Please critique my piece in Barron's

Good question…

I have had no issues with my Lucid Air. I just hit 5000 miles.
My car has over 9,000 miles and is in the shop for the at least the 6th repair of a minor mechanical issue. Luckily, all of the problems my car has had have been fairly minor and the Houston service center has always taken great care of it. My point is, there are cars are having issues, some major and some minor. How many cars and what issues? Well, we only know of the ones reported in the forum or maybe YouTube. Let's not paint either a rosy or disastrous picture.
 
I can relate to the owners who have experienced a 5,000 brick of. car. After reading the NHTSA complaints linked I can see others have experienced the same issue I have. My Lucid is in the service center as we speak, and has had 2 major malfunctions within 1100 miles that has made it inoperable.

Honestly, my powertrain failures have been dangerous. You lose power suddenly, and the car starts to come to a stop. It has happened to me while on the highway with my family in the car in the middle of the night. If its happening more commonly Lucid needs to do something immediately.

That said I am in the minority (as far as I can tell). I have spoken to many others who have had no major issues at all. When the car works its a pleasure to drive.
 
I can relate to the owners who have experienced a 5,000 brick of. car. After reading the NHTSA complaints linked I can see others have experienced the same issue I have. My Lucid is in the service center as we speak, and has had 2 major malfunctions within 1100 miles that has made it inoperable.

Honestly, my powertrain failures have been dangerous. You lose power suddenly, and the car starts to come to a stop. It has happened to me while on the highway with my family in the car in the middle of the night. If its happening more commonly Lucid needs to do something immediately.

That said I am in the minority (as far as I can tell). I have spoken to many others who have had no major issues at all. When the car works its a pleasure to drive.
Thank you for the report. Agreed that this sort event needs to be addressed. How was the the response by Lucid in your opinion? Did they tell you what was wrong and/or what part(s) needed replacement?
 
I can relate to the owners who have experienced a 5,000 brick of. car. After reading the NHTSA complaints linked I can see others have experienced the same issue I have. My Lucid is in the service center as we speak, and has had 2 major malfunctions within 1100 miles that has made it inoperable.

Honestly, my powertrain failures have been dangerous. You lose power suddenly, and the car starts to come to a stop. It has happened to me while on the highway with my family in the car in the middle of the night. If its happening more commonly Lucid needs to do something immediately.

That said I am in the minority (as far as I can tell). I have spoken to many others who have had no major issues at all. When the car works its a pleasure to drive.
That's quite concerning. I experienced something similar with my 2022 Tesla Model S, which just came to a complete halt in the middle of a highway at night. It did not brick-up, but it was scary, so I can relate. Stuff like this needs to be addressed. So far, so good, tho, with my AGT now at 2000 miles. Not a squeak of any problem so far.
 

I can relate to the owners who have experienced a 5,000 brick of. car. After reading the NHTSA complaints linked I can see others have experienced the same issue I have. My Lucid is in the service center as we speak, and has had 2 major malfunctions within 1100 miles that has made it inoperable.

Honestly, my powertrain failures have been dangerous. You lose power suddenly, and the car starts to come to a stop. It has happened to me while on the highway with my family in the car in the middle of the night. If its happening more commonly Lucid needs to do something immediately.

That said I am in the minority (as far as I can tell). I have spoken to many others who have had no major issues at all. When the car works its a pleasure to drive.
I decided to read the NHTSA complaints for other EVs. Ioniq 5s roll away even though you thought park was engaged, and Taycans have an insane number of failures, and Rivian has a crash where the car auto-braking and regular brakes failed. I think what we’re learning is that EVs in general are in their early days of reliability. For example, the Porsche Taycan (all 2022 models) has had 47 NHTSA complaints from 5700 deliveries this year. Lucid has had 7 out of 3200 deliveries this year. So that’s a NHTSA report rate of 0.008% for Taycan, and 0.002% for Lucid.

Isn’t it funny how little ol’ me, with no journalistic training or credentials, already just put forth more perspective-giving information by doing 5 minutes of “research” than the author of this article? This should not minimize the seriousness of the failures a small percentage of Lucid owners have experienced, and Lucid definitely needs to improve to make those events as close to 0% as possible, but the DOOM DOOM DOOM that we’ve been hearing a lot of isn’t really justified, even though yes it sure does suck a lot if it happens to be your car!
 
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I decided to read the NHTSA complaints for other EVs. Ioniq 5s roll away even though you thought park was engaged, and Taycans have an insane number of failures, and Rivian has a crash where the car auto-braking and regular brakes failed. I think what we’re learning is that EVs in general are in their early days of reliability.

Cars are monstrously complex pieces of engineering, whether EV or ICE. In my personal experience, new models introduced by long-established automakers are prone to high rates of issues and failures.

Among the entirely new models or first year of a next-generation model, here is my own experience:

1997 C5 Corvette -- warped rear brake discs, steering tie rod fell off, driver window leaked during rains, car went into limp mode repeatedly (once in the far left land of I-95 during rush hour). I left the car on the side of the road, called a tow truck, and never got back in it again.

2000 Jaguar S-Type -- constant screen blackouts, transmission failure. Lemon-lawed the car.

2003 Audi S6 -- the GM OnStar system that Audi used in the car caused the battery to drain overnight. Numerous attempts by Audi to address the problem failed, and I had to keep jumper cables in the car. Traded it after less than a year.

2004 Mercedes SL55 AMG -- numerous minor failures (window motors, gear shift linkage, leaking trunk gasket, seat heaters); brake-by-wire system failed twice, once also losing back-up braking, causing me to roll out of a parking garage into traffic until I hit a curb that stopped me. Second replacement of the system also took out the alternator. MB took the system out of production the next year.

2008 Audi R8 -- suspension sensors failed on the drive home from the dealer.

2011 Honda Odyssey -- windshield had warpage down the passenger side that noticeably distorted images, transmission had faulty shift algorithm that took Honda over a year to address.

2015 Tesla Model S P90D -- numerous software failures, replaced four driver door handles, replaced MCU screen, battery weld joint broke which took out both the battery pack and the rear drive unit (motor/inverter).

I have long been an "early adopter" of new models and long ago learned to expect more problems with them, no matter who the manufacturer. My own experience with a very early Lucid Air (no. 154) has been about par for the course. However, unlike the Corvette, Jaguar, and Audi S6 -- all of which I dumped within a year for unresolvable problems -- every issue with the Lucid has been addressed. The only problem(s) that took a while to address were software related, and virtually all of those problems have disappeared with the advent of UX 2.0.

We are nearing the one-year mark and 13,000 miles with the Lucid. It has actually improved over the course of that time and remains the best balance of performance, comfort, and driving pleasure I've ever owned.
 
I decided to read the NHTSA complaints for other EVs. Ioniq 5s roll away even though you thought park was engaged, and Taycans have an insane number of failures, and Rivian has a crash where the car auto-braking and regular brakes failed. I think what we’re learning is that EVs in general are in their early days of reliability. For example, the Porsche Taycan (all 2022 models) has had 47 NHTSA complaints from 5700 deliveries this year. Lucid has had 7 out of 3200 deliveries this year. So that’s a NHTSA report rate of 0.008% for Taycan, and 0.002% for Lucid.

Isn’t it funny how little ol’ me, with no journalistic training or credentials, already just put forth more perspective-giving information by doing 5 minutes of “research” than the author of this article? This should not minimize the seriousness of the failures a small percentage of Lucid owners have experienced, and Lucid definitely needs to improve to make those events as close to 0% as possible, but the DOOM DOOM DOOM that we’ve been hearing a lot of isn’t really justified, even though yes it sure does suck a lot if it happens to be your car!

For some balance, Tesla is recalling 80k cars in China for battery failures and software problems.

Lucid has shipped ~2,500 cars at end of Q2 since inception, and the current complaint rate is .28% (~1 in 357, or 7/2500), not .0028%.
Porsche has delivered over 100k Taycans, with 49k delivered here in the US year to date. It's a bit harder to parse the specific model but as you wrote, they are not without complaints, either.
 
Cars are monstrously complex pieces of engineering, whether EV or ICE. In my personal experience, new models introduced by long-established automakers are prone to high rates of issues and failures.

Among the entirely new models or first year of a next-generation model, here is my own experience:

1997 C5 Corvette -- warped rear brake discs, steering tie rod fell off, driver window leaked during rains, car went into limp mode repeatedly (once in the far left land of I-95 during rush hour). I left the car on the side of the road, called a tow truck, and never got back in it again.

2000 Jaguar S-Type -- constant screen blackouts, transmission failure. Lemon-lawed the car.

2003 Audi S6 -- the GM OnStar system that Audi used in the car caused the battery to drain overnight. Numerous attempts by Audi to address the problem failed, and I had to keep jumper cables in the car. Traded it after less than a year.

2004 Mercedes SL55 AMG -- numerous minor failures (window motors, gear shift linkage, leaking trunk gasket, seat heaters); brake-by-wire system failed twice, once also losing back-up braking, causing me to roll out of a parking garage into traffic until I hit a curb that stopped me. Second replacement of the system also took out the alternator. MB took the system out of production the next year.

2008 Audi R8 -- suspension sensors failed on the drive home from the dealer.

2011 Honda Odyssey -- windshield had warpage down the passenger side that noticeably distorted images, transmission had faulty shift algorithm that took Honda over a year to address.

2015 Tesla Model S P90D -- numerous software failures, replaced four driver door handles, replaced MCU screen, battery weld joint broke which took out both the battery pack and the rear drive unit (motor/inverter).

I have long been an "early adopter" of new models and long ago learned to expect more problems with them, no matter who the manufacturer. My own experience with a very early Lucid Air (no. 154) has been about par for the course. However, unlike the Corvette, Jaguar, and Audi S6 -- all of which I dumped within a year for unresolvable problems -- every issue with the Lucid has been addressed. The only problem(s) that took a while to address were software related, and virtually all of those problems have disappeared with the advent of UX 2.0.

We are nearing the one-year mark and 13,000 miles with the Lucid. It has actually improved over the course of that time and remains the best balance of performance, comfort, and driving pleasure I've ever owned.
I have had similar experiences, especially with Mercedes-Benz... My Lucid Air now with 10,100 miles has not been back to the delivery/service center since I drove it home in May. Actually the most reliable new car experience I have had compared to Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, VW, Corvette...
 
For some balance, Tesla is recalling 80k cars in China for battery failures and software problems.

Lucid has shipped ~2,500 cars at end of Q2 since inception, and the current complaint rate is .28% (~1 in 357, or 7/2500), not .0028%.
Porsche has delivered over 100k Taycans, with 49k delivered here in the US year to date. It's a bit harder to parse the specific model but as you wrote, they are not without complaints, either.
2500 ^through the end of Q3, not Q2.
 
Agree with the premise and substance of the Barron's writers subject, Yet as an investor publication you may have been better detailing the financial aspect of LCID from startup to its current state. That timeline would be more in-line with a valuable investor article than the cherry-picking items used. Just my opinion from a 40+ year investment professional and Sr.Financial Analyst.
 
Just adding a datum: I've had my car since March, 6,000 miles. The recall inspection was done at my home, no fault found. The car has been flawless. It is a joy to own and drive.
 
We are just over a month in, but except for tiny issues that are mostly related to the ever-improving software (and the vanity mirrors aren’t lighting up), nothing major has shown up for us.
 
It's unfortunate lucid did not reply to your inquiries and I'm surprised that you also received no engagement from people on this forum regarding the issues they posted about. Very useful to check on actual complaints filed with nhtsa, but not really helpful to work around their failure to provide more detail by quoting unconnected experts and lawyers stating even a few very serious problems can have dire consequences. Surely it's also possible that 6 reported issues do not represent any kind of systemic issues with the vehicle.
 
I'm surprised that you also received no engagement from people on this forum
He posted for people to reach out to him on Thursday and published the article Friday morning. He didn't give enough time to get any responses, especially unsolicited to those who actually had the problems. While Alexa St John's article was also a hit piece, she at least solicited feedback from people individually by DMing them and had actual quotes from owners.
 
Just reviewed the actual complaints on nhtsa website and really only 2 were about car losing power while driving. One case driver lost speed and had 30 seconds to pull over. Two cases of losing power in driveway. One incline issu
e. One lightning strike causing short circuit. One person being trapped by seats before leaving driveway. Probably a lot closer to the de minimis standard than implied in article.
 
We are just over a month in, but except for tiny issues that are mostly related to the ever-improving software (and the vanity mirrors aren’t lighting up), nothing major has shown up for us.
That vanity mirror light uses its own CR2032 lithium battery. So unlike other cars are wired to 12v, you just need battery replacement.
 
I’m looking forward to the death of this thread and the crappy article referenced.
I agree. Just don't subscribe to Barron's!

Pete
 
That vanity mirror light uses its own CR2032 lithium battery. So unlike other cars are wired to 12v, you just need battery replacement.
Unfortunately, that’s not it. I’m very tech savvy and tried to fix it on my own without success. It’s likely related to the magnetic sensor that detects the open state, and the light flashes on and off. They took it in to fix a few minor issues, this included, and appear to have only fixed the driver mirror so far…
 
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