Lucid Motors is facing renewed customer complaints over key fob recognition failures and service delays, eight months before starting production of its third model in Saudi Arabia.
The new round of complaints on social media comes nearly six months after the company’s interim CEO Marc Winterhoff first acknowledged the issues and despite multiple software updates aimed at resolving them.
Despite the continuous production ramp-up, Lucid reported a 42% quarter-over-quarter decline in deliveries to 3,093 vehicles in the first quarter of 2026 due to a nearly month-long delivery halt of the Gravity SUV linked to a recall affecting all 4,476 EVs.
Lucid shares currently trade near all-time lows at around $8.80 per share — down roughly 64.8% over the past year.
The EV maker has earned a reputation for industry-leading battery efficiency and driving performance — the Air sedan holds the longest EPA-rated range of any production EV, and the Gravity has recently won the 2026 World Luxury Car of the Year award.
However, persistent software and service issues across both models continue to affect the brand’s positioning.
First Complaint
A Reddit user posting under the handle ‘Schmevin’ wrote on Thursday that his five-day-old 2026 Gravity left him, his 35-week pregnant wife, and their toddler stranded after the vehicle stopped sensing the key fob and could not be put into drive.
“Tonight, our 5 day old Lucid gravity left me, my 35 week pregnant wife and a toddler, completely stranded,” the owner wrote on the r/LUCID forum. “Unable to put the car in in drive, it was not sensing the key fob inside the vehicle.”
The owner said the car had experienced similar failures on every day of ownership, including on the day of delivery. “This is the 3rd time the car didn’t go into drive, the day of delivery,” he wrote. “The car was bricked and needed a hard reset.”
The NFC backup card — which Lucid provides as a secondary access method — also failed.
“Card failed on me 3 times. It’s equally unreliable,” the owner wrote in the comments. In a follow-up, he clarified: “Car failed 3 times in 8 days. Hence why I’m using the fob.”
The dealership had already replaced the fob battery, but the problems persisted. The owner said the issue “has been a documented issue for years, and they refuse to take it seriously.”
The post, titled “The absolute worst ownership experience I’ve ever had. 2026 Gravity, 5 days into ownership,” had 109 upvotes and 87 comments within approximately 10 hours. The owner concluded: “If they can’t figure out a way to make a key fob work in a 120k car, and to do a basic thing as DRIVE in 3 years, they don’t deserve to be in business.”
When another commenter suggested the complaints might be “fabricated or exaggerated,” the owner responded: “Definitely not fabricated. Want a video?”
Second Complaint
Separately, Florida-based Gravity owner Brian Stone posted an update on X detailing a frustrating service experience at the company’s Riviera Beach centre.
Stone had scheduled a service appointment on March 26 for a defective left strut. Lucid‘s plan was to tow the vehicle in on Monday, repair it Tuesday, and return it Wednesday.
Instead, the vehicle arrived at the service centre on Monday and sat untouched in the parking lot for days. Stone emailed the service advisor on Tuesday morning and received no response. He called Tuesday evening and was sent to voicemail.
When he finally reached the advisor by phone on Thursday afternoon, he was told the team was “actively working on the car.”
Stone checked the Lucid app’s live camera feature and saw the vehicle had not moved from its spot since arrival.
After the advisor checked internally, Stone was told that engineering now wanted both struts replaced rather than just the left, that a right strut had to be ordered, and that all repairs would be done at once because “they didn’t want to pull it in and out of the shop multiple times.”
“When I asked why they didn’t order both struts to begin with, he didn’t have a response,” Stone wrote. “I think that communication is paramount so the fact that he told me his plan was to return it to me yesterday and instead of keeping me updated he ignored my email and didn’t provide a single update until I could finally get him on the phone on Thursday afternoon isn’t great at all.”
“Let’s hope this experience improves,” he added.
2025 Complaints
Thursday’s complaints mirror issues EV first reported on December 31, 2025, when new Gravity owners detailed identical key fob failures, navigation malfunctions, HVAC screeching, false safety alerts, and delivery problems across X and Reddit.
The key fob problem is the longest-running complaint in the Gravity’s short history.
Owners began reporting “key not detected” alerts within weeks of the first deliveries in late 2024.
Winterhoff himself told reporters at CES 2026 in January that the key fob failures were “sometimes embarrassing” and predicted the Gravity would be “over the hump” by the end of March.
Lucid has released at least six software updates since September 2025 that included key fob improvements — versions 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.5, 3.3.20, 3.3.23, and 3.4 — alongside a wireless fob firmware update tool added to the mobile app in October.
In December, Winterhoff sent an email to Gravity customers acknowledging the company had failed to meet its standards.
“Lingering software problems have unfortunately affected our customers’ experience and satisfaction,” he wrote. “To be candid, I share that frustration.”
In early February, SVP of Engineering and Digital Emad Dlala said the 3.4 update had resolved “90% — or even close to 95% — of those issues.” March has come and gone — and the key fob is still stranding owners.
Broader Context
The company recalled all 4,476 Gravity units produced through February 14 over improperly welded second-row seat belt anchors, a defect traced to supplier Camaco Automotive.
Lucid also halted Gravity deliveries for nearly a month over a separate middle seat component defect, as EV first reported on February 12.
The company told EV earlier this week that the rollout of hands-free driving for the Gravity remains planned for later this quarter, after Winterhoff had told investors on March 17 that the feature was “a few weeks” away.
The company’s 2027 model-year configurator had briefly listed the feature as arriving in the third quarter before being corrected.
The launch of hands-free highway driving on the Gravity — one of the most anticipated features among owners — comes as Lucid prepares to enter the ADAS subscription market in the first half of 2027 with tiered DreamDrive Pro plans priced between $69 and $199 per month.
Software and service issues persist across both the Gravity and the Air sedan, with LucidOwners forum posts in recent weeks describing similar key fob, charging speed, and infotainment complaints on the older model.
The unresolved quality issues take on added significance as Lucid prepares to begin production of its third model — a mid-size crossover built on an entirely new vehicle platform — at its Saudi Arabian factory in approximately eight months.
The mid-size platform, which will underpin the Lucid Cosmos, the Lucid Earth, and a third off-road-focused variant, will debut a new user experience and software architecture.
It will be the first Lucid vehicle to feature NVIDIA’s DRIVE AGX Thor computing platform and to target Level 4 autonomous capability.
The introduction of a new platform, a new factory, and a new software stack will add significant complexity for a product and engineering team that has yet to fully resolve the issues affecting its existing two models.
Lucid will report first-quarter financial results on May 5.
The company reaffirmed last week its full-year production guidance of 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles.
