Most people who have spent any length of time living with a Lucid will tell you: When they work as intended, they’re phenomenal. When they don’t—which, as far as the software is concerned, can unfortunately be quite often—you’re left wondering about what could’ve been. Even the new Gravity SUV, which my colleague Joel recently sampled and came away gushing over in many respects, was let down by buggy, unpredictable software behavior. Lucid is aware of these problems, which is why it’s turning over its entire software leadership team.
It’s part of a large personnel churn within Lucid over the last few months that includes the acrimonious firing of former chief engineer Eric Bach, as well as the separate departure of engineering VP James Hawkins, reported by TechCrunch. Earlier in 2025, CEO and founder Peter Rawlinson stepped down as CEO of the company. And these are just the names we know about.
“We have basically replaced the whole software leadership,” interim CEO Marc Winterhoff told Automotive News at CES 2026. “We are working through this.”
Among the issues noted in our Gravity review were erroneous missing key fob alerts, range estimates being relayed in kilometers despite the system being set to miles, an inexplicable “headlight error,” and the navigation system failing to properly display a route on its own.
That’s inexcusable for a six-figure SUV like the Gravity, but unfortunately, not surprising in this modern era of incomplete new model launches. What’s more alarming is that there are still issues with the Air that plague that sedan to this day, more than four years since it first began deliveries to customers. The one I reviewed just a couple of months back mostly behaved fine, save for two issues. On one drive, the media controls on the steering wheel simply failed to function. Annoying, but not a dealbreaker.
Far more frustrating was the hopelessly short range of the key fob when approaching the vehicle. If my Lucid Air wasn’t already on, the fob barely worked; pressing the single, discreet button it contained did nothing. On many occasions, the fob would only unlock the car once I’d gotten so close to it—basically walked up to the driver’s door—that it could trigger via the vehicle’s proximity sensors.
Add to that the disappointment of the Air key being made of noticeably cheap plastic, and it’s just a confoundingly poor experience for an EV that is otherwise so proficient. How is Lucid continuously failing at the fundamental task of key fob engineering?
We can’t answer that question; we can only hope that the company itself knows, and has a solution to that and other problems on the way. “We are very close,” Winterhoff said. “Our expectation is Gravity will be over the hump by the end of January, March at the latest. There is a lot of attention on this now right now. We clearly know that.”
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