A scathing ownership review of the 2025 Lucid Air Touring by one of the largest automotive YouTube channels has gone viral on Saturday, accumulating more than 714,000 views and over 12,400 comments within 24 hours.
The video, titled “Owning A Lucid Has Been Super Disappointing,” details a litany of hardware failures, software glitches, and design limitations experienced over the first six months with the premium EV model.
The review, published by the YouTuber Jason Fenske on his ‘Engineering Explained’ channel after driving 3,400 miles with the sedan, has sparked heated debate across both YouTube and X.
Engineering Excellence vs. Real-World Usability
The review opens with praise for Lucid‘s engineering accomplishments, creating a stark contrast with the subsequent catalog of problems.
“I bought it because I genuinely believe the Lucid Air is one of the best engineered vehicles the world has ever seen,” the host states in the video’s opening moments.
He describes the vehicles as “some of the most efficient, quickest, best packaged, brilliantly designed vehicles with a team of extraordinarily talented engineers behind them.”
However, Fenske immediately tempers this enthusiasm with self-deprecating doubt.
“But at this point, maybe that’s just Stockholm Syndrome talking, because as it turns out, life with the Lucid is a whole lot different than the brief stints for which I tried them out previously before buying one,” he said.
The review categorizes problems into three distinct areas: hardware issues requiring physical repairs, unintentional software bugs, and intentional software design choices the owner disagrees with.
Hardware Failures
The vehicle required multiple service visits within the first six months of ownership. The front trunk, or “frunk,” repeatedly failed to open on first attempt.
“Every single time I try to open the front, the first time it would fail. It’d come up, and it’d slam right back down. And then the second try, it would open,” the host explains.
Service technicians attributed the issue to a misaligned striker, according to the YouTuber.
More significantly, two powertrain coolant pumps required replacement because they “were not able to reach their target speed.” Additionally, the left fan button’s internal detent mechanism failed, necessitating replacement of the entire assembly.
“To me, these all seem like things that should have been caught at the factory upon inspection, or certainly at the showroom, but this is how it was delivered,” the Youtuber noted.
Jason Fenske also highlighted ergonomic issues, including a charging door requiring excessive force to open and cup holders with unusually high retention force.
The YouTuber measured the force required to remove a can from the cup holder at between 8.82 and 8.89 pounds across three tests.
“Nearly nine pounds to pull an empty can out of the cup holder. Lucid, why does it have to be so hard to pull a can out of the cup holder?” he asks, comparing it to his Toyota Corolla which measured “0.00 pounds” while still adequately securing beverages.
Software Glitches
The bulk of the review focuses on software reliability issues. “This thing is just riddled with software glitches and bugs,” the owner states.
For the first three months of ownership, the vehicle displayed a persistent error message upon entry.
“Every time I entered the car, every single time, the screen had a pop-up that said, unable to install update. Then if you click the learn more button, it said that it was up to date and that no further action was required,”
“Except that wasn’t true. It was not up to date. It was behind on software, and it could not update. It had to go into service in order to get this fixed,” he added.
Audio system failures occurred repeatedly.
“Sometimes the audio just doesn’t work,” the host explains, demonstrating in the video that turn signal sounds failed to play while finger snaps were audible through the recording. “No speakers, no sound for the entire drive, and this has happened at least five times already.”
Apple CarPlay connectivity proved particularly problematic, according to Jason Fenske.
The system “frequently switches which phone it’s connected to, and which phone is connected to which profile,” resulting in situations where the driver’s profile would connect to a passenger’s phone. One incident saw the owner’s music playback hijacked from his AirPods to his wife’s vehicle as she drove past their yard.
These issues required complete factory resets to resolve, “which takes about an hour to redo all of your settings,” according to the owner.
Bluetooth connectivity failures left CarPlay inoperable for three consecutive days.
“The car said, to connect your device wirelessly, turn on Bluetooth connectivity. But no matter what you did, Bluetooth would not turn on. And even though the car still recognized your phone as a key, it could not turn on Bluetooth.”
The phone key functionality exhibited erratic behavior.
“Sometimes my wife’s phone key literally just stopped working as a key. And this is crazy because the display would show that it is connected to her phone, and the display would also say there is no key detected. So you have to carry around the card as a backup key wherever you go.”
Auto-locking behavior proved equally unpredictable, the Lucid owner said. On one occasion, the vehicle would not lock via the phone app and refused to auto-lock for over ten minutes.
“The door handles are still popped open. The car is unlocked. The car is on.” Conversely, the system sometimes locked the vehicle while the owner was actively loading it, forcing him to unlock via the app just to access the driver’s seat.
During a road trip, the owner discovered his dog’s heated rear seat had activated to maximum temperature three separate times without apparent cause.
“He started to become uncomfortable. And so I checked the climate control… And it turns out his heated seat was on high.” The host expressed confusion as the dog was pressing against the rear of the seat, away from the control buttons.
The Lucid Air plug and charge functionality failed at Electrify America stations as the EV model was not recognized.
“I set it up online. I plug in the car at an Electrify America station to charge it. It does not recognize the car whatsoever. Everything had to be done manually.”
Speed limit display errors were also documented.
“One time, the display told me that the speed limit was 85 miles per hour, when in fact, it was 55 miles per hour… By the way, nowhere in the entire state I was driving in is there a speed limit of 85 miles per hour,” he said.
The garage door opener proved difficult to program and unreliable in operation, achieving only “about a 75% success rate” according to the owner.
Software Design
Beyond bugs, Jason Fenske criticizes intentional design decisions.
Switching driver profiles cancels active navigation and erases route history, forcing users to re-enter destinations.
The reverse mirror tilt feature adjusts only the right mirror and tilts it “basically all the way down. So it’s just staring at the ground. It becomes a useless thing to look at.” The host contrasts this with Tesla’s implementation, which adjusts both mirrors to positions useful for parking.
Battery display preferences also drew frustration.
Despite selecting battery percentage as the preferred display metric, navigation arrival estimates continue showing miles remaining.
“I asked Lucid about this. I said, why do y’all do this? And they said, well, that’s just how it is,” he stated.
Voice commands were described as “essentially useless,” with the system directing the owner to different states despite specific location requests.
When asked to open the glovebox, the system responded: “I can’t open the glove box for you, but you can do it by pulling the handle.” The host notes: “What’s funny about that is that there is no handle. So the thing’s just lying to me. To open the glove box, you have to use the button on the touchscreen.”
The cross-traffic alert system was criticized for excessive sensitivity, triggering warnings while stopped at red lights as cross traffic passed normally.
Battery drain from the mobile app was noted as problematic for older iPhones, consuming “as much as 35% of her battery in a single day” on an iPhone 13 when kept open for key functionality.
Profile Switching
The review identifies the inability to change driver profiles while driving as the “single most annoying issue” with the vehicle. “This one example just beautifully illustrates the combination of software and hardware problems that this car has.”
The vehicle offers two automatic profile detection methods: phone-based identification and facial recognition via biometric scanner. However, when multiple occupants enter simultaneously, “it feels like a coin toss which phone it’s going to pull from.”
The facial recognition scanner suffers from a hardware placement issue.
“Because I’m tall, I have the steering wheel mounted to the highest position so that I can fully see the display behind the steering wheel. But in that steering position, the biometric scanner is completely blocked by the wheel. It is hard mounted behind the steering wheel and you can raise the steering wheel into a position that completely blocks it. So a hardware design choice is making a software function completely worthless,” he stated.
Fenske continued by detailing the practical consequences.
“If my wife and I both enter the car, it has no idea who’s driving. And so I have to manually select my profile. But let’s say my mind is on something else. We’re talking, I get in the car and I just drive off. I also live near a highway so I get on it really quickly. But then whoops, now I notice I’m on my wife’s driving profile. The seat, steering, and mirrors are all wrong. Well, I cannot switch to my profile while I’m driving.”
The touchscreen-dependent controls exacerbate the problem.
“In a normal car with normal buttons, this wouldn’t be a huge deal. You’d adjust the steering and mirrors and go on about your day. But here, it’s all done on the touchscreen. So it’s basically impossible unless you’re willing to be heavily distracted as you use a touchscreen to tediously adjust your steering wheel and your mirrors.”
When asked about allowing profile changes while driving, Fenske said Lucid cited legal concerns about seat position changes potentially moving pedals out of reach. The host countered.
“But the alternative is that you have to now adjust the settings through a touchscreen. Incredibly distracted driving,” he stated. “That’s the safe alternative.”
Even when profiles are manually switched before driving, settings sometimes fail to load completely.
“Let’s say I did notice that my wife’s profile was selected, so I switched to mine. Well, it doesn’t always load all of the settings. So if I switch profiles, maybe it adjusts the seat and it adjusts the mirrors, but it doesn’t adjust the steering wheel…” the Lucid owner stated.
“And this happens frequently enough that it makes you rethink your life choices of how you ended up here,” he added.
Problems Persist After Software Update
The host noted that issues continued even after the vehicle finally received software updates.
During a two-mile drive to drop off his dog, multiple failures occurred in sequence: profile settings only partially loaded, Apple CarPlay disconnected during profile switching requiring reconnection, and the main display went black, eliminating navigation for the remainder of the trip.
“This all happened in the course of two miles in a car that has been out for about four years now. There is no reason the software should be this bad this late in its development,” he states.
Additional post-update issues included complete audio failure across multiple drives, frozen navigation that persisted through a parking-and-restart cycle, and the vehicle failing to turn off during a grocery shopping trip.
“I come out of the grocery store and I see my car far away. The lights are still on, the door handles are popped out, which means it’s unlocked and it’s on. And it’s just been sitting there unlocked and on the whole time I was grocery shopping,” he said.
Final Assessment
Despite documenting extensive problems within more than 3,000 miles of driving, the host maintains appreciation for the vehicle’s fundamental qualities.
“It’s just a shame to me because I do think this car looks great. And it drives great. Has great range. Has great practicality. Has absolutely brilliant engineers that have developed it. But the software, unfortunately, is anything but great.”
Fenske said the sedan is by far “the most frustrating” car he has owned.
“This car, by a large margin, is the most expensive vehicle I have ever purchased,” he stated. “And this car, by an enormous margin, is the most frustrating vehicle I have ever owned.”
The reviewer compared the Lucid’s wireless CarPlay reliability unfavorably to an inexpensive Amazon adapter.
“I have a cheap Amazon USB stick that if your car has wired CarPlay, it turns it into wireless CarPlay. And I use this on my Ford Maverick. And this thing has been bulletproof, far more reliable than the CarPlay in my Lucid… A cheap little rando brand USB stick on Amazon,” he said.
The host expressed cautious optimism for future improvements.
“Hopefully, in the future, with the software, they are able to address many of these issues and fix a lot of the drivability and livability issues with this car. But again, this thing’s been out for four years. And currently, it’s pretty frustrating to live with,” Fenske stated.
Community Backlash
In response to heated debate in the comments section, Fenske published an extended clarification defending both his assessment and Lucid’s engineering credentials while acknowledging the software’s failures.
Addressing commenters who questioned his praise of Lucid’s engineering, he again criticized the software while praising nearly all other elements.
“I really do think these are brilliant cars, for the many reasons I’ve shown in previous videos. Lucid created the most efficient vehicle sold in the United States. That doesn’t happen without extraordinarily clever engineering. The car is packed with innovation: the radiator intakes, the headlights, the frunk, the battery, the vehicle shape, the motors, the inverters, the onboard charging equipment, and a total vehicle packaging that is unmatched in the industry. That said, in my experience, the software sucks.”
Fenske rejected suggestions that insufficient research led to his purchase.
“I’ve spent at least 10 days driving numerous versions of these cars before buying one. I’ve met the engineering teams. I’ve read the forums, and seen people have had both good and bad experiences. I could not have imagined the software was going to be this poor, as I had not experienced it anywhere near the level I’ve had with my car, in the many times I’ve tested these cars. Generally speaking, it seems silly to blame the buyer of a product for a product’s problems.”
The host also addressed Tesla comparisons, noting he has “consistently” praised Tesla vehicles: “I have, again and again, said the Model 3 is one of the best daily drivers out there. I’ve continued to say they’re great cars.”
He concluded with a call for industry-wide perspective.
“There’s a lot of tribal fighting in the comments, which is unfortunate but expected. People love choosing teams and saying ‘my car is better, my team wins.’ Lol, okay! Great! But for those who think this way, know that competition in the automotive space is a good thing. It’s what pushes companies to do better, and improve their products. Collectively, we should want a wide variety of car companies and products out there to be successful.”
Despite the criticism, the host expressed continued support for Lucid‘s success.
“I really do hope Lucid is successful, as they make a very impressive car. Unfortunately, my experience living with one has not been pleasant, but I’m hopeful they’re able to address the issues,” the car reviewer wrote.
“Not downplaying the flaws either, they have a lot of work to do,” he noted.
Gravity Review
In mid-November, the EV maker sent its second model, Lucid Gravity, to one of the most prominent Tesla enthusiasts on social media with one million followers on X.
Sawyer Merritt, a shareholder and Tesla vocal supporter drove a fully spec’d version of the large SUV for a week.
Merritt praised the model for its design and efficiency, but named the absence of advanced autonomous driving technology a critical flaw.
Production Target Cut
The EV maker started 2025 aiming to produce “approximately 20,000” units.
However, it said in early August that it was reducing the annual target for the second time this year.
Lucid now aims to produce 18,000 vehicles, down from a range of 18,000 to 20,000 units announced in early August.
Uncertain supplies of rare earths have been affecting the EV industry over the last months.
Additionally, a fire at its aluminum supplier two months ago has also impacted Lucid‘s production, according to the management.
