Jason Fenske’s Lucid Air Was So Broken That Lucid Just Bought It Back

Engineering Explained’s Jason Fenske spent eleven months with a 2025 Lucid Air Touring before the situation got so dire that Lucid simply bought the car back and reimbursed him for every lease payment. When a manufacturer would rather eat a full buyback than fix your car, you know something is deeply, seriously wrong.

On paper, the Lucid Air is a technological masterpiece—a class-leading efficient luxury sedan that represents genuine engineering ambition. In practice, Fenske’s experience tells a very different story: a vehicle so plagued by electrical gremlins and software failures that even a YouTuber with millions of subscribers and direct access to Lucid couldn’t get it fixed.

The Problems Started Immediately

Fenske didn’t need months to discover issues. Door handles failed. Phone-as-key functionality didn’t work reliably. The cupholder malfunctioned. These weren’t isolated incidents—they stacked up so quickly that Lucid reached out proactively, promising to address them. That’s when most owners might have felt reassured. It wasn’t.

The real nightmare began during a four-day road trip a few months into ownership. The Air’s problems didn’t just persist; they escalated into territory that went beyond mere inconvenience. The rear doors locked Fenske out entirely, refusing to open despite being mechanically unlocked. The HVAC system developed a split-personality disorder, with one vent blowing significantly hotter air than the other despite both being set to 65°F. Apple CarPlay connectivity kept dropping, sometimes failing to load altogether.

Then There’s the Safety Problem

Most infuriating was a legitimate safety issue that made Fenske question whether the car should be on the road at all. With the Air’s Stop Mode set to hold—a feature that automatically keeps the car stationary without requiring constant brake pressure—something went catastrophically wrong with the forward/reverse logic.

One moment, Fenske powered up the vehicle, selected reverse, and lifted off the brake. The car suddenly lurched forward instead of backward. On a flat surface, it was merely alarming. On a slope or in an intersection, the same failure could have caused a serious accident. This isn’t a rattling trim piece or a software glitch. This is a vehicle doing the opposite of what the driver commanded.

Under federal motor vehicle safety standards, transmission mode selection is a critical function. A car that shifts into the wrong direction unprompted is a defect with genuine liability implications. Lucid knew it, too.

The Buyback: When Manufacturers Give Up

Lucid’s first response was standard corporate damage control: replace the vehicle. The company offered to buy back Fenske’s Air and provide a matching replacement so he could continue his lease uninterrupted. Sounds reasonable—except Lucid couldn’t find another 2025 Air Touring to swap in.

Rather than source one, Lucid pivoted to Plan B: full buyback plus reimbursement for every payment Fenske made over eleven months. That’s a significant financial hit, and it signals something important. Lucid wasn’t confident it could fix the underlying issues in the next car either. Better to cut losses with a high-profile influencer than hand him another potentially broken example and hope for different results.

For Fenske, it worked out. He got his money back and avoided being trapped in a lemon lease. For everyone else dealing with the same problems—the door locks, the phantom forward-reverse confusion, the Apple CarPlay crashes—the outcome will be very different. Most owners don’t have 4.2 million YouTube subscribers or the platform to escalate issues directly to corporate leadership. They’ll be dealing with dealer service departments, warranty claims, and the slow grind of trying to get problems resolved under normal circumstances.

What This Reveals About Lucid

The Air’s fundamental issue isn’t horsepower or range or even design. EPA efficiency numbers are genuinely impressive, and the car’s engineering is sophisticated. The problem is software quality and electrical integration maturity. Lucid is a company that can design an aerodynamic sedan and pack it with cutting-edge battery tech, but apparently cannot prevent a vehicle from randomly shifting into the wrong gear or keeping rear doors locked when they should be accessible.

These aren’t teething problems of a new platform. These are symptoms of a company that’s pushed products to market before the digital infrastructure was ready. Tesla spent years learning this lesson—shipping cars with software that had to be debugged in the field, dealing with reliability nightmares, and slowly improving. Lucid skipped the learning phase and went straight to shipping broken vehicles to early adopters.

The fact that Lucid couldn’t source a replacement Air also hints at production complications. If the company were churning out cars in volume, finding another Touring trim shouldn’t be impossible. Instead, it suggests supply constraints or quality control issues deep enough that swapping units wasn’t a viable solution.

The Broader Implications

This story matters beyond Fenske’s personal experience. When a luxury EV manufacturer would rather execute a full financial buyback with reimbursement than attempt another repair cycle, it’s a public acknowledgment that the product has systemic problems they don’t know how to solve yet. That’s a red flag for any prospective Air buyer considering a purchase or lease.

The Air competes against Tesla Model S and increasingly against traditional luxury sedans pivoting to electric drivetrains. Tesla’s reliability has improved measurably over its last several generations. Lucid, by contrast, appears to be learning its lessons in real-time at customer expense.

Fenske’s willingness to document this publicly deserves credit. Most YouTubers would’ve quietly accepted a buyback and moved on. Instead, he created a detailed breakdown of exactly what broke and how it affected daily life. That transparency is valuable for anyone considering dropping $70,000+ on a luxury sedan—even one with remarkable specs on paper.

The Lucid Air remains one of the most technically accomplished electric sedans ever built. It’s also, apparently, one of the least finished when it comes to actual real-world durability. Lucid will need to fix that gap before the Air earns credibility as a long-term ownership proposition.

Sources: Carscoops