Car completely non-responsive

[RyeLucid]

I was out of town for a week and just got back two days ago. There was a software update while I was away. Yesterday evening I go to the car in the garage to go out to dinner with my wife and it does not respond to the phone app. Having read the forum and knowing that sometimes there are issues, I am not concerned, I go get the fobs. No reaction to either fob and now I am getting nervous.

I call customer service and they confirm the car is non-responsive and needs a tech. Luckily it is in my garage and not some parking lot somewhere. Tech support is supposed to call me that evening/night.

Today, which is admittedly a Saturday, there is still no call from tech service. I call again late morning and talk to customer service and she assures me she will make sure customer service calls. Still no response eight hours later.

It is one thing to have the car turn into a 5,000 pound brick in the garage, but to also get no response at all from support?

I have been really happy with the car, and understand delivery challenges, delays, software bugs, etc. But having the car turn into a brick and getting zero support?

Does anyone have a secret reboot hack that they have learned from a similar experience?

 

[MPawelek]

Have you tried the fake valet card on the upper center console near the rear view mirror?

 

[RyeLucid]

Have you tried the fake valet card on the upper center console near the rear view mirror?

Yes, thanks for the thought but I did try that as well, forgot to include above.

 

[daydreamer223]

First - damn that sucks, like you said, at least it happened in your garage and not somewhere else. Nonetheless it's scary.

To be honest I don't really care about cosmetic blemishes, panel gaps and whatnot they may be focusing on with "enhanced PDI". I care about people's cars not getting bricked. This is like the 5th one on this forum alone, which is already a small sample size (granted they bricked in different ways).

This is what will kill off the excitement that they've been trying to garner, from existing owners (see people like @HC_79 who had great experiences, until...catastrophic failure, and others in the spouse thread about partner concerns over these cars...), and prospects like myself.

 

[hydbob]

I was out of town for a week and just got back two days ago. There was a software update while I was away. Yesterday evening I go to the car in the garage to go out to dinner with my wife and it does not respond to the phone app. Having read the forum and knowing that sometimes there are issues, I am not concerned, I go get the fobs. No reaction to either fob and now I am getting nervous.

I call customer service and they confirm the car is non-responsive and needs a tech. Luckily it is in my garage and not some parking lot somewhere. Tech support is supposed to call me that evening/night.

Today, which is admittedly a Saturday, there is still no call from tech service. I call again late morning and talk to customer service and she assures me she will make sure customer service calls. Still no response eight hours later.

It is one thing to have the car turn into a 5,000 pound brick in the garage, but to also get no response at all from support?

I have been really happy with the car, and understand delivery challenges, delays, software bugs, etc. But having the car turn into a brick and getting zero support?

Does anyone have a secret reboot hack that they have learned from a similar experience?

My guess, 12v died. If that is dead, there's no way to get into the car unless it's jumped. Even though we know where the jump point is ( rear passenger wheel well) I'd probably wait for Lucid roadside. Did you try the new text method?

Do you remember what SOC% you were at also?

 

[MoniputerLM]

My guess, 12v died. If that is dead, there's no way to get into the car unless it's jumped. Even though we know where the jump point is ( rear passenger wheel well) I'd probably wait for Lucid roadside. Did you try the new text method?

Do you remember what SOC% you were at also?

The Mercedes EQS, any maybe other EVs, gives you a warning email/text that the 12V battery is low. Does the Lucid not do that or are the reported 12V issues just complete battery failures without warning?

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I love EV technology but why do so many EVs have 12v problems? Like what is so special about an ICE alternator keeping a 12v charged for YEARS that EVs can’t figure out how to pull off? I don’t want to blame any owner of course, but is there something that some people are doing that could lead to 12v failure? Like in ICE cars if you left the door light on you could come out to a dead car? Could keeping the fob too close kill the 12v?

 

[martinmeyer]

In an EV, the 12v battery is charged by a converter from the main battery. It’s being used to power electronics throughout the car. Failure of that converter can lead to the 12v battery being drained and not recharged. This happened to my 2013 Model S about 6 months into owning it.

 

[LCIDdreams]

I love EV technology but why do so many EVs have 12v problems? Like what is so special about an ICE alternator keeping a 12v charged for YEARS that EVs can’t figure out how to pull off? I don’t want to blame any owner of course, but is there something that some people are doing that could lead to 12v failure? Like in ICE cars if you left the door light on you could come out to a dead car? Could keeping the fob too close kill the 12v?

The crazy thing is an EV doesn’t even need the car to be running to keep the 12v battery maintained- it has a massive high voltage battery that can do that 24/7. Of all cars, EVs should be the least likely to ever have a (relatively new) 12v battery failure

Failing 12v batteries seems to have become a really common Hyundai/Kia EV issue.

 

[stratus]

I was out of town for a week and just got back two days ago. There was a software update while I was away. Yesterday evening I go to the car in the garage to go out to dinner with my wife and it does not respond to the phone app. Having read the forum and knowing that sometimes there are issues, I am not concerned, I go get the fobs. No reaction to either fob and now I am getting nervous.

I call customer service and they confirm the car is non-responsive and needs a tech. Luckily it is in my garage and not some parking lot somewhere. Tech support is supposed to call me that evening/night.

Today, which is admittedly a Saturday, there is still no call from tech service. I call again late morning and talk to customer service and she assures me she will make sure customer service calls. Still no response eight hours later.

It is one thing to have the car turn into a 5,000 pound brick in the garage, but to also get no response at all from support?

I have been really happy with the car, and understand delivery challenges, delays, software bugs, etc. But having the car turn into a brick and getting zero support?

Does anyone have a secret reboot hack that they have learned from a similar experience?

Sorry to hear about your experience. I hope it’s rectified quickly!!

 

[Parachute Adams]

Two concerning issues about this---and the other failures that cause the cars to be towed, taken out of service, etc:

1) Frequency: This forum is a small sample size---how often is this happening per 50 cars delivered?

2) Persistency: when they fix it does it stay fixed? Or does the same--or another --debilitating even occur again?

Lucid needs to be candid with its universe of buyers. If they stay silent it will be at their own risk

 

[HC_79]

It sucks and welcome to the club! If it’s anything like my experience you won’t have your car back for 3+ weeks. I had 70%+ SOC when mine occurred and they had to jump the 12v battery to get the car going. They fixed or replaced the battery management system in mine and can’t be done by Service Center technicians. A Lucid engineer needs to do the work.

The amount of cars requiring to be towed on this forum is starting to become concerning. We’re only a small handful of Lucid owners and when I was talking to the Service Center the other week they said they had another car that had been in there longer than mine.

 

[RyeLucid]

Thanks for all the feedback. I managed to get a great customer service rep on the phone late last night (shout out to Breno) and he walked me through how to jump the 12v access behind the rear passenger side wheel well. That got the doors to open, lights on and some of the other systems to come back, but not the driving ability. Definitely a 12v issue, (you are correct @hydbob) but not clear if it is one or both batteries since finding contact points on the second battery in the trunk area was sketchy.

The best Breno could do on tech service was get them to commit to a call on Monday. We will see.

The car was plugged into a 220v plug in the garage at time of failure, so it was reading full at 80%. There was a software update last week that went through. My read of the update was that I should leave the car plugged in to conduct the update - maybe I misread and I was supposed to disconnect before the update? Not sure if any of you recall the details of the alert.

 

[Boomer AZ]

This triggers a related question. I frequently travel and am away from the house for a month at a time. What is best practice for leaving an Air home alone? I’m thinking leaving the fobs in a faraday cage and leaving the Air plugged into its charger. The charger’s internal timer only allows charging 8PM to 8AM.

 

[borski]

Thanks for all the feedback. I managed to get a great customer service rep on the phone late last night (shout out to Breno) and he walked me through how to jump the 12v access behind the rear passenger side wheel well. That got the doors to open, lights on and some of the other systems to come back, but not the driving ability. Definitely a 12v issue, (you are correct @hydbob) but not clear if it is one or both batteries since finding contact points on the second battery in the trunk area was sketchy.

The best Breno could do on tech service was get them to commit to a call on Monday. We will see.

The car was plugged into a 220v plug in the garage at time of failure, so it was reading full at 80%. There was a software update last week that went through. My read of the update was that I should leave the car plugged in to conduct the update - maybe I misread and I was supposed to disconnect before the update? Not sure if any of you recall the details of the alert.

You were supposed to unplug. I’m not convinced that should have caused this problem, of course, but it did recommend unplugging before updating.

 

[RyeLucid]

Late update. Walked into the garage this morning and the car instantly responded with a full wake up! What the heck! I guess the jump start last night triggered the converter to restart and fully charge the battery. Took it for a short test drive and everything seems to be working perfectly. Still need to get things checked out, but this seems to indicate that sometimes a jump start will cause a reset.

Once I get a technician here and discuss more fully I will post an update.

 

[RyeLucid]

You were supposed to unplug. I’m not convinced that should have caused this problem, of course, but it did recommend unplugging before updating.

Thank you, I guess I better read those instructions more carefully in the future.

 

[Tesla2.0]

My guess, 12v died. If that is dead, there's no way to get into the car unless it's jumped. Even though we know where the jump point is ( rear passenger wheel well) I'd probably wait for Lucid roadside. Did you try the new text method?

Is there a link to show us how to get to 12V battery to jump?!

The Mercedes EQS, any maybe other EVs, gives you a warning email/text that the 12V battery is low. Does the Lucid not do that or are the reported 12V issues just complete battery failures without warning?

Excellent issue you raised, I’m not sure if Lucid has 12v battery sensor. From what I researched online, there are many EQS owners have same problem, and you cannot jump 12v bc EQS is a closed system, it must be towed and handled all by MB tech.

I don’t want to blame any owner of course, but is there something that some people are doing that could lead to 12v failure? Like in ICE cars if you left the door light on you could come out to a dead car? Could keeping the fob too close kill the 12v?

Battery Converter to 12v could fail or car never went into sleep during plugged in charging mode.

The amount of cars requiring to be towed on this forum is starting to become concerning. We’re only a small handful of Lucid owners and when I was talking to the Service Center the other week they said they had another car that had been in there longer than mine.

I see so many 12v failure regardless of brand, can we just walk into O’Reiley or Autozonevpick up any 12v for this?

This triggers a related question. I frequently travel and am away from the house for a month at a time. What is best practice for leaving an Air home alone? I’m thinking leaving the fobs in a faraday cage and leaving the Air plugged into its charger. The charger’s internal timer only allows charging 8PM to 8AM.

No plugging in when you are away for long time, that can be a huge frigging fire hazard in case a circuit breaker failure to trip or battery overheating bc charger or BMS failure.

Make sure you have it charge to 80% and car is in deep sleep. 2 months ago, I had 28 days Europe trip, it only drained 11% while I was gone.

 

[RyeLucid]

Is there a link to show us how to get to 12V battery to jump?!

Excellent issue you raised, I’m not sure if Lucid has 12v battery sensor. From what I researched online, there are many EQS owners have same problem, and you cannot jump 12v bc EQS is a closed system, it must be towed and handled all by MB tech.

Battery Converter to 12v could fail or car never went into sleep during plugged in charging mode.

I see so many 12v failure regardless of brand, can we just walk into O’Reiley or Autozonevpick up any 12v for this?

No plugging in when you are away for long time, that can be a huge frigging fire hazard in case a circuit breaker failure to trip or battery overheating bc charger or BMS failure.

Make sure you have it charge to 80% and car is in deep sleep. 2 months ago, I had 28 days Europe trip, it only drained 11% while I was gone.

See the image below, hopefully that comes through. It is a little deceptive as you have to pull the three retainers in the bottom corner of the wheel well to get a view of this. Then you have to remove the same type of plastic connectors from the wire tabs themselves to access them for a jump.

Because of the positioning of the car I had to connect two sets of jumper cables to reach my ICE vehicle with its 12v. The doors unlocked immediately when I made that connection.

The only tools really needed are a small flat head screwdriver and a flashlight (easiest with a headlamp) because visibility inside the wheel well is tough.

The second battery is in the trunk. On the right hand side, under the triangle section - the mirror to the storage of the charger on the left. You just peel back the triangle section of the liner to reveal the battery. That one I was not willing to jump as the positive terminal had no real spot to connect to with my large grip jumper cables.

Some sort of small 12v charger with alligator clip connectors would be a much easier way to resolve this than what I ended up doing.

 

[DeaneG]

...Failing 12v batteries seems to have become a really common Hyundai/Kia EV issue.

Tesla Model 3 cars are famous for it. You get a warning a day before your 12V battery failed, or a day after, or sometime in between, usually when the car is around 3 years old.