Exclusive: Lucid whistleblower lawsuit links dismissed warning to Air recall that grew sixteenfold
Neil Milne's lawsuit ties an April 2025 warning to a half-shaft defect that Lucid later said could cause an unwarned loss of drive power.
By Ryan Merket · Published
Scoop: RuntimeWire original reporting.
Why it matters
The lawsuit puts Lucid's safety reviews under scrutiny after its telemetry-based recall screen missed 26 later incidents and 3,627 additional vehicles.
Neil Milne, a former Lucid engineering manager, has sued the electric-vehicle maker, alleging executives sidelined his warnings about a drive-unit and half-shaft system before Lucid recalled thousands of Air sedans over bolts that could come loose and cut drive power.
The complaint, filed August 6th in Alameda County Superior Court, says Milne first raised the drive-unit concern around April 2025 and described the design as having "multiple failure modes." Lucid's federal recall filings do not name Milne, and the complaint does not identify a recall campaign number. The chronology and components described in the lawsuit closely track two National Highway Traffic Safety Administration campaigns covering the Lucid Air Pure Rear-Wheel Drive.
Lucid filed the first campaign on October 7th, 2025, covering 225 vehicles. It filed an expansion on March 26th, 2026, covering 3,627 additional vehicles. The two campaigns encompass 3,852 vehicles, with no overlap in their stated populations.
The warning and the recall
Milne joined Lucid through staffing provider Envisage Group Developments in 2022, according to the complaint. He was hired as a senior technical project manager for power electronics with a $170,000 annual salary and was promoted to senior manager for power-electronics systems in May 2023.
The lawsuit says Milne repeatedly challenged Lucid's testing, validation and documentation for safety-critical engineering work. His allegations included weak manufacturing controls, insufficient auditing and missing records explaining engineering decisions.
Milne alleges he returned to the half-shaft issue in a January 13th, 2026 message to Rick Clementz, identified in the complaint as a Lucid product-safety officer. "Will say what I said originally 9 months ago. bad design, with multiple failure modes," Milne wrote, according to the lawsuit. Clementz allegedly replied that the issue had been "a frustrating one."
On February 17th, Clementz allegedly told Milne: "yeah I remember agreeing with you early on but then after talking to Emad I changed my mind."
The complaint identifies "Emad" as Emad Delala. Lucid spells the executive's name Emad Dlala in its public materials. In a November announcement, Lucid said Dlala was appointed senior vice president of engineering and digital, overseeing vehicle engineering, digital systems and software.
The complaint quotes the internal messages but does not attach them as exhibits. The messages have not been independently authenticated.
Lucid initially relied on telemetry to limit the recall
Lucid's October 2025 safety report shows that the automaker began investigating half-shaft disengagements in 2024. Lucid referred the issue to its Product Safety Working Group in April 2025, the same month Milne says he raised his warning.
Lucid told NHTSA that the working group initially concluded the problem did not create an unreasonable safety risk. At that point, Lucid had identified nine affected vehicles, with incidents occurring while stopped or traveling at low speed. Lucid continued investigating after receiving evidence in July 2025 that the issue could be more extensive. (static.nhtsa.gov)
The first recall was narrowed using a "lash detection" algorithm that analyzed vehicle telemetry for signs of loose half-shaft bolts. Lucid initially said that screening method adequately identified the vehicles at risk, producing a population of 225 Air Pure RWD sedans.
The telemetry screen missed vehicles. After the October recall, Lucid documented half-shaft disengagements in cars the algorithm had excluded. Its Product Safety Working Group identified 26 customer-vehicle incidents between October 2025 and February 2026 that it attributed to the same root cause. Lucid's Product Safety Executive Council determined on March 19th that the broader population presented an unreasonable safety risk, leading to the March 26th expansion. (static.nhtsa.gov)
The Pure RWD Air has one drive unit. Lucid told NHTSA that a half-shaft disengagement can therefore cause a complete and unwarned loss of motive power, increasing crash risk. Air variants with multiple drive units were excluded because a single disengagement would not produce the same complete loss of power.
The lawsuit and recall describe the defect differently
Milne characterizes the system as a bad design. Lucid's NHTSA filings describe an assembly and manufacturing-control problem.
According to Lucid's reports, the primary cause was an interruption in bolt-torquing operations during the adhesive curing window. Other contributing factors included damaged bolt adhesive, contamination and the reuse of bolts whose adhesive had already cured. Lucid established a July 25th, 2025 production "clean point" after introducing new handling, inspection and installation controls. (static.nhtsa.gov)
The distinction will shape the case. A design defect would support Milne's claim that engineers dismissed a systemic technical warning. Lucid's filings instead trace the failures to how the half-shaft bolts were handled and installed. The NHTSA chronology confirms that Lucid reconsidered both the risk and the adequacy of its original telemetry-based screening, though it does not establish that Milne's warning involved the same condition or influenced either recall.
Milne alleges retaliation followed his complaints
Milne claims Lucid progressively removed his authority after he raised safety and engineering-control concerns. The complaint says his team was taken away, he was passed over for a charging leadership role and he was transferred into thermal programs outside his prior specialty. It also alleges Dlala warned Milne that a contractor could be "sent home."
In February 2026, Milne received a performance rating of "does not meet expectations" without a written justification, according to the complaint. Milne alleges his direct manager told him he was not viewed as a low performer, while Lucid characterized the elimination of his assignment as part of a reorganization.
Milne remained assigned to Lucid until approximately May 2026. The complaint says Envisage continued his salary and benefits using Lucid-funded severance through July.
The lawsuit asserts whistleblower retaliation, wrongful termination and workplace-safety retaliation under California law. Milne is seeking lost pay, bonuses, equity and benefits, along with emotional-distress damages, punitive damages and legal fees.
The case places Lucid's internal handling of the warning alongside a public regulatory record showing that its first attempt to identify affected vehicles missed a substantially larger population. Whether Milne warned about the exact condition covered by the two recalls remains a disputed link rather than an established fact.