A Lucid Air owner in Quebec says he won a vehicle arbitration that forced the Saudi-backed EV maker to cancel his lease and take back his 2024 Air Pure.
The owner, posting as ‘LucidGoosey’ on the Lucid Owners forum, wrote that an arbitrator ruled in his favor about 18 months into a four-year lease, leaving him liable only for excess mileage.
The arbitration record is not public, decisions under the program he says he used are confidential between the parties, and Lucid has not commented on the case as of early Monday.
What the Owner Described
The owner said he represented himself and built his case on extensive records.
He wrote that he logged every error message and failure “with timestamped photos and videos,” and ran the dispute through the Canadian Motor Vehicle Arbitration Plan rather than Quebec’s consumer-protection courts.
His account lists a long string of faults on the 2024 Air Pure: multiple tows, a frunk problem he said left him stranded on the roadside, wheel alignments about three times a year, and a driver-assistance system he said repeatedly steered the car toward oncoming traffic.
He also described smaller issues, among them trim coming loose, seat stitching separating, weather sealing peeling away, and intermittent losses of GPS and audio.
The owner called the car “the worst … reliability experience I’ve ever had with any product in my life,” while crediting its comfort and design.
He said he was “relieved” to be free of the vehicle despite the excess-mileage charge, and that he has since switched to a Kia EV4, contrasting a car he said “overpromised and underdelivered on range” with a cheaper replacement.
None of the specific failures could be independently verified.
The Arguments Attributed to Lucid
The most-shared part of the account is the owner’s description of how Lucid‘s representatives argued the case, and it is also the least verifiable.
According to his post, the company’s side contended that some problems stemmed from misuse rather than defects, including an argument that the car was not meant to be parked outdoors in freezing conditions and that its driver-assistance feature was not designed for use off multi-lane highways.
How Vehicle Arbitration Works in Canada
The program the owner says he used is a recognized route for Canadian buyers.
The Canadian Motor Vehicle Arbitration Plan, funded by the auto industry, covers about 94% of new-car sales and handles vehicles less than four years old with under 160,000 kilometres on the odometer.
Each side presents its case at a hearing, the vehicle is typically driven so its condition can be observed, and an independent arbitrator can also order a technical inspection.
The arbitrator then issues a binding decision that may require a manufacturer to buy back a vehicle, repair it, or reimburse costs, usually within about 70 to 90 days, with eligibility set by an annual September 30 cutoff.
Claimants who use the plan give up the right to take the dispute to court. The program has also told Canadian media that software problems fall outside what it can arbitrate, a limit worth noting given how many of the owner’s complaints involved software.
Quebec separately passed what is billed as Canada’s first true lemon law in 2023, allowing buyers to seek a reversed sale after repeated failed repair attempts within a set period, a statutory remedy distinct from the industry-funded arbitration plan. The owner said he pursued arbitration rather than that route.
A Pattern Lucid Is Facing
Jason Fenske, the engineer behind the ‘Engineering Explained’ channel, said this month that Lucid is repurchasing his 2025 Air Touring under lemon-law protections after months of software and hardware faults.
Unlike the anonymous forum post, Fenske’s case is on the record.
He read aloud from the buyback agreement, which stated the offer was intended to provide “what you may be entitled to under Lemon Law.”
Fenske said Lucid first tried to swap the Air for a matching vehicle while keeping his payments unchanged, but the configuration proved hard to replicate, and the company instead offered a full refund of what he had paid.
He had moved to the Air after selling a Tesla Model 3, and said he still admired the car’s engineering and the way it drove even as he gave it up, while making clear he had no interest in repeating the software experience.
A Securities Suit Adds to the Pressure
The consumer disputes are not Lucid‘s only legal front.
As EV reported last week, Pomerantz LLP has filed a federal securities class action accusing the company and two senior executives of concealing a supplier defect that halted Gravity SUV deliveries for 29 days in the first quarter while publicly touting improved manufacturing and delivery.
Filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, the complaint names Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff and Chief Financial Officer Taoufiq Boussaid alongside the company, and alleges violations of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Plaintiff Izogie Osaro Eke brought the suit for investors who bought Lucid securities between February 25 and April 13, a window in which, the complaint argues, the company made misleading statements about its operations as the Gravity disruption was already underway.
