Lucid has issued a recall for 637 examples of its Air sedan due to a faulty switch in the electric motor that could lead to a loss of power. More precisely, the problem has been traced to the contactors, defined in the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency (NHTSA) recall documents as "electrically activated switches that close at vehicle startup to transfer energy to and from the drive units, and open at vehicle shut down."

Lucid, and Sensata Technologies, the supplier that manufactures the contactors, concluded that in a "small population of contactors, the spring force may overcome the magnetic holding force," resulting in the switch opening and cutting power to the electric motors. The automaker says that it began investigating the problem back in May 2022 when one Air sedan lost power and was brought to a service center. At the time, technicians had to observe the contactor openings during startup manually.

But later, Lucid released a clever OTA update that, among other things, had the ability to diagnose which vehicles had the defect based on whether the contactor was opening. "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 automaker said.

In February, Lucid's tech department concluded that "an unreasonable risk to safety exists in vehicles with double-dip current signatures at least 5% of the time." This can be serious because "if a contactor opens unexpectedly while driving, the vehicle's electric motors will no longer be supplied power. This may lead to a loss of propulsion without pre-warning and may increase the risk of a crash."

Replacement contactors have been made with a stronger magnetic force to prevent future defects.

Out of the 637 vehicles being recalled, 273 have been identified, thanks to that OTA update, with at-risk contactors. 336 other vehicles are being recalled because their owners have not done the OTA update so it's impossible to know if they're equipped with defective contactors.

Owners will need to bring their cars to a Lucid service center where those contactor switches will be swapped out and replaced free of charge. Some owners have already been notified, while the remaining owners will hear from Lucid in April.

The Lucid Air saw its first recall a little over a year ago for a faulty front strut damper in the air suspension. Just 203 units were affected. The second recall from last May, however, was for every single Air on the road - 1,117 at the time - because of potential interior screen failure. Three recalls in just one year isn't many in the grand scheme of things, but Lucid is a brand-new automaker, and the Air is its first-ever model, and at a time when building a reputation for reliability is crucial, the brand will want to ensure as few complications as possible.

The Gravity SUV is due sometime next year. Before this, Lucid needs to ramp up production, garner additional sales, and prove that its products can be trusted. Teething issues with new products are not uncommon, and fortunately, Lucid has responded well to incidents that have occurred thus far.