Lucid Motors is recalling 27,185 of its flagship Air luxury sedans in the United States after federal regulators found that an overheated exterior lighting circuit could spark a fire. The recall, disclosed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, covers more vehicles than the electric automaker delivered during all of 2025, when it shipped just 15,841 cars.
According to Reuters, NHTSA said the defect could cause a loss of exterior lighting, which in turn raises the risk of a crash, while the overheating itself increases the risk of fire. The agency has asked Air owners to park their vehicles outside and away from structures until a permanent remedy is deployed, a precaution that applies even when the car is switched off. Lucid has already released an over-the-air software update meant to address the issue, and the company has determined that 20,719 of the affected vehicles have received it, per NHTSA.
The recall is now the largest in Lucid's history, according to the same Reuters report, surpassing a January 2026 campaign that pulled in more than 10,000 vehicles over rearview camera image issues. Lucid builds the Air exclusively at its Advanced Manufacturing Plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, according to Manufacturing Dive, even as the company keeps its corporate headquarters in Newark, California.
A String of Recalls in a Single Year
The lighting circuit issue is far from Lucid's only headache in 2026. In May, the company recalled 2,039 rear-wheel-drive Air sedans after NHTSA logged Campaign 26V309000 over internal friction in the Gen 4 inverter that could cause a sudden loss of drive power, a defect Lucid addressed through over-the-air monitoring software, per LemonAuto.com. Two months earlier, in March, the automaker recalled 3,627 Air Pure Rear-Wheel Drive sedans under Campaign 26V193000 because improperly secured half-shaft bolts could allow the half-shaft to disconnect from the drive unit, according to the same LemonAuto.com database.
Those campaigns, taken together with the January rearview camera recall and now the lighting circuit fire risk, paint a picture of persistent quality control struggles for a car that starts at $70,900 for the entry-level Pure trim and climbs to $249,000 for the tri-motor Sapphire performance version, per TrueCar. The contrast between Lucid's engineering reputation for long-range luxury EVs and its recurring hardware and software fixes has become one of the defining storylines of the company's year.
Part of a Wider Park-Outside Surge
Lucid's advisory lands amid a broader spike in similar warnings across the auto industry. NHTSA data from the first seven months of 2026 shows the agency issued 17 distinct park-outside safety recalls covering roughly 1.7 million vehicles nationwide due to off-vehicle fire risks, according to TechSpot. Carfax estimates published in August 2026 put the number of vehicles nationwide still sitting under unresolved park-outside advisories at between 3.2 million and 3.4 million, per Forbes, leaving many drivers stuck parking in driveways or lots for extended stretches while they wait for a fix.
NHTSA formally created the park-outside recall designation back in 2015 specifically to address the risk of parked vehicles catching fire and damaging structures, and it added a prominent red alert banner to its recall database in 2022 to flag the most severe fire hazards. The designation targets defects that can ignite even when a car is off, which is precisely the scenario NHTSA is warning about with the Lucid Air's lighting circuit.
Saudi Backing Cushions a Bumpy Year
Financially, Lucid has a deep-pocketed safety net. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund backs the automaker, and PIF along with its affiliate Ayar Third Investment Company hold a controlling beneficial ownership stake of roughly 56.8% in Lucid Group as of April 2026, following a $550 million convertible preferred stock transaction, according to Seeking Alpha. The fund has poured more than $9.5 billion into Lucid since 2018. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal added his own bet in July 2026, disclosing a personal 5% equity stake made up of 19.5 million Class A shares, a filing that Electrek reported briefly boosted Lucid's stock price.
That capital cushion matters given Lucid's production trajectory. Hoodline previously reported that Lucid slashed 2024 output targets to roughly 9,000 units after a $2.8 billion loss the prior year, and the company ultimately produced 9,029 vehicles that year, far below an initial forecast of 90,000. Even with deliveries climbing to 15,841 in 2025, that figure remains smaller than the 27,185 sedans now caught up in the fire-risk recall.
The Reuters dispatch on the recall was reported from Bengaluru by Nethra Sailesh and edited by Devika Syamnath and Mrigank Dhaniwala. Lucid has not indicated a timeline for completing the remedy beyond the software update already pushed to more than 20,000 affected vehicles, and NHTSA's park-outside guidance remains in effect for owners whose cars have not yet received the fix.
