Essay by Eric Worrall
According to the report, EV company lawyers unsuccessfully argued the vehicle was never meant to be parked outside in winter.
Lucid Air Owner Won Lemon Law Case — Automaker Claimed The Car Wasn’t Built For Cold Weather And Cities
Guessing Headlights
Andre Nalin
Wed, June 3, 2026 at 4:00 AM GMT+10A Lucid Air owner in Quebec has won an arbitration case against the automaker after documenting a long list of problems with his 2024 Air Pure. The decision forced Lucid to cancel the lease and take the vehicle back roughly 18 months into a four-year agreement.
The case has attracted attention not only because the owner won, but because of the arguments Lucid allegedly made during the arbitration. According to the forum post, the automaker suggested some of the vehicle’s issues were caused by improper use rather than design or manufacturing defects. Among the most surprising claims, the owner said Lucid argued the car was not meant to be parked outdoors in freezing winter conditions and that its driver-assistance system was not designed for city or country-road use.
Among the most surprising claims, the owner said Lucid argued the car was not meant to be parked outdoors in freezing winter conditions and that its driver-assistance system was not designed for city or country-road use.
…For a vehicle sold as a luxury sedan, customers expect it to function reliably in ordinary real-world conditions, including winter weather, city driving, and daily outdoor parking. Blaming those conditions on the owner, if accurately described, is unlikely to reassure current or future buyers.
Read more: https://autos.yahoo.com/ownership/articles/lucid-air-owner-won-lemon-180007064.html
…
A word of caution – I haven’t found official records corroborating this story. Usually in cases like this I like to present a link to the court case or whatever. I don’t know what public records are available in arbitration cases, so there might not be any records to find, or the story could be a fabrication.
If the story is true, and if surviving outdoor winter temperatures is a legal expectation, I suspect Canadian EV companies could be in for a world of hurt. WUWT has reported multiple cases of EVs being bricked by a little frost.
Update (EW): Rud Istvan has confirmed the story is true.
Vehicles with lithium ion batteries are unsafe to park indoors, so . . .
Yeah, but they’re also unsafe to park indoors as well…
“Yeah, but they’re also unsafe to park indoors as well…”
I think you need some more redundancy.
On the bright side, the Lucid Air could enter and likely win the LeMons
That is an interesting comment. What would the range be under race conditions? Would the weight of the battery make it competitive in cornering? What about tire wear?
Have analysed this or has it been tested?
No idea…
Lemons
LeMons
Play on words
One thing for sure, in a 24 hour race like LeMans an EV would be a definite disadvantage as it would take up to 30 minutes to recharge every 2 hours where ICVs take seconds to drop 30 gallons into their fuel tank.
They could swap batteries out, also in a few seconds. That would be interesting to see.
The owners are expected to go to Florida for the winter.
That’s almost a good idea, except for the trip down and back. By the time you find enough working charging stations to get there, it will be time to head back.
Great point.
Friend of mine drove his Model 3 from Florida to Vermont in Spring.
It took him 3 days and lots of money for hotels and meals and lots of time hunting for charging stations that worked.
The range between charges was much less than touted by Tesla.
My Subaru Outback, starting with a full tank, would need two more full tanks to go the same distance.
With 2 drivers, it would take two days of daytime driving and one overnight
No problem. You fit a towbar, buy a small trailer, put a little petrol or diesel generator in it, hook it up to your charging socket and tow the whole thing to Florida charging as you go.
When I was a kid, we had a saying for the obvious: “Well, DUH!”
If EV owners have been experiencing problems with their vehicles left outside during Chicago’s winters, they’d be in big trouble in places further north, especially in Canada. These problems have been becoming obvious since EVs first hit the market with decreased battery life, lower cruising ranges, shortened heating/defrosting capabilities, longer recharging periods, and almost anything associated with electric motors in lower temperatures. So it’s no wonder that North American consumers were wary of these cars from the outset, and now that more shortcomings are being revealed, it’s becoming obvious why the big manufacturers are backing off further investment in them.
The only place in Canadia you’d reasonably expect that a BEV would be half-suitable for the climatic conditions there would be south-western BC.
Vancouver in fact has the highest concentration of BEVs anywhere in the country (mostly Teslas I think).
Victoria also has a high ownership of BEVs I believe.
As far as the rest (central & Eastern provinces) are concerned, what’s that old saying about fools and their money?
“further north”
Farther, physical distance. 🙂
Not in British English. 😀
Interesting.
Didn’t know that either. Seems odd.
American has some odd differences to English.
So, in Britain is Montgomery’s WW2 battle called “A Bridge too Fur”? 😎
Oh, no-you didn’t say that…
Usage Guidelines
Farther:Use when discussing measurable distances.Example: “She walked farther than she intended.”Further:Use for abstract or metaphorical distances.Example: “We need to discuss this further.”In this instance, “further” is correct.
Lucid is screwed. The company’s defense of claiming the car is not intended for city street driving or on rural country roads makes it unusable for most of North America. Worse, claiming its own vehicle is cannot be driven in conditions of snow and ice makes it unusable over most of North America. Remember, this is Lucid’s testimony, not the plaintiffs.
It is reasonable to ask what is the use of a vehicle for which you pay a minimum of $99,000 and for which huge amounts of road surface are impassable?
Lucid has been producing just over 10,000 cars per year since the beginning of 2024. This company is in deep trouble if a significant portion of current owners experience similar issues and demand their money back.
Going by the road clearance and the weight of the vehicle in the photo, you’d be taking your chances driving that vehicle on anything but the most well maintained roads. I upgraded to a 4WD because the rubbish roads in my area were tearing my town automobile apart.
The gravel roads around here in southeast Oklahoma turn to pothole minefields after any significant rain and the paved roads in town aren’t much better. My Dodge 4WD flatbed gets only 12 mpg but it has the clearance and springs to handle it.
Any fuel money I’d save with a lighter vehicle would get eaten up and then some by constant suspension repairs.
“ The company’s defense of claiming the car is not intended for city street driving or on rural country roads makes it unusable for most of North America.”
That wasn’t the claim. The claim was “its driver-assistance system was not designed for city or country-road use”.
If the driver qssistance system is not designed for city or country road use, that doesn’t leave many places it can be used.
Should spend more time reading ahead before commenting.
“The company’s defense of claiming the car is not intended for city street driving or on rural country roads makes it unusable for most of North America.”
A luxury golf cart? 😎
If it isn’t useful for city or country roads, where would it be driven?
Back to the dealership
Read more carefully:
“its driver-assistance system was not designed for city or country-road use.”
What exactly is the driver-assistance system? What does it do?
I would guess that it’s a self-driving mode of sorts. On country roads that aren’t always striped, that would be a problem. And city streets can have too many distractions for a less sophisticated system, I would imagine.
For many country roads, the edges of the road are often not clearly delineated either.
So what is it designed for then?
To help back out your driveway?
Probably would work OK on a straight freeway run, I guess.
Before we all heap even more abuse on EVs, is the report true? Well, I asked Grok. It replied: Yes, the report is correct.
OK, so EVs are …….
EW, the story is real—I just checked. The Quebec arbitration was under Canada’s CAMVAP program. The arbitrator decision was rendered in late May, 2026, and the Lucid lease revocation was effective 6/2/2026. There were actually three grounds for the arbitrator’s decision: cold weather parking, many wheel realignments (the thing is heavy and the suspension not adequately designed), and the ‘auto assist drive’ feature kept pulling it toward oncoming traffic. Lucid’s defense was not very lucid.
OTOH, I might have arbitrated the result differently. LUCID delivered a total of only 10,241 EVs in 2024, and the Quebecois should have known better than sign a 4 years lease on one without any track record to go on. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Thanks Rud
In “Animal House” Otter tells Flounder: “You f#$%ed up. You trusted us.”
That lawyer needs a nationwide billboard campaign with those choice quotes.
“WUWT has reported multiple cases of EVs being bricked by a little frost.”
That is a perfect use of a word that has come into use for processor- and battery-based items, like phones, tablets, and computers, that go stone-dead.
Yep – iPads with wheels…
That weigh 5000lbs
For what it’s worth, Lithium Ion batteries (almost all current EVs) need to be heated before charging at below freezing temps and for use at temps below about -20C/-4F. Sodium-ion batteries (the next BIG thing apparently) will purportedly do much better in cold climates — at the cost of lower energy density (I.e. even more weight) and shorter battery life.
I played with sodium ion cells around two years ago, when they came into market and I was not pleased with performance. Main disadvantage is wide voltage spread, cell can work from 1,5V till 4V. Having motors accepting all this voltage with same power is very hard, almost impossible. You need inverter or voltage converter to keep voltage to your motors stable while your battery is discharging. Classic li-ion cells works between 3V – 4,2V. That is why electric appliances including cars feel sluggish when battery is near empty.
Best cells are lithium ferro phosphate – LFP usable range 3,0V- 3,6V, but they have 80% of their power around 3,2V.
Sodium ion have actually more life cycles than li-ion, where li-ion are around 1000 life cycles, sodium-ion are somewhere between 1000-2000 life cycles, new ones claiming reaching 4000 life cycles.
LFP cells have 2000 – 8000 life cycles.
For auto industry number of life cycles is important probably up to 2000 life cycles, where Typical 40kWh battery with 200km range, can deliver 400.000km during life.
Under 2000 life cycles calendar aging will take over batteries sooner than reaching cycles.
Sodium ion can be pretty explosive too, I watched few videos with nailing them, and it does look just only little bit better than with li-ion.
Yes, their cold weather performance is very good, so it may be response for usage high north.
Their main advantage is alleged price. But more than 2 years watching their prices, I did not see any falling of prices. They are still more expensive than LFP or li-ion.
So far sodium ion doesn’t look like miracle solving all EV car problems.
Story Tip
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/antares-reaches-reactor-criticality-trump-pilot-program-marking-major-nuclear-milestone
The first of the “novel” nuclear power designs has passed criticality tests the maker Altera announced this weekend.
Thanks for posting that. I saw that story yesterday and was having trouble finding it again. I guess my search inquiry wasn’t worded very well. I included “Trump” in the search and it gave me about two pages of negative stories about Trump and nuclear reactors. 🙂
I checked with Grok. He agrees with your summary of a case in Canada. Here is the link he provided.
https://www.autoblog.com/news/lucid-air-owner-says-company-blamed-him-for-parking-ev-outside-in-winter
They should better change the name to:
Ludicrous Flair
And the the user manual should have the warning: “better not use the car at all, store in climatized showroom only.
Cold weather issues are why GM only leased the EV1 in warmer climate areas, especially the early ones with lead-acid batteries.
A new and fun thing with the EV1 is someone managed to legally purchase one with full, titled ownership. It was one GM loaned to a school. Someone threw a brick through the windshield, it got put into a shed, the shed roof was falling in so the EV1 got put outside. It sat in the weather for a while then the school had it towed as an old, abandoned vehicle. (Supposedly they thought it was a Saturn.) After the required amount of time, the tow company auctioned it off, for $100,000.
Once a vehicle goes through such an auction, the State issues a certificate of title, even if there’s no existing title available.
GM couldn’t demand it back. But what they’ve done surprised the guy who bought it. GM is giving him all the parts he needs to restore it to be a running and driveable vehicle. One they didn’t crush had a broken rear window and some other issues so they’ve been stripping off the parts EV1 number 212 needs.
Good story!
From the article: “2024 Air Pure”
What do you drive? Why, I drive the Air Pure!
They probably spent a lot of money developing this name.
Do they have one named: No CO2!?
Who knew these were EVs?
https://airpure.com/
(But I don’t see any wheels. Must be very short range!)
In the US, EV‘s account for only about 2 to 3% of registered vehicles on the road. Tesla represents the dominant share of these. GM and Ford have eked out small percentages of the market, while other manufacturers have basically failed to make a dent. Wild Tesla emphasizes cash or financed purchases, EVs in general experience a much higher lease rate than conventional ICE cars. According to Grok, “This is driven by factors like federal tax credits (often easier to apply via leases), uncertainty around EV depreciation/residual values, lower monthly payments, and manufacturer incentives.”
The EV market is quickly softening in the US as the main federal tax incentives for purchasing EVs (new, used, and commercial/leased) have been largely eliminated for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025. Major auto manufacturers have been announcing notable withdrawals from the EV market and taking major write offs for their market losses.
For the pragmatic buyer, aside from the EV risks and deficiencies highlighted here, the MSRPs for EVs in general continue to demand a price premium of 50 to 100% in relation to comparably sized and equipped ICE vehicles. One disingenuous EV promoter recently quoted here in the pages of WUWT (Al Gore’s son?) focused on used EVs prices compared to ICE vehicles, claiming they are about the same. This simply highlights the painfully traumatic depreciation in EVs once they roll off the sales lot. So aside from vanity buyers, an EV may appear beneficial to niche buyers in select applications, but in general US buyers are not ready to take that plunge.
The IEA say EV sales in the US in 2025 were “stable at just under 10% of car sales.” In China EVs were 55% of car sales during the year.
IEA ‘Global EV Outlook 2026’ (May 2026)
The CCP makes the purchase of ICE cars in China extremely difficult.
“not designed for city or country-road use.”
So what’s the point?
Maybe the driver assist thing is an option?
(I wonder how much they knock off the price without it?)
[On one of his customers complaining that his Type 55 Bugatti was hard to start on cold mornings] My dear man, if you can afford a Type 55, you can certainly afford a heated garage!
Ettore Bugatti
looks like its the southern hemisphere is the place for EV ..buggerall snow/ice. But then the distance between population centres are huge.
Likely why, in Australia, the hydrid models have surpassed pure EVs, even though most would simply nice fancy urban golf carts.