Peeking into a Still-uncertain Automotive Reality

The human identity is constructed upon many different elements, and yet nothing defines us better than that tendency to grow on a consistent basis. This progressive approach, on our part, has empowered us to hit upon some huge milestones, with technology emerging as quite a major member of the stated group. The reason why we hold technology in such a high regard is, by and large, focused on its skill-set, which guided us towards a reality that nobody could have ever imagined otherwise. Nevertheless, if we look beyond the surface for a second, it will become clear how the whole runner was also very much inspired from the way we applied those skills across a real world environment. The latter component was, in fact, what gave the creation a spectrum-wide presence started a full-blown tech revolution. Of course, this revolution then went on to scale up the human experience through some outright unique avenues, but even after achieving a feat so notable, technology will somehow continue producing all the right goods. Now, while the same has turned increasingly evident over the recent past, Lucid Motors’ latest move shows you that there is still a long way to go before the creation can reach its desired point of perfection.

Lucid Motors has officially issued a recall for 637 of its luxury Air sedans over a faulty switch, which was causing sizeable loss in power. Located in the vehicle’s electric motor, the stated switch was designed to “close at vehicle startup to transfer energy to and from the drive units, and open at vehicle shut down.” However, according to certain reports, some switches saw the spring forcing practically overcoming the magnetic holding force, a development that forced a rather abrupt activation and deactivation of power being supplied to the electric motor. The recall comes after one lengthy investigation from Lucid Motors. Talk about the investigation, it started during May 2022 and initially asked of technicians to manually observe the contactor openings during startup. Then, in order to achieve better accuracy, the company released a software update which allowed it to conduct “telematic screening of vehicles” based on whether the contactor was opening or not.

“After analyzing the fleet data, Lucid determined 232 customer vehicles exhibited double-dip signatures at least 5% of the time, which provides a greater than 99.999% confidence interval for capturing affected contactors,” the company said in documents submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Interestingly enough, this is the third major recall Lucid Motors has been forced to issue since it launched its Air sedan line. The first one came in Feburary 2022, when Lucid’s Air sedans started facing a potential suspension issue. Next up, the company recalled over a whopping 1,100 sedans for faulty wiring harness connected to the instrument panel. Despite Lucid’s technical woes though, we must acknowledge that it is not the only player dealing with these problems. As an example, we can look at Ford issuing recalls for its Mustang Mach-E SUVs and F-150 Lightning pickup trucks. Beyond Ford, BMW also recalled a small number of 2022 i4 sedans and iX SUVs due to the risk of battery fires, whereas Toyota did something similar for bZ4x model once it was confirmed that loose hub bolts could cause the vehicle’s wheels to become detached while driving.

When quizzed regarding the whole matter, a spokesperson from Lucid Motors commented by saying:

“For Lucid, the safety of our customers and their families is the highest priority, and we are working to resolve this issue as quickly as is possible. Lucid will contact the owners of affected vehicles to notify them of the recall and to provide further information.”

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