Lucid Motors‘ Manager of ADAS/AD Sensing and Lighting Electronics has left the company after nearly five years to join Apple, Vaibhav Chadha announced on his LinkedIn profile.
Chadha’s departure follows last week’s exit of SVP of Engineering and Software Emad Dlala, who left the company after nearly 11 years — the executive who sat at the top of the engineering organization that included Chadha’s ADAS team.
The exit removes a hardware engineer who helped develop the camera and sensing systems underpinning Lucid‘s DreamDrive driver-assistance platform — and comes just days after the company rolled out hands-free driving on the Gravity SUV for the first time, a feature his team’s work helped enable.
Career at Lucid
Chadha joined Lucid in October 2021 as an ADAS Hardware Electrical Engineer at the company’s Newark, California facility.
Over the following years, he rose through four promotions within the advanced driver-assistance and autonomous driving division.
After three months in his initial role, Chadha moved to Engineer of ADAS/AD Cameras in January 2022, a position he held for roughly 17 months.
A promotion to Senior Engineer of ADAS/AD Cameras followed in May 2023, spanning a year and a half during which Lucid shipped the Air sedan’s hands-free driving and lane-change update in mid-2025.
In October 2024, Chadha was elevated to Staff Engineer of ADAS/AD Cameras, a title he held until February 2026.
His final promotion — to Manager of ADAS/AD Sensing and Lighting Electronics — came in February and lasted roughly four months before his departure.
His trajectory at Lucid closely tracked the company’s ADAS development arc, from the DreamDrive Pro hardware suite to the long-delayed deployment of hands-free capability across both vehicle lines.
Hands-Free Driving Arrives
Lucid‘s UX 3.6 over-the-air update, released last week, delivered Hands-Free Drive Assist and Hands-Free Lane Change Assist to Gravity vehicles equipped with DreamDrive 2 Pro in North America.
The features had been first promised for 2025 and slipped through multiple missed deadlines.
Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff told Bank of America’s Global Automotive Summit in March that hands-free highway driving for the Gravity was “a few weeks” from deployment.
When the update finally shipped in June, it made the Gravity the second Lucid vehicle to receive hands-free capability, following the Air sedan, which gained the feature a year earlier.
In his farewell post, Chadha credited his time at the EV maker with his development as an engineer and leader.
“I had the opportunity to work on challenging and rewarding programs, help bring innovative technologies from concept to production, and collaborate with some of the most talented engineers and leaders in the industry,” he wrote.
Departure Wave
Chadha’s departure extends a pattern of talent loss that has accelerated in recent weeks.
Last week, EV reported that Senior Vice President of Engineering and Software Emad Dlala, had left the company after nearly 11 years.
He replaced Eric Bach, who was ousted by the company late last year, as exclusively reported by EV.
The executive’s exit marked the 14th departure of a C-level executive, senior vice president or vice president since October 2023 — and left design chief Derek Jenkins as the sole survivor of the leadership team that ran Lucid just a few years ago.
Days earlier, Senior Director of Supply Chain Ryan Anderson departed after nearly five years, shortly before the planned summer unveiling of the Cosmos midsize SUV.
Separately, Head of Integrated Marketing Bobby Sherlock left after less than a year in the role.
In confirming Dlala’s departure, Lucid said it is “transforming its organization to accelerate innovation and strengthen execution” under Napoli and that it “will communicate further actions soon.”
Napoli, the former Schindler Group chairman and CEO, formally took the CEO job on June 1 after a work-authorization wait.
In his first interview as CEO, Napoli told Bloomberg that his top priority would be deciding “what we don’t do” — signaling a push toward capital discipline and tighter strategic focus.
Stock Slide and Financial Pressure
The personnel upheaval is unfolding against a bleak financial backdrop.
Lucid shares have plunged to successive all-time lows in recent sessions.
Last Thursday, the stock reached a new record low of $4.47 — equivalent to $0.447 on a pre-reverse-split basis.
First-quarter results underscored the pressure.
Lucid delivered 3,093 vehicles — a 42% decline from the prior quarter driven largely by a 29-day Gravity delivery halt — generated $282.5 million in revenue, posted a gross margin of negative 110.4%, and suspended its full-year guidance.
The company’s market capitalization has fallen below $2 billion, representing a fraction of the over $9 billion that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has committed since 2018.
