Possible Unintended Acceleration of my Lucid Air

[gchakra]

My 2023 Lucid Air Touring with VIN 50EA1TEA7PA004423 had a Sudden Unintended Acceleration event on Saturday, 5/17/2025 at the BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu Temple, 15100 Fairfield Ranch Road, Chino Hills, CA 91709 at 5.30pm. Specifically just after taking off my foot from the accelerator in order to get a parking pass at the temple, I found the car unintentionally accelerate at a very high speed and it crashed into the pavement and a post on the premises. Luckily there was no human or animals on the way and while I suffered minor injuries, no one else was harmed.
This is very similar to the all weather mat recall but Lucid stated my mats were not on the recall list.
My vehicle is currently at European Motor Car works Body shop at 3330 pullman street, costa mesa, CA 92626 and I request a full investigation by Lucid engineers. The Lucid incident case number is 00934201.
Can I request the owner forum to give me advise....how to address this case with Lucid management and with my insurance company. Assuming it gets repaired at the body shop, how to ensure that unintended acceleration will not recur again ? PLEASE HELP!!!!

 

[borski]

First of all, sorry to hear this happened to you. It sounds like it was really scary.

Luckily, the vehicle collects telemetry especially in events just such as this; you can think of it as the Lucid’s “black box.” Lucid will certainly do a full investigation.

insurance and the body shop will handle the repair.

Lucid and insurance will handle the investigation with the data from the vehicle and assess what happened. Sometimes, literally any human can confuse the accelerator for the brake, too, no matter how good you are or how long you’ve been driving. It happened to my wife, and she’s easily one of the best drivers I know. If that’s that’s the data shows, you will likely find it hard to believe, so be prepared if that’s the case.

But it’s entirely possible something went wrong, too. The data will bear it out.

 

[WhistleKing30]

Ouch. Glad no one was hurt.

Just to clarify the situation with the all-weather mat recall in relation to what you wrote:

The all-weather mats recall is related to accelerator pedal getting stuck in position. In other words, the risk described in the recall is not the sudden on-set of acceleration, such as you describe, but rather the risk of a lacking deceleration such as one would expect when removing your foot from the accelerator.

As to your question regarding how to call for an investigation; I cannot speak for the US market, but here in Europe this is typically handled via the insurance companies. They have access to the right channels with the manufacturers and the governmental bodies. And if a satisfactory answer is not obtained then a legal inquiry could be started - depending on the severity of the case. IIRC the US has a the NHTSA where consumers can report complaints. Though as your insurance company is involved I would follow their lead.

 

[PureJoy77]

Sounds frightening and I’m very sorry to hear this happened to you. Glad you are ok and no one was seriously injured. Personally, I would keep this a private matter between the parties involved and seek legal counsel if needed. Keep in mind the term “unintended acceleration” doesn’t necessarily imply that Lucid is at fault, as drivers have also been found at fault of unintended acceleration.

 

[borski]

Sounds frightening and I’m very sorry to hear this happened to you. Glad you are ok and no one was seriously injured. Personally, I would keep this a private matter between the parties involved and seek legal counsel if needed. Keep in mind the term “unintended acceleration” doesn’t necessarily imply that Lucid is at fault, as drivers have also been found at fault of unintended acceleration.

I would suggest avoiding legal counsel until strictly necessary. Your insurance company should be able to call for an investigation just fine, and Lucid will share that data with the insurance adjuster and investigators.

You can get an attorney, but I can pretty much guarantee it will only slow things down as at that point *every word Lucid says* will need to be reviewed by their own legal team.

YMMV, just my $.02.

But of course if Lucid doesn’t respond or isn’t talking to the insurance company, you can compel them to.

 

[DeaneG]

I felt what seemed to be acceleration once, when it was actually just the car's strong regenerative braking shutting down for a second due to a sudden loss of traction, allowing the car to coast. The transition from deceleration to coasting felt exactly like a strong acceleration. It can happen if you drive over a speed bump while going steeply downhill, or as in my case, over rough pavement with your foot off the accelerator.

 

[illopp00]

Interestingly I have done some eye-opening changes simply by keeping accelerator pedal constant to hold speed at high regen and then changing it to 'OFF'. This completely remaps the pedal position (imagine going from -30-100%) and shifting the request to 0-100%, you definitely get a lot more acceleration. I am wondering if it wouldn't be slightly safer to block out Regen setting changes when there is any accelerator input.

 

[borski]

I felt what seemed to be acceleration once, when it was actually just the car's strong regenerative braking shutting down for a second due to a sudden loss of traction, allowing the car to coast. The transition from deceleration to coasting felt exactly like a strong acceleration. It can happen if you drive over a speed bump while going steeply downhill, or as in my case, over rough pavement with your foot off the accelerator.

When the car detects loss of traction, torque commands diminish drastically to make sure traction is recovered before allowing steering inputs. In acceleration, the torque reapply happens quite quickly, but in regen, the torque reapply takes a longer time, because the TCS system used is developed for combustion engine vehicles which don’t have regen.

Lucid has developed their inhouse 1000Hz traction control system that is much more responsive especially in regen. To this day, it has been deployed to the sapphire and RWD pure already. My understanding is deployment to AWD Airs is planned for the future. The hardware is there; it’s a matter of time, testing, and calibration.

But my bet is you won’t see this happening on a RWD pure or sapphire. (Or gravity, for that matter)

 

[WhistleKing30]

Interestingly I have done some eye-opening changes simply by keeping accelerator pedal constant to hold speed at high regen and then changing it to 'OFF'. This completely remaps the pedal position (imagine going from -30-100%) and shifting the request to 0-100%, you definitely get a lot more acceleration. I am wondering if it wouldn't be slightly safer to block out Regen setting changes when there is any accelerator input.

I get your point. But I think it's fine as it is today maybe. Physics demand that the maximum regen is always proportional to the current speed of the vehicle, and therefore sudden removal would never cause a major change in vehicle dynamics. At least not beyond the scope of what an attentive driver should be able to handle without effort.

But out of curiosity I tried this last night and can confirm there is a live change in commanded regen when changing the settings in-situ. The reduction I experienced was always gradual and controlled. So also no risk of mechanical damage due to sudden jerk.

Seems that Lucid put the necessary thought into this edge case of your passenger playing with your regen settings while you're decelerating. (please slap your passenger on the wrist)