Lucid Reliability in 2026: What Air and Gravity Owners Actually Experience

Last Updated: April 2026

The Consumer Reports page for the 2025 Lucid Air is blunt: “much less reliable than other cars from the same model year.”

The same site has no page for the Lucid Gravity at all.

The Air has four model years of owner data, 17 NHTSA recall campaigns, and 66 complaints on file.

The Gravity has 16 months of customer hands, three recalls, zero NHTSA complaints, and no reliability grade from any major rater.

Those two pictures have to stay separate.

This is a single-brand deep dive, not a ranking.

Two models is not a sample size for a most-reliable-Lucid table, and an SUV before the measurement window opens does not get a grade it has not earned.

What follows is what the federal record, Consumer Reports, and verified owner-complaint clusters actually say, with the Gravity section written to match what the data actually supports.

What the Lucid Air data actually says

Four model years of Lucid Air in the field is enough recall campaigns, complaint filings, and ownership miles to say something specific instead of generic. The read is mixed. Some of what owners report is first-platform startup friction that gets patched over the air within months: camera fixes, wiper-arm nuts, coolant heater. Some is hardware. Some is a service experience no software update can repair.

Seventeen recall campaigns, grouped by what actually broke

Lucid Air has 17 distinct NHTSA recall campaigns from 2022 through April 2026. That puts Lucid in the early-production-risk tier every EV startup sits in during its first five years. The shape of the campaigns matters more than the total.

• Software, patched over the air (seven campaigns): rearview camera FMVSS 111 failures (23V520, 25V670, 26V017), drive-system fault response (23V523), rear seat heater overheating (23V708), adaptive cruise control software (24V076), and high-voltage interlock disconnect (24V497). All seven remedied through a software push with no service-center visit required.
• Driveline / half-shaft hardware (two, lineage): 25V669 (October 2025) and 26V193 (March 2026 expansion). Improperly secured bolts on the half-shaft can allow disconnection. Affects 2024-2026 Air Pure RWD specifically. TWD covered the expansion in its Lucid Air Pure RWD recall piece. NHTSA flagged Lucid for potential late filing on the 2025 campaign, which is worth noting but not conclusive.
• Electrical propulsion (two): 23V110 contactor switches that may open unexpectedly (2022-2023), and 24V836 rear subframe wiring harness too short (2024-2025 Pure RWD). Both required service-center repair rather than OTA.
• Visibility and HVAC (three): 22V351 instrument cluster wiring harness, 23V521 wiper arm nuts loosening, and 24V011 high-voltage coolant heater (expanded in 24V495).
• Structure and suspension (two): 22V090 front strut damper snap ring (2022 MY only), 22V727 tow-eye bracket (2022 MY only).

Two through-lines jump out. The 2022-2024 model years carry the majority of the 17 campaigns; 2025-2026 MYs have roughly half as many against them. And software campaigns dominate. A new manufacturer with an OTA backbone can issue a correction in weeks that a legacy automaker would spend a year managing through dealers.

What you do not see in 17 campaigns, to Lucid’s credit, is a catastrophic battery or inverter recall. No thermal-runaway campaign. No structural-crash safety campaign. The ledger reads like a new manufacturer sorting out its first platform, not a design-fundamentals problem.

Sixty-six complaints, six verified patterns

NHTSA’s complaint database has 66 filings on Lucid Air across 2022-2025 model years as of April 19, 2026. Individual complaints are not evidence. Recurrences across model years, across forums, and against the same component language are. Six clusters clear that bar:

Sudden unintended acceleration (9+ complaints, 2022-2025 MYs). The biggest cluster.

Owners report the vehicle accelerating from a stop without driver input, in Drive or from Auto Hold, sometimes resulting in low-speed parking-lot and driveway collisions.

Lucid engineering classified one reported incident as “pedal confusion.”

Sudden-unintended-acceleration filings are historically dominated by driver error across every brand, and NHTSA has not opened a defect investigation on it here.

The cluster exists in the record; draw your own conclusion.

Drive System Fault / total power loss (8+ complaints). Drivetrain shutdown at freeway speed and low speed alike, often with inadequate or delayed warning.

Some incidents required flatbed recovery. Several owners describe weeks at a service center for repair.

This is not driver error.

It is a real operational tell on 2022-2025 Air powertrains that Lucid has addressed through a combination of OTA updates, service bulletins, and hardware fixes.

Whether it is fully resolved for 2026 MY is not yet answerable from the complaint record.

Rearview camera FMVSS 111 failures. The image fails to display within the federally required two-second window after shift-to-reverse. Three software-remedied recalls on the Air and one on the Gravity cover this. A used-car buyer should verify the software version is 2.8.0 or later on any 2022-2025 Air.

Pirelli 21-inch GT sidewall bubbles (3+ complaints, Air GT specifically). The factory Pirelli 245/35R21 tires on the 21-inch Grand Touring wheel option have produced enough sidewall-bubble reports at low mileage to constitute a trend. Lucid has not issued a recall. The lucidowners.com forum references a Pirelli tire redesign reportedly in progress. A GT buyer considering 21-inch wheels should price in a potential early tire replacement or step down to 19-inch or 20-inch.

DreamDrive Pro ADAS malfunctions (3+ complaints). Lane-keep drift across yellow lines, adaptive cruise confusion with lane-splitting motorcycles, Auto Park near-miss incidents. Multiple distinct failure modes, some dangerous in traffic. DreamDrive Pro is the optional higher-tier ADAS, not the standard DreamDrive, and it runs on a rolling software stack whose capabilities and failure modes both move with each OTA.

Customer service responsiveness (3+ complaints). Multi-week service-center holds, unreturned calls, buyback requests filed formally with NHTSA after owners reported getting no resolution direct from Lucid. Not a safety issue. Not a vehicle defect. A thin-service-network issue. An owner near a studio has a very different ownership experience than an owner 400 miles from one.

One additional thread for used-Air buyers: NHTSA complaints 11720144 and 11713831 both describe Lucid Service Center refusing service on 2025 Air vehicles carrying a Salvage title, including for safety-recall work. A policy matter rather than a vehicle issue, but material on the used market.

Consumer Reports, and what J.D. Power isn’t saying yet

Consumer Reports has published a reliability page for the 2025 Lucid Air at consumerreports.org/cars/lucid/air/2025/reliability/.

The verdict is direct:

“The 2025 Air is much less reliable than other cars from the same model year.” Consumer Reports notes five NHTSA recalls on the 2025 Air and lists them under powertrain, back-over prevention, and electrical.

The rest of the page reads “No Detailed Data Available” because CR’s component-level breakdown needs a larger owner-survey sample than Lucid has produced.

Older Air model years are paywalled or flagged NA. The 2021 Air, the first production year, is explicitly called a redesign year with inherent risk.

There is no CR brand-level reliability grade for Lucid as a manufacturer.

J.D. Power’s Vehicle Dependability Study and Initial Quality Study are the other standard industry references. Their studies typically require a three-year-old model year and a minimum sample for inclusion. Lucid Air is just now entering the qualifying window. Whether J.D. Power includes Lucid in a 2026 or 2027 study is a question the data has not yet answered. TWD will update this article when a Lucid-specific rating publishes.

Why the Lucid Gravity section cannot be a grade

Lucid Gravity Grand Touring entered production at the Casa Grande plant in December 2024.

By April 19, 2026, that is 16 months of owners actually driving the car, plus a few months of Gravity Touring deliveries since the November 20, 2025 announcement.

Lucid delivered 3,093 vehicles total across Air and Gravity combined in Q1 2026 per its investor relations disclosure.

Lucid has not broken out Gravity-specific deliveries, and Gravity shipments were disrupted for 29 of 90 days in the quarter by the 26V192 second-row lap-belt recall.

Per-vehicle accumulated mileage has not accumulated either; the Gravity fleet’s growth curve is not publicly disclosed.

This is a pre-data vehicle.

TWD will not assign a reliability grade to a car with less than 18 months of owner experience.

When J.D. Power’s 2027 Vehicle Dependability Study or Consumer Reports’ 2027 reliability survey include the Gravity with meaningful sample, TWD will update this article with a grade.

Until then, the read is what the federal record actually shows, plus qualitative early signal from owner forums.

Three recall campaigns, two structural

• 25V855 (December 10, 2025), Seats / air bag. Incorrect backrest covers on front seats may prevent side air bags from deploying correctly. 2026 Gravity MY. Remedy: inspect and replace seat backrest covers.
• 26V018 (January 16, 2026), Rearview camera software. Image may not display per FMVSS 111 on software prior to 3.3.20. 2025-2026 Gravity MY. Remedy: OTA software update.
• 26V192 (March 26, 2026), Seats / lap belt anchor brackets. Second-row lap belt anchor brackets may have insufficient welds, affecting FMVSS 207 and 210 compliance. 2025-2026 Gravity MY. Remedy: inspect, repair or replace seats.

Two of those three are structural, not software.

Seat backrest covers and lap-belt anchor welds are hardware remedies that require a service center.

Different category from the OTA-dominated Air ledger.

The camera-software campaign (26V018) mirrors the recurring Air FMVSS 111 recurrence and is fixed through a software push.

Three campaigns in 16 months on a new vehicle from a new brand is within the early-EV-startup envelope. The structural nature of two of them is worth tracking as the fleet grows.

Zero NHTSA complaints. What that actually means.

The NHTSA complaint database returned zero complaints for 2025 MY Gravity on the April 19 pull. The 2026 MY endpoint returned a 400 error, consistent with an endpoint not yet populated for a current-year vehicle.

Three readings are possible. The product is working well enough that owners are not filing. Absolute Gravity volume is small enough that the statistical expected complaint count is low. NHTSA complaints lag real-world ownership by months, because owners typically file after repeated incidents or failed service attempts, not after the first glitch. Any of those three can be partly true.

Zero complaints does not prove reliability and does not prove the opposite. It means the federal complaint record has not yet produced a read. A Gravity buyer relying on that is relying on an absence of data rather than a body of data.

Consumer Reports, J.D. Power, and owner forums on a pre-data SUV

No Consumer Reports reliability page exists for the Lucid Gravity. The URL at consumerreports.org/cars/lucid/gravity/ returns 404. No CR owner-survey data because there is not yet a CR-survey-qualifying Gravity owner base. No J.D. Power Vehicle Dependability Study or Initial Quality Study currently includes the Gravity; the vehicle is too new for either study’s inclusion criteria.

The qualitative read from owner forums is mixed.

A 5,000-mile owner review on lucidowners.com called the Gravity “the best-driving SUV crippled by software annoyances,” with driving quality as the strength and software experience as the recurring friction point.

That echoes the Air’s owner-reported trace: hardware works, software is where the iteration shows up.

AutoEvolution documented one $150,000 Gravity owner who drove 430 miles and listed the vehicle for resale, an outlier ownership experience worth naming without extrapolating from.

Lucid added Apple CarPlay to the Gravity on March 11, 2026, which shows the company is iterating rapidly on the software annoyances owners have flagged.

None of that is scored data. None of it is a reliability grade. Qualitative early signal on a fleet before the measurement window opens.

Not yet crash-tested

Neither NHTSA nor IIHS has crash-tested the Lucid Gravity as of April 19, 2026. NHTSA’s NCAP database returned no entries for 2025 or 2026 Gravity. A direct lookup at iihs.org/ratings/vehicle/lucid/gravity-4-door-suv returns 404. Articles that imply otherwise are extrapolating or fabricating. The accurate statement is the plain one: not yet tested.

What Air and Gravity together say about Lucid

Read the two model sections side by side and a brand-level throughline surfaces.

Lucid is a young manufacturer with production since 2021 and a platform heavily dependent on software.

Its recall frequency sits in the early-EV-startup range, not the legacy-automaker range. Its service network is thin by luxury-brand standards.

Its OTA cadence is fast enough that many recalls are remediated without the owner visiting a service center, a real advantage that also means the platform is genuinely in flux.

None of that is the same thing as saying Lucid builds unreliable cars.

Consumer Reports rates the 2025 Air below average for its model year, and the NHTSA complaint record confirms real operational trouble in drivetrain-fault territory.

The same record does not show a failure of the platform’s engineering fundamentals, a battery safety failure, or structural integrity failure.

What it shows is an early platform that owners feel when something goes wrong, because the service network is still growing and the OTA turnaround can take weeks or months.

A buyer making peace with that profile can be happy with a Lucid.

A buyer expecting Lexus-grade service responsiveness out of the box will not be.

The Air Pure, Touring, and Grand Touring cross-shop with Mercedes EQE and BMW i5, both of which carry legacy service infrastructure Lucid is still building.

The Air Sapphire cross-shops with Porsche Taycan Turbo GT and used 911 Turbo S money.

The Gravity Grand Touring and Gravity Touring cross-shop with Tesla Model X, Rivian R1S, and Mercedes EQS SUV, a segment where no competitor has a fully settled reliability profile.

Warranty, service network, and ownership cost

Lucid’s new-vehicle warranty is 4 years or 50,000 miles bumper-to-bumper, plus 8 years or 100,000 miles on the high-voltage battery, standard across both Air and Gravity.

Published at lucidmotors.com/knowledge/ownership/maintenance-and-warranty/lucid-limited-warranty.

Identical to Mercedes-Benz EV coverage, similar to BMW and Tesla, one year and 10,000 miles behind Rivian’s 5-year / 60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper and 75,000 miles behind Rivian’s 8-year / 175,000-mile battery terms.

What the warranty does not cover is the time cost of a multi-week service hold or a flatbed tow to a service center in another state.

Lucid operates a small retail-and-service footprint concentrated in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, New York, and a handful of other major metros.

NHTSA complaints reference multi-week service holds, mobile service dispatch that helped some owners and missed others, and a buyback request filed formally with no response acknowledged.

OTA updates are the counterweight. Many recall remedies and feature updates arrive without a service appointment.

EV maintenance costs are low in the abstract.

No oil changes, long-lasting brake pads, minimal routine intervals.

Where Lucid ownership cost diverges is on the back end.

Repair labor at a thin service footprint tends to run higher, parts lead times for low-volume vehicles run longer, and insurance tier for Air and Gravity runs elevated relative to comparably-priced legacy-brand competitors.

None of that is unique to Lucid; it is the shape of ownership cost for every low-volume luxury-EV startup in its first half-decade.

Practical read: if you live near a Lucid studio, the service experience is manageable and the OTA cadence is a net positive. If you live in a rural market or a state without a studio, account for tow distance and longer turnaround on any repair that needs a service center.

Reliability data by engine and drivetrain configuration for both models is tracked at /reliability/lucid/air/ and /reliability/lucid/gravity/.

What the record adds up to

Lucid Air has four years of owner data and a mixed record. Seventeen recalls, most patched over the air. Sixty-six complaints with six verified clusters, two operationally serious. A direct Consumer Reports verdict calling the 2025 model less reliable than average. Service-network friction in the owner record. A buyer who understands that profile can buy an Air with eyes open.

Lucid Gravity is a vehicle too new for measured data. Three recalls, two structural. Zero NHTSA complaints. Early owner signal that mirrors the Air’s trace. No Consumer Reports page, no J.D. Power grade, not yet crash-tested by NHTSA or IIHS. A 2026 Gravity order is a bet on a fleet still proving out.

TWD will update this article when Consumer Reports publishes a Gravity page, J.D. Power includes Lucid in a dependability study, NHTSA or IIHS crash-tests either model, or a new pattern surfaces in the federal record. Reliability is a moving target. So is this article.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Lucid cars reliable?

It depends on which Lucid and which year. The Lucid Air has four years of owner data, 17 NHTSA recall campaigns, 66 complaints across six verified patterns, and a Consumer Reports 2025 verdict that calls it “much less reliable than other cars from the same model year.” Most Air recalls are OTA-fixable. The Lucid Gravity has only 16 months of owner experience, three recalls, zero NHTSA complaints, and no Consumer Reports or J.D. Power grade. Neither model is unreliable at the dangerous-defect level. The Air is objectively below average for its model year per CR. The Gravity is not yet scorable.

How reliable are Lucid cars?

For the Air, Consumer Reports rates the 2025 model “much less reliable than other cars from the same model year” on the sample CR has. Older Air model years are either paywalled or listed as insufficient sample. NHTSA shows 17 recall campaigns and 66 complaints across 2022-2025 MYs, most recalls OTA-fixable. For the Gravity, no reliability grade exists from any major rater yet; the car has been in production since December 2024 and the fleet is still too young for scored data.

Is the Lucid Air reliable?

The 2025 Lucid Air is “much less reliable than other cars from the same model year” per Consumer Reports. Seventeen NHTSA recall campaigns span 2022-2026 MYs, most OTA-fixable. Sixty-six complaints cluster around six verified patterns: sudden unintended acceleration (9+), drive system fault / total power loss (8+), rearview camera failures, Pirelli 21-inch GT sidewall bubbles, DreamDrive Pro ADAS malfunctions, and customer-service responsiveness. The hardware is not broken where it counts. Software and service experience are where owner friction concentrates.

How many recalls does the Lucid Air have?

Seventeen distinct NHTSA recall campaigns from 2022 through April 2026. The two largest clusters are OTA-fixable software (seven campaigns) and the Pure RWD half-shaft-bolt lineage (25V669 in October 2025 plus 26V193 expansion in March 2026). Other campaigns cover electrical propulsion, visibility and HVAC, structure and suspension, and one rear seat heater. The 2022-2024 model years carry the majority; 2025-2026 MYs have roughly half as many.

What’s the most common Lucid Air problem?

The biggest NHTSA complaint cluster is sudden unintended acceleration, with nine or more filings across 2022-2025 MYs reporting low-speed unintended movement from Drive or Auto Hold. Drive System Fault / total power loss is the next cluster at eight or more filings, with some at freeway speed. Rearview camera software failures have been recall-remedied for most owners. The Pirelli 21-inch GT wheel-option sidewall-bubble pattern is the most commonly reported tire issue. DreamDrive Pro ADAS malfunctions round out the top clusters.

Is the Lucid Gravity reliable?

Too early to grade. The Lucid Gravity has been in customer hands since December 2024. Lucid’s Q1 2026 delivery total was 3,093 vehicles across both Air and Gravity. A Gravity-specific figure has not been publicly disclosed, and Gravity deliveries were disrupted for 29 of 90 days in Q1 by the 26V192 second-row lap-belt recall. Three NHTSA recall campaigns are on file (two structural, one camera-software OTA). Zero NHTSA complaints as of April 19, 2026. No Consumer Reports page exists. No J.D. Power study includes the Gravity yet. Qualitative owner signal from lucidowners.com calls it “the best-driving SUV crippled by software annoyances,” which matches the Air’s trace of strong hardware with iterative software. TWD will not assign a grade to a vehicle with less than 18 months of field data.

What does Consumer Reports say about Lucid?

Consumer Reports has a reliability page for the 2025 Lucid Air with a direct verdict: “The 2025 Air is much less reliable than other cars from the same model year.” The page lists five NHTSA recalls and does not have detailed component-level data due to insufficient owner-survey sample. Older Air model years are either behind the CR member paywall or listed as insufficient sample. No Consumer Reports page exists for the Lucid Gravity as of April 2026.

What does J.D. Power say about Lucid?

As of April 2026, J.D. Power has not published a widely-cited Lucid-specific reliability or quality rating. Their Vehicle Dependability Study and Initial Quality Study require a minimum owner sample and model-year age for inclusion, and Lucid is only now entering the qualifying window. Whether J.D. Power includes Lucid in a 2026 or 2027 study is a question the data has not yet answered. TWD will update this article when a rating publishes.

Do Lucid cars have a good warranty?

Lucid’s standard new-vehicle warranty is 4 years or 50,000 miles bumper-to-bumper, plus 8 years or 100,000 miles on the high-voltage battery. Applies to both Air and Gravity. Identical to Mercedes-Benz EV coverage, similar to BMW and Tesla, one year and 10,000 miles behind Rivian’s 5-year / 60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper and 75,000 miles behind Rivian’s 8-year / 175,000-mile battery terms. Published at lucidmotors.com under the ownership and maintenance section.

Are the Lucid Air and Gravity tested by IIHS?

No. As of April 19, 2026, IIHS has not published crash-test ratings for either the Lucid Air or the Lucid Gravity. Direct lookups at iihs.org return 404 for both vehicles. NHTSA has rated the 2024 and 2025 Air 5-star overall in both AWD and RWD configurations; the 2026 Air is not yet in the NHTSA database. The Lucid Gravity has not been tested by NHTSA for any model year. Articles that imply IIHS ratings for either Lucid model are extrapolating.

Should I buy a used Lucid Air?

A used Lucid Air in 2026 can be a reasonable buy if two conditions hold. First, verify the vehicle has received all open recall remedies, particularly the half-shaft-bolt campaigns for 2024-2026 Pure RWD (NHTSA 25V669 and 26V193), the rearview camera OTA (software 2.8.0 or later), and any 2022-2023 MY hardware campaigns. Second, confirm the vehicle does not carry a Salvage title; NHTSA complaints 11720144 and 11713831 both document Lucid Service Centers refusing service on salvage-title Airs, including for recall work. Beyond that, remaining battery warranty is transferable and the platform is not broken at the engineering core. Ownership cost is what changes most on a used Lucid: warranty work is free, but tow distance and parts lead time for a thin service network are real.

Sources

• Consumer Reports: 2025 Lucid Air reliability (direct verdict: “much less reliable than other cars from the same model year”)
• NHTSA recall database (17 Air campaigns, 3 Gravity campaigns verified via NHTSA MCP on April 19, 2026)
• NHTSA NCAP ratings (5-star overall for 2024 and 2025 Lucid Air AWD and RWD)
• IIHS ratings: Lucid Air (returns 404; no IIHS testing on file)
• IIHS ratings: Lucid Gravity (returns 404; no IIHS testing on file)
• Lucid Motors: Limited Warranty terms (4-year / 50,000-mile bumper-to-bumper, 8-year / 100,000-mile battery)
• TWD: Lucid Air Pure RWD half-shaft-bolt recall coverage

Cluster navigation

Part of TWD’s 2026 Lucid lineup coverage:

• 2026 Lucid Air Pure Buyer’s Guide
• 2026 Lucid Air Touring Buyer’s Guide
• 2026 Lucid Air Grand Touring Buyer’s Guide
• 2026 Lucid Air Sapphire Deep Dive
• 2026 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring Buyer’s Guide
• 2026 Lucid Gravity Touring Preview
• 2026 Lucid Lineup Guide (hub)