Lucid used over-the-air (OTA) updates for its flagship Air electric vehicle models to find out which vehicles are affected by the recall, the company reported in documents filed with the government. federal and posted earlier this week.
The estimated recall of about 259 Lucid Air luxury electric vehicles from the 2022 and 2023 models involves the replacement of potentially defective parts and therefore cannot be resolved with a software update alone. But that was the result of a much smaller group of vehicles, after Lucid pushed an OTA update to help identify problematic parts.
A contactor is a switch that closes when driving to allow current to flow from the battery pack to the motor or motors. In affected vehicles, contactors may open unexpectedly, causing power outages. This is because their spring force is overwhelmed by the magnetic force, according to document recovery.
Grand Air Lucid Air Tour 2022
According to the docs, when in normal operation, the contactors exhibit a “single dip signature” due to the movement of the parts in the magnetic field. Lucid noticed a “double embedded signature” indicating the possibility of an unexpected opening, cutting off power to the motor. In the recall documents, the automaker has indicated that the display, power steering, and power brake assist will not be affected.
The contactor switched to an updated design in October, but for older cars, Lucid used an OTA update to remotely analyze the vehicles for the risk of this error. It initially identified 232 customer cars with contacts that might need replacing, and an additional 27 vehicles are expected to require contact replacement once owners update their software. them and allow to run the analysis. Owners will get the affected contactors replaced free of charge.
Grand Air Lucid Air Tour 2022
This sounds like a problem Ford had with the Mustang Mach-E—and in that case it can fix the problem via an OTA update that changed the contactor behavior. What Lucid is doing here fits into another category—using OTA updates to leverage diagnostic software, which reduces the size of physical recalls.
This kind of remote diagnosis of potentially defective parts, for example, is something General Motors may find useful as it turns to dealers to flash tens of thousands of Bolt EVs. with battery diagnostic software.
As Lucid highlighted, a significant portion of the potential vehicle pool will also need to be included for updates, but that’s only because their owners aren’t keeping up with them.
Tesla already has a track record of delivering recall remedies through OTA updates, for much larger service challenges, including issues with power steering, heat pumpAnd power windows. Now, Lucid uses the usefulness of those updates for the next step—if it can get its owners to adopt them.
