Years of Persistent Software Failures - Lucid Air Software Team’s Incompetence is Unacceptable

[BAran]

As a Lucid Air owner for over two years, I expected a premium electric vehicle from a company positioning itself as a technology leader. Instead, the software experience has been a relentless parade of frustration, unreliability, and now genuine safety concerns. The software team’s inability to deliver stable, functional updates is not just disappointing - it’s outright incompetent and reflects a dangerous disregard for owners who have invested heavily in this vehicle.

From day one, intermittent issues have plagued the car and remain unresolved despite multiple over-the-air updates:
- It routinely takes up to 30 seconds to shift from Park to Drive after the car has been sitting unlocked.
- Volume controls freeze randomly, rendering audio adjustments impossible.
- Bluetooth and other connectivity is unreliable at best. Devices frequently go unrecognized, preventing music streaming. SiriusXM channels are unable to connect daily.
- A random subset of speakers will intermittently stop producing sound
- Air vent controls become unresponsive, leaving cabin climate management inconsistent and irritating.

Most of these problems temporarily disappear after I pull over and reboot the car’s computer, yet they randomly reappear throughout the day. These problems are not edge cases - they recur with enough frequency to make every drive unpredictable. After two full years, the fact that Lucid has failed to address such basic functionality is a clear indictment of the software team’s competence fundamentally unstable software.

The latest software update, 2.10.0, has made matters far worse. It has fundamentally altered the vehicle’s driving dynamics in an unsafe manner. Regenerative braking now fails to engage consistently, particularly after the car has been parked for several hours. This is not a subtle change - it affects deceleration predictability and energy recapture, introducing hesitation and inconsistency that has real safety implications, especially in traffic or when precise control is needed. Introducing such a regression in a critical system like braking response demonstrates a shocking lack of rigorous testing and quality control.

This level of ongoing incompetence in a $100K luxury EV is inexcusable. Owners deserve better than a vehicle that feels like an unfinished beta project years after delivery.

 

[Random715]

As someone who’s had a base air pure for close to 3 years now with very few problems, I have to say it feels like lucid tried to do too much. 4 trim levels of the air, tons of customization options within. Drive train options, yoy changes, multiple computer systems.

Then they introduce the gravity. Again tons of configuration options, multiple trims, lots of features out of the gate to support and on top of all that a brand new software stack. You can love or hate Tesla, but they kept things painfully simple for the longest time and there’s benefits to the simplicity.

If they just focused on baseline stability and core features across all their cars, with complexity and features to come later, I can’t help but feel the company would be in a much better position. The more things a car can do, the more that can break. I think the biggest example of this is over engineering the AC. Instead of just having rear AC on all the time, they tie it to a weight sensor. They could have just gone with a seatbelt connectivity sensor if they wanted, but this is a solution in search of a problem.

 

[wideruled]

Honestly it sounds like you might have a bad CCV with all of the stuff you put up before the 2.10.0 info.

I know service is difficult to get in touch with, but have you reached out to them about any of these issues? One tip I got from one of the service folks in my area is to hit the emergency flashers whenever you encounter any of these odd behaviors. That can help them locate the issues in the logs especially if you have a rough time of when the issue happened.

I've had my car for about as long as you have, and the only real software problem I had was Wireless Android Auto being fluky (sometimes wouldn't connect until rebooted both my phone and the car multiple times, and odd audio popping) but that was resolved when I did the CCV2 upgrade. Since then I get the occasional Bluetooth hiccup, but I think its my phone rather than the car now.

 

[Aka-none]

As a Lucid Air owner for over two years, I expected a premium electric vehicle from a company positioning itself as a technology leader. Instead, the software experience has been a relentless parade of frustration, unreliability, and now genuine safety concerns. The software team’s inability to deliver stable, functional updates is not just disappointing - it’s outright incompetent and reflects a dangerous disregard for owners who have invested heavily in this vehicle.

From day one, intermittent issues have plagued the car and remain unresolved despite multiple over-the-air updates:
- It routinely takes up to 30 seconds to shift from Park to Drive after the car has been sitting unlocked.
- Volume controls freeze randomly, rendering audio adjustments impossible.
- Bluetooth and other connectivity is unreliable at best. Devices frequently go unrecognized, preventing music streaming. SiriusXM channels are unable to connect daily.
- A random subset of speakers will intermittently stop producing sound
- Air vent controls become unresponsive, leaving cabin climate management inconsistent and irritating.

Most of these problems temporarily disappear after I pull over and reboot the car’s computer, yet they randomly reappear throughout the day. These problems are not edge cases - they recur with enough frequency to make every drive unpredictable. After two full years, the fact that Lucid has failed to address such basic functionality is a clear indictment of the software team’s competence fundamentally unstable software.

The latest software update, 2.10.0, has made matters far worse. It has fundamentally altered the vehicle’s driving dynamics in an unsafe manner. Regenerative braking now fails to engage consistently, particularly after the car has been parked for several hours. This is not a subtle change - it affects deceleration predictability and energy recapture, introducing hesitation and inconsistency that has real safety implications, especially in traffic or when precise control is needed. Introducing such a regression in a critical system like braking response demonstrates a shocking lack of rigorous testing and quality control.

This level of ongoing incompetence in a $100K luxury EV is inexcusable. Owners deserve better than a vehicle that feels like an unfinished beta project years after delivery.

You must own a different car. While I’ve only owned mine for about a year and 10,000 miles. This has not been my experience.
Doesn’t mean the car is bad but your particular one is problematic. I might hesitate to paint the entire platform and company as unsuitable

 

[socktucker]

One tip I got from one of the service folks in my area is to hit the emergency flashers whenever you encounter any of these odd behaviors. That can help them locate the issues in the logs especially if you have a rough time of when the issue happened.

There...has to be a better way. That's absurd. If that's their testing method, I feel bad for the guys who have to search logs and look for that.

- 1.It routinely takes up to 30 seconds to shift from Park to Drive after the car has been sitting unlocked.
- 2.Volume controls freeze randomly, rendering audio adjustments impossible.
- 3.Bluetooth and other connectivity is unreliable at best. Devices frequently go unrecognized, preventing music streaming. SiriusXM channels are unable to connect daily.
- 4.A random subset of speakers will intermittently stop producing sound
- 5.Air vent controls become unresponsive, leaving cabin climate management inconsistent and irritating.

1. Maybe that's a slow wake up? If its like my car when its locked, it flat just won't wake up until it wants to, if it does during that attempt at all.
2. never had that happen but Lucid Assistant will get all weird if I try to use it
3. Bluetooth connectivity is great in my Air with my iPhone
4. I've had that happen a few times I think its the turn signals?
5. That would be irritating

 

[knewman]

While I've experienced some of what you've described in my ~1.5 years of ownership, I wouldn't say the frequency of those occurrences is enough to warrant a branding of "outright incompetence and dangerous disregard." Moreover, many of those occurrences have drastically decreased with each software update, which is more than I can say for some of the other EVs I've lived with. In my mind that's a sign of positive software development.

If you're not exaggerating the situation, it really sounds like you have a fault in your vehicle that should be taken up with service.

 

[wideruled]

There...has to be a better way. That's absurd. If that's their testing method, I feel bad for the guys who have to search logs and look for that.

I don't think it is that absurd as it gives the tech / engineer something easy to key in on as folks don't generally activate their hazards for no reason.

Yes, I'd like them to have better tooling, but I don't know the amount of logs the cars generate and how onerous it is to search through said logs. Like I work on HPC machines and the sheer volume of logs our machines generate is staggering. I'm actually pushing my team to build tools for ourselves to help with this as the customer we support doesn't use my companies standard software suite. Not to get too off topic there haha.

 

[AZLucidGuy]

As a Lucid Air owner for over two years, I expected a premium electric vehicle from a company positioning itself as a technology leader. Instead, the software experience has been a relentless parade of frustration, unreliability, and now genuine safety concerns. The software team’s inability to deliver stable, functional updates is not just disappointing - it’s outright incompetent and reflects a dangerous disregard for owners who have invested heavily in this vehicle.

From day one, intermittent issues have plagued the car and remain unresolved despite multiple over-the-air updates:
- It routinely takes up to 30 seconds to shift from Park to Drive after the car has been sitting unlocked.
- Volume controls freeze randomly, rendering audio adjustments impossible.
- Bluetooth and other connectivity is unreliable at best. Devices frequently go unrecognized, preventing music streaming. SiriusXM channels are unable to connect daily.
- A random subset of speakers will intermittently stop producing sound
- Air vent controls become unresponsive, leaving cabin climate management inconsistent and irritating.

Most of these problems temporarily disappear after I pull over and reboot the car’s computer, yet they randomly reappear throughout the day. These problems are not edge cases - they recur with enough frequency to make every drive unpredictable. After two full years, the fact that Lucid has failed to address such basic functionality is a clear indictment of the software team’s competence fundamentally unstable software.

The latest software update, 2.10.0, has made matters far worse. It has fundamentally altered the vehicle’s driving dynamics in an unsafe manner. Regenerative braking now fails to engage consistently, particularly after the car has been parked for several hours. This is not a subtle change - it affects deceleration predictability and energy recapture, introducing hesitation and inconsistency that has real safety implications, especially in traffic or when precise control is needed. Introducing such a regression in a critical system like braking response demonstrates a shocking lack of rigorous testing and quality control.

This level of ongoing incompetence in a $100K luxury EV is inexcusable. Owners deserve better than a vehicle that feels like an unfinished beta project years after delivery.

The temporary break regen alert is usually when the state of charge is >95%. This is safety to not overload an almost fully charged battery pack. As you drive it goes away. I have 68,000 miles on a 2022 Air GT. Software has steadly improved (My car shipped with v1.x.x), now I rarely have any issues on 2.10.0.

 

[Miami_Lucid_Man]

Air Pure owner since March 2025. Nearly all of the issues on the OP’s list did occur for me back in the day but have basically gone away with updates over time. The slow boot up and shifting issue was one I’d forgotten about.

 

[Aka-none]

There...has to be a better way. That's absurd. If that's their testing method, I feel bad for the guys who have to search logs and look for that.

It’s not a test method but a tagging method

 

[L-Dude]

I don't know. My car has been basically perfect for over a year. I've never had a car with that level of quality and performance before. This doesn't make me think that every Lucid is perfect, nor does it make me believe that every Lucid is as apparently flawed as the OP's.

This forum is an echo chamber for negativity.

 

[skomarla]

The temporary break regen alert is usually when the state of charge is >95%. This is safety to not overload an almost fully charged battery pack. As you drive it goes away. I have 68,000 miles on a 2022 Air GT. Software has steadly improved (My car shipped with v1.x.x), now I rarely have any issues on 2.10.0.

maybe in AZ its seen only above SOC 95%.. but up here in new england in winters, even with a SoC of 80% i get the reduced "brake" regen warning. air temps varying anywhere from 40F or below.. so i think its also a function of battery temps.. anyway back to the original topic

 

[socktucker]

of "outright incompetence and dangerous disregard."

A team is only as good as the worst manager in it, as they say. There is no way they were all incompetent. Something just went wrong systemically I think.

 

[Truthlesshunter]

I don't know. My car has been basically perfect for over a year. I've never had a car with that level of quality and performance before. This doesn't make me think that every Lucid is perfect, nor does it make me believe that every Lucid is as apparently flawed as the OP's.

This forum is an echo chamber for negativity.

yeah, to be a bit ironic, i'm going to "echo" this. I've had my fair share of problems too, but nowhere near to consistently complain at every chance I get and for the most part, things are resolved.

I think there are a few outliers with legitimate car concerns..but being a member of a few forums for different cars, lucid is nowhere near alone in this and even at the amount of cars with issues (seems to be always the same people repeating..go look at other manufacturer forums and you're going to find a TON of problems).

I think it doesn't help that there's been this really weird push in the past month of negative press against lucid...shorting the stock? just hate the company? I don't know but it seems something very deliberate has been happening. Just look at the false bankruptcy stuff yesterday. And seeing that negative stuff often will make others want to jump on the negative bandwagon for sure.

 

[gaskiller]

My car works perfectly! Make sure you have the updated computer.

And there is no disregard here, we all know Lucid is fixing software, though I admit, they could have concentrated more on it.

Both Air and Gravity have shown tremendous improvement. And Lucid continues to work on it.

Majority have no issues.

You have only made 8 posts, despite having years of issues?

 

[borski]

yeah, to be a bit ironic, i'm going to "echo" this. I've had my fair share of problems too, but nowhere near to consistently complain at every chance I get and for the most part, things are resolved.

I think there are a few outliers with legitimate car concerns..but being a member of a few forums for different cars, lucid is nowhere near alone in this and even at the amount of cars with issues (seems to be always the same people repeating..go look at other manufacturer forums and you're going to find a TON of problems).

I think it doesn't help that there's been this really weird push in the past month of negative press against lucid...shorting the stock? just hate the company? I don't know but it seems something very deliberate has been happening. Just look at the false bankruptcy stuff yesterday. And seeing that negative stuff often will make others want to jump on the negative bandwagon for sure.

It’ll be no surprise to this forum, of course, but our cars also just… work.

I’ve had bugs before, but they’ve gotten fixed, and for us there is nothing show stopping left.

Maybe it’d be nice if the HUD was improved, but otherwise we’re quite happy. Best cars either of us have ever driven.

 

[prgarg]

It’ll be no surprise to this forum, of course, but our cars also just… work.

I’ve had bugs before, but they’ve gotten fixed, and for us there is nothing show stopping left.

Maybe it’d be nice if the HUD was improved, but otherwise we’re quite happy. Best cars either of us have ever driven.

Good for you, glad to hear Must feel good to be able to say that, hopefully one day I'll know

 

[socktucker]

Good for you, glad to hear

10 times a day every day

 

[jedwin]

up here in new england in winters, even with a SoC of 80% i get the reduced "brake" regen warning. air temps varying anywhere from 40F or below.. so i think its also a function of battery temps..

Yes, sometimes similar here in Maine. BUT, the functional impact of the “reduced regen” is almost always nearly imperceptible to me, suggesting it’s a pretty subtle reduction. (Maybe at times needing to hit friction brakes briefly at end of coming to a full stop, but never to vary speed while traveling.)

That said, I’m ready to apply the friction brakes when the warning is active, even though I rarely have to—it’s generally only necessary when leaving home fully charged, and that too moderates quickly.

 

[Truthlesshunter]

Yes, sometimes similar here in Maine. BUT, the functional impact of the “reduced regen” is almost always nearly imperceptible to me, suggesting it’s a pretty subtle reduction. (Maybe at times needing to hit friction brakes briefly at end of coming to a full stop, but never to vary speed while traveling.)

That said, I’m ready to apply the friction brakes when the warning is active, even though I rarely have to—it’s generally only necessary when leaving home fully charged, and that too moderates quickly.

same here in Canada for the winter reduced regen warning

but the one i get when the battery is charged at a high % (like over 95% for road trips) is completely different...there is still regen but it's very noticeably reduced. I can barely tell the difference for the winter warning one