how do you learn this kind of stuff????

I had the problem on a loaner, and I asked.

 

[RivAir]

If you can: the vehicle needs to charge to 100 percent (ideally; you just want it to be 80 or above, so charging it to 100 guarantees it won't dip below 80) and sit for 72 hours, untouched. That's how you rebalance the battery. No current can run through it in those 3 days (meaning don't plug it in or get in it). That's what the service center will do to rebalance it (but, of course, they'd give you a loaner while they do it).

If we still had the R1T, I would gladly sit the Air out, unfortunately, that’s not possible.

I did noticed that last week, after charging to 92%, the warning went away, then last Saturday, I charged it again to 92%, and it did not go away, SOC 60%.

Front Drive Unit was replaced August of last year, drive system warning was on October last year, and last week also, almost 5 months ago.

October work order - it says HV battery imbalance of 4%.

 

[borski]

If we still had the R1T, I would gladly sit the Air out, unfortunately, that’s not possible.

I did noticed that last week, after charging to 92%, the warning went away, then last Saturday, I charged it again to 92%, and it did not go away, SOC 60%.

Front Drive Unit was replaced August of last year, drive system warning was on October last year, and last week also, almost 5 months ago.

October work order - it says HV battery imbalance of 4%.

no worries, then just have the service center do it when they have a loaner available.

 

[regzgz]

Mine was in October last year when the “drive system warning” first appeared, took it to service center and found 4% imbalance on HV battery.

This can’t be good, Now four months later “drive system warning” is back again. Called customer care, and same advice as before, keep driving it until the appointment date or when drive system is critical. 2023 Pure AWD with 33k miles.

Lately I been driving the car a lot, for the first year and half owning it, we didn’t use it for road trips since we had the Rivian R1T, now that the R1T is gone, been using the air for road trips to Bryce Canyon, Phoenix 3 times, Los Angeles multiple times (I lost count), and San Diego. Hopefully it’s nothing major.

Did service told you what is the imbalance showing now? Still 4%?
My Air finally got to 10% and is sitting at the service center getting a battery swap, got towed 2/12/26.
Last night got a message that car is ready.
Waiting on an update on when my car will be delivered, I'm almost 5 hours away from the Roswell service center.

 

[RivAir]

Did service told you what is the imbalance showing now? Still 4%?
My Air finally got to 10% and is sitting at the service center getting a battery swap, got towed 2/12/26.
Last night got a message that car is ready.
Waiting on an update on when my car will be delivered, I'm almost 5 hours away from the Roswell service center.

I dropped it off today, and the service advisor said it’s about 7-10 days out before a tech can check the car, this is at the San Jose service center. I’m also curious what the imbalance is now, if it is the HV battery. It could be something simple. So will see…

That’s a good turn around for your car with HV battery replacement.

 

[RivAir]

Update: my car needs HV battery, the lead Tech, performed remote diagnostics and found that HV battery needs replacement, at least the service center is proactive, the HV battery is ordered, but service center won’t be able to work on it until March 9.

 

[regzgz]

Update: my car needs HV battery, the lead Tech, performed remote diagnostics and found that HV battery needs replacement, at least the service center is proactive, the HV battery is ordered, but service center won’t be able to work on it until March 9.

Can you still drive the car until is time to exchange the HV battery?
I got my car back yesterday, the turn around for me was exactly two weeks, I'm happy to have it back.
The rental I got made me miss the Air terrible, fake engine sound coming from the speakers, acceleration lag and the worst was returning to the gas station, you don't realize the little things until you don't have them anymore.
I wish you luck with the repair, let me know how everything goes for you.

 

[RivAir]

I drove my car for about 5 days, until I was able to drop it off the service center.

I got a new Tesla Model 3 as a loaner, boy oh boy, it was troublesome the first couple times driving it, my brain had to get used to the push button turn signal and the drive/park.

And also, I got so spoiled with the Lucid DDP when making a lane change the DDP doesn’t disengaged, the Tesla on the other hand, it’s so annoying, it will disable the drive assist when making a lane change, it doesn’t even maintain the speed, cruise will also disable, either that or I’m doing something wrong.

Can’t wait to get my car back. Lol

 

[regzgz]

I drove my car for about 5 days, until I was able to drop it off the service center.

I got a new Tesla Model 3 as a loaner, boy oh boy, it was troublesome the first couple times driving it, my brain had to get used to the push button turn signal and the drive/park.

And also, I got so spoiled with the Lucid DDP when making a lane change the DDP doesn’t disengaged, the Tesla on the other hand, it’s so annoying, it will disable the drive assist when making a lane change, it doesn’t even maintain the speed, cruise will also disable, either that or I’m doing something wrong.

Can’t wait to get my car back. Lol

I hope you don't get PTSD with that car! Even looking at the model 3 gives me anxiety.

 

[PCMc]

I drove my car for about 5 days, until I was able to drop it off the service center.

I got a new Tesla Model 3 as a loaner, boy oh boy, it was troublesome the first couple times driving it, my brain had to get used to the push button turn signal and the drive/park.

And also, I got so spoiled with the Lucid DDP when making a lane change the DDP doesn’t disengaged, the Tesla on the other hand, it’s so annoying, it will disable the drive assist when making a lane change, it doesn’t even maintain the speed, cruise will also disable, either that or I’m doing something wrong.

Can’t wait to get my car back. Lol

RE lane changes with the Model 3: Are you using the turn signals to indicate before you change lanes and do you know which variant of autopilot it has? It's been a while since I've used base autopilot as I have FSD(Supervised) on my current Model S, but I recall if you would use the turn signal, then then autosteer/cruise would not disengage. But if you do not signal and just do a lane change, then yes, cruise will disengage.

This was a change from a few years ago. Reason is that it if cruise remained active it was easy to not realize that the autosteer function had disengaged. So if you we're really paying attention, you could find yourself drifting out of the lane. Having cruise disengage makes it very obvious.

I'm not sure that the most basic autopilot these days will do automatic lane changes. You can check the Autopilot screen and see if it has option for just base autopilot versus possibly what might be call Enhanced Autopilot. If it has the second level, then I believe you should just be able to signal the lane change and then the car will automatically do the lane change for you once it determines the adjacent lane is clear.

Hope you get your car back from service without too much delay.