When you spend nearly $100,000 on a luxury electric vehicle, the last thing you expect is to be stranded in your own driveway because your car won’t recognize its key. Yet that’s exactly the nightmare facing owners of Lucid’s new Gravity SUV, where its smart key technology has become the vehicle’s most frustrating flaw.
The Lucid Gravity starts at $94,900 for the Grand Touring model. For that premium price, buyers get 450 miles of range and over 800 horsepower in a stunning seven-seat electric SUV designed to compete with luxury EVs like the Cadillac Escalade IQ. But those impressive specifications mean nothing when the vehicle simply refuses to move.
Lucid
The Shake to Wake Nightmare Affecting Gravity Owners
A user on Reddit posted his maddening experience with his new Lucid Gravity. This isn’t isolated to a single defective unit either. It’s a story that seems to resonate with other Gravity owners as well. The Gravity simply displays “No key detected” and instructs drivers to “shake gently to wake it”.
What should be a simple unlock and drive experience turns into minutes of vigorous key shaking, walking away from the vehicle, waiting for it to sleep, and hoping it wakes up properly.
The NFC card backup system fares even worse, with some owners reporting it never worked at all despite repeated attempts to tap it against the center console as instructed. Videos on YouTube show other owners completely stranded by non-functional NFC cards.
Lucid Promises Software Fix for Key Recognition Issues
Lucid acknowledged this as a known issue with some Gravity SUVs and released software update 3.3.2, claiming to improve Access Control system reliability. While the update has reportedly helped reduce false “no key detected” warnings, it hasn’t eliminated the problem. The Lucid Air also had its share of software glitches, including key access problems.
For a startup desperately needing the Gravity to succeed commercially, these key issues are more than just technical bugs. They’re the kind of frustrating ownership experiences that damage brand reputation. Because if one of the world’s most advanced electric SUVs can’t reliably detect its own key, “smart” starts to look a lot less like it.
