Former Lucid manager alleges the EV startup failed to report vehicle repairs made ahead of customer deliveries, sues for wrongful termination
A former
Lucid Motors manager is suing the EV startup, alleging it failed to report repairs it made to vehicles before delivering them to customers, and wrongfully fired him after he raised concerns to
CEO Peter Rawlinson.
The suit comes amid Lucid's rocky production ramp-up that's been hobbled by
supply chain constraints,
ongoing quality control issues, and
two recalls of its vehicles. Lucid is also facing several shareholder suits and its stock price has been on a downturn since a November high.
The lawsuit was filed in a California court on Monday by Raul Guzman, who says he was formerly a Lucid recall manager responsible for developing safety protocols, from March to November 2021. He claims the company ignored his warnings about the importance of reporting pre-delivery corrections to vehicles made at the automaker's Casa Grande, Arizona factory.
"We couldn't just grab cars and fix them without needing to do certain reporting requirements," Guzman told Insider, noting Lucid had more leeway to pull back prototype and pre-production vehicles. "These were customer vehicles and they were subject to regulations. That's when, really, the resistance started."
The complaint details Guzman's attempt to raise alarms to Lucid manufacturing and quality leadership, including Rawlinson, about Lucid's alleged lack of reporting pre-delivery quality confirmations, which the complaint calls "the last line of defense against poor quality making it to the customer."
"There's this risk, I'm bringing it to their attention, and he's telling me that I'm, pardon my French, full of shit," Guzman told Insider of Rawlinson.
Lucid spokesperson Nat Lingo told Insider the company does not comment on pending litigation.
"Lucid Motors's business model requires the company to report any pre-delivery work done to customer cars to the government, and many of these reports should be safety recalls," the complaint alleges. In simple terms, this stems from the somewhat unusual way Lucid sells its cars: Where most automakers transfer the vehicle title to a customer at a dealership after the purchase, Lucid — which has no dealers — does so after the vehicle leaves the factory but before the customer actually gets the car. That means Lucid could have made safety-critical repairs while the customer technically owned the car, and therefore should know about such work.
But Lucid's model legally "left little opportunity to contain affected vehicles and remedy quality concerns before customer delivery," the filing alleges, particularly in states where the automaker is not yet licensed to sell directly to the customer. These fixes involved pre-production cars where the front suspension could separate, and repairs on pre-delivery vehicles that compromised their safety.
"Lucid Motors cares more about its profits than the safety of its customers," the filing claims. "To this day, Lucid Motors continues to violate the law by not reporting manufacturing defects, some of which have been corrected in secret, to the government."
The suit says Guzman felt the need to "whistleblow" to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the potential safety risks of Lucid vehicles because the company had not reported any of the corrections made on its customer vehicles prior to their delivery as of January 19, 2022, long after the date required to report the fixes that had been made.
A NHTSA spokesperson said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Allegations of cars 'ill-prepared for sale'
The complaint alleges one instance in which Lucid did not adhere to the pre-delivery vehicle correction process Guzman established at the company, and that some pre-production vehicles — used for engineering purposes, EPA testing, and media drives — "were suspected of having shipped from the factory with loose upper control arm bolts where the front suspension could separate causing a loss of steering control."
The suit also alleges the first 12 Lucid Air sedans "were so ill-prepared for sale that each vehicle had roughly 40-60 items that needed addressed [sic] before they could be delivered to customers."
The complaint also says a vehicle that was a pre-registered "Out of State" sale was damaged during assembly in November, and "that four holes were drilled into the B-Pillar to access the dent" to repair it. "This inappropriate repair compromised the safety of this vehicle and should not have been performed without prior authorization, which includes ensuring the vehicle maintained structural integrity," the suit alleges.
It claims the vehicle was delivered to the customer without notifying them of the potential safety defect. Lucid later took back the vehicle and sold that customer a new one, to avoid issuing a formal recall, the claim states.
Representing Guzman is Lawrance Bohm of Bohm Law Group, known for high-profile, single-plaintiff employment verdicts including the $167.7 million Chopourian v. Catholic Healthcare West ruling.
"While the filed complaint contains only one side of the story, the lawsuit makes serious allegations of employer misconduct and retaliation leading to termination, in violation of both state labor laws and state common law," said David Yamada, a law professor and director of the New Workplace Institute at the Suffolk University Law School.
"Mr. Guzman is taking a real risk here, as whistleblowers often find it difficult to obtain employment in their field, especially if the lawsuit gets widespread publicity. That said, while the identity of his lawyers does not prove the merits of his claims, it is noteworthy that a prominent plaintiff's law firm has agreed to represent him."
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