Lucid Gravity update 3.3.5 + fob update

[Nunya]

I hope they are also focusing on their Cybersecurity requirements as well. Given the issues the software has and rumoredly has (memory leaks maybe?) I am loathe to think about what exploits may exist on this platform...

Good point, coming from an old hacker. I'd be curious if it's susceptible to the common "man in the middle" key fob signal theft. No Pin-to-drive I assume?

 

[PGHGravity]

The software team is spread thin having to maintain 4-5 separate platforms right now (two for Air, 2 for Gravity, and also working on the mid-size SUV). They need to hire more smart people and unify the code bases yesterday.

One lesson I have learned from 15 years as an engineer on consumer software projects with a large audience is that random people online rarely guess correctly about what is causing any particular issue or what the correct solution is.

It would be fascinating to know the actual story behind these fob issues though!

 

[electric]

One lesson I have learned from 15 years as an engineer on consumer software projects with a large audience is that random people online rarely guess correctly about what is causing any particular issue or what the correct solution is.

It would be fascinating to know the actual story behind these fob issues though!

How do I know that most Lucid's early adopters are software engineers by trade?
There is a 3 page forum discussion of a software update which hasn't been released yet.

 

[HC_79]

One lesson I have learned from 15 years as an engineer on consumer software projects with a large audience is that random people online rarely guess correctly about what is causing any particular issue or what the correct solution is.

It would be fascinating to know the actual story behind these fob issues though!

Right? The last company I worked at, the fantastic development team thought it was a great idea to just slap a “Server Unavailable” message for everything related to the online portion.

The app the the prod team developed to handle all the online connections had a memory leak so nothing was wrong with servers or the actual infrastructure but it was a great experience having Execs and thousands of of customers yelling at me, berating me to just tell my team to just “ADD MORE SERVERS”.

We’ll never know the real reason of what’s going on behind the scenes but everyone on the outside thinks they know the answer when they’ve really got no clue at all.

 

[9point81]

Good point, coming from an old hacker. I'd be curious if it's susceptible to the common "man in the middle" key fob signal theft. No Pin-to-drive I assume?

No PIN to drive. Seeing as how many issue to get the actual fob to work, the MITM may have been mitigated! In reality tho, having the fob simply turn off when not in motion is a pretty solid defense against that. If there's nothing to intercept, nothing to exploit!

 

[037]

No PIN to drive. Seeing as how many issue to get the actual fob to work, the MITM may have been mitigated! In reality tho, having the fob simply turn off when not in motion is a pretty solid defense against that. If there's nothing to intercept, nothing to exploit!

If you can’t get the car to work through legal means, why bother doing it through illegal?

Another key fob joke…

 

[Xminus6]

That comment may pass muster if we were talking about a Ferrari or other exotic - They are toys, designed to excite you in special circumstances. People buying these toys are willing to deal with reliability issues because of their unique driving experience and because they are not needed as an everyday transport. But the Gravity is not a “Toy” but rather a “Tool” that people need to be able to rely on to do important things like drive to work, take kids to school, go on family vacation, drive someone to the emergency room. The great driving dynamics are (for most people) not the prime reason people are buying the Gravity. They are buying it because it is (hopefully) a great TOOL that comes with the added benefit of great driving dynamics.

I’m not disagreeing with you at all. But that’s an individual choice. The percentage of drivers who are driving enthusiasts is very low. The performance of a car doesn’t factor into car buying decisions for the vast majority of buyers. It’s not like I’m arguing that Lucid should market the Gravity as an extremely flawed family vehicle with great driving dyanamics. I’m just explaining why it’s “worth it” for me so far. I’m certainly not fanboying over it though. I have plenty of complaints about the car on this forum and registered with my Service Advisor already.

Yes, the Gravity is a tool for most people. But when people say that they tend to imply that the experience of using that tool is less important than the overall functionality of it. As someone who works with tools a lot I can tell you that the overall experience is becoming more and more important in the world of power tools. Once better options are available people aren’t willing to deal with the shortcomings of worse, cheaper tools just to get the job done.

But in general, you’re right. So far the people we see on here with Gravities are willing early adopters. The demographics of this forum seem to skew towards people who work in technology/software or technology enthusiasts coming from owning in the early stages of Tesla. So most of us come into it with open eyes and expectations and are willing to deal with more teething problems. The general public will not tolerate that. If this were my wife’s car and she had called me several times already telling me that the car won’t wake up, the screens are black or that she can’t put the car in Reverse I’d be a lot more upset about it than I am when it happens to me. But for those of us who are driving enthusiasts who find the need to have a utilitarian daily-driven vehicle, the Gravity has the potential to be the perfect car. Being able to run errands, but also have some fun driving twisty roads at the drop of a hat is a compelling argument.

 

[HC_79]

I’m not disagreeing with you at all. But that’s an individual choice. The percentage of drivers who are driving enthusiasts is very low. The performance of a car doesn’t factor into car buying decisions for the vast majority of buyers. It’s not like I’m arguing that Lucid should market the Gravity as an extremely flawed family vehicle with great driving dyanamics. I’m just explaining why it’s “worth it” for me so far. I’m certainly not fanboying over it though. I have plenty of complaints about the car on this forum and registered with my Service Advisor already.

Yes, the Gravity is a tool for most people. But when people say that they tend to imply that the experience of using that tool is less important than the overall functionality of it. As someone who works with tools a lot I can tell you that the overall experience is becoming more and more important in the world of power tools. Once better options are available people aren’t willing to deal with the shortcomings of worse, cheaper tools just to get the job done.

But in general, you’re right. So far the people we see on here with Gravities are willing early adopters. The demographics of this forum seem to skew towards people who work in technology/software or technology enthusiasts coming from owning in the early stages of Tesla. So most of us come into it with open eyes and expectations and are willing to deal with more teething problems. The general public will not tolerate that. If this were my wife’s car and she had called me several times already telling me that the car won’t wake up, the screens are black or that she can’t put the car in Reverse I’d be a lot more upset about it than I am when it happens to me. But for those of us who are driving enthusiasts who find the need to have a utilitarian daily-driven vehicle, the Gravity has the potential to be the perfect car. Being able to run errands, but also have some fun driving twisty roads at the drop of a hat is a compelling argument.

Completely agree with you. Lucid is trying to break into a segment where it's getting beyond the "this vehicle is fantastic to drive" to a segment where "I don't care how it drives, everything else just needs to work". Given the popularity of SUV's this has the potential to really damage Lucid if they can't get a grip on the software. The stupid part is that it's not even major issues (key fob aside) but just stupid little reoccurring bugs that if they happen once or twice, who cares but when they repeatedly happen its beyond frustrating. I'm one of those tech enthusiasts and have more tolerance for this kind of stuff but at a few days shy of 4 months of ownership, even my patience is being tested for little bugs that just haven't been fixed since day one. The soccer mom won't care how the car handles around corners, what they will care about is having to reset the car over and over again, sit and wait for black screens to disappear etc.

The UX\Ui itself is actually quite polished for a new release model but they just need to get some serious stability into it. I actually think 3.3.2 did more harm than good and Lucid's promises of "soon" and "in the coming weeks" about updates is wearing thin. The messaging is at a point where it needs to be "in the coming days" on some of this stuff. I fear Lucid is starting to push the limits of peoples patience and the more Gravity's that are sold to the normal type of car owner they could damage the brand that could take years to repair. We all see in here that the posts skew more negative than positive so you can only imagine the more people that get their hands on the Gravity how quickly the "this car is a lemon" will spread all over the software which is what a majority of owners are going to care about, not the driving. Who knows, I could be wrong but I feel Lucid is really playing with fire at this point.

 

[Xminus6]

Completely agree with you. Lucid is trying to break into a segment where it's getting beyond the "this vehicle is fantastic to drive" to a segment where "I don't care how it drives, everything else just needs to work". Given the popularity of SUV's this has the potential to really damage Lucid if they can't get a grip on the software. The stupid part is that it's not even major issues (key fob aside) but just stupid little reoccurring bugs that if they happen once or twice, who cares but when they repeatedly happen its beyond frustrating. I'm one of those tech enthusiasts and have more tolerance for this kind of stuff but at a few days shy of 4 months of ownership, even my patience is being tested for little bugs that just haven't been fixed since day one. The soccer mom won't care how the car handles around corners, what they will care about is having to reset the car over and over again, sit and wait for black screens to disappear etc.

The UX\Ui itself is actually quite polished for a new release model but they just need to get some serious stability into it. I actually think 3.3.2 did more harm than good and Lucid's promises of "soon" and "in the coming weeks" about updates is wearing thin. The messaging is at a point where it needs to be "in the coming days" on some of this stuff. I fear Lucid is starting to push the limits of peoples patience and the more Gravity's that are sold to the normal type of car owner they could damage the brand that could take years to repair. We all see in here that the posts skew more negative than positive so you can only imagine the more people that get their hands on the Gravity how quickly the "this car is a lemon" will spread all over the software which is what a majority of owners are going to care about, not the driving. Who knows, I could be wrong but I feel Lucid is really playing with fire at this point.

Yes. That’s my concern too. I’ve only had mine for a month (1 week in service) and it’s annoying. I tend to keep my timing pretty tight on stuff, so when I get into my car I need to start going right then. Having to get out of the car and wander around out of range of the car to hope it comes back to life is very annoying. The lack of backup cameras and blind-spot cameras is super annoying when I also have trouble shifting the car into reverse. My car has the normal array of problems we’re seeing as well as some unique ones. It’ll likely have to go back into Service but for right now I’m going to drive it for a bit.

 

[Bdr100]

I’m not disagreeing with you at all. But that’s an individual choice. The percentage of drivers who are driving enthusiasts is very low. The performance of a car doesn’t factor into car buying decisions for the vast majority of buyers. It’s not like I’m arguing that Lucid should market the Gravity as an extremely flawed family vehicle with great driving dyanamics. I’m just explaining why it’s “worth it” for me so far. I’m certainly not fanboying over it though. I have plenty of complaints about the car on this forum and registered with my Service Advisor already.

Yes, the Gravity is a tool for most people. But when people say that they tend to imply that the experience of using that tool is less important than the overall functionality of it. As someone who works with tools a lot I can tell you that the overall experience is becoming more and more important in the world of power tools. Once better options are available people aren’t willing to deal with the shortcomings of worse, cheaper tools just to get the job done.

But in general, you’re right. So far the people we see on here with Gravities are willing early adopters. The demographics of this forum seem to skew towards people who work in technology/software or technology enthusiasts coming from owning in the early stages of Tesla. So most of us come into it with open eyes and expectations and are willing to deal with more teething problems. The general public will not tolerate that. If this were my wife’s car and she had called me several times already telling me that the car won’t wake up, the screens are black or that she can’t put the car in Reverse I’d be a lot more upset about it than I am when it happens to me. But for those of us who are driving enthusiasts who find the need to have a utilitarian daily-driven vehicle, the Gravity has the potential to be the perfect car. Being able to run errands, but also have some fun driving twisty roads at the drop of a hat is a compelling argument.

First, just as I started to type this, a short Lucid commercial popped up on TV (CNN).

Back to discussion. To be frank, the Gravity, for me, will actually be somewhat of a TOY. It will be my first EV and my first heavily software defined vehicle. I am looking forward to exploring this new world. But then I am a retired empty nester and will have another car (2+2 convertible) to fall back on. I also have two adult children that live within 5 miles of us in case we need backup transportation assistance. But until Lucid 100% irons out these unlock, powerup, drive issues, I will be very reluctant to take an extended road trip or have the wife drive the Gravity out of town.

Fortunately, there is a Lucid SC within 1/2 hour drive of me and I am fully prepared to have to visit it 2-3 times within my first 6 months of ownership. But if that becomes 5-6 trips, my patience and excitement for this car will greatly diminish.

 

[Ron_Burgundy]

It’s the inconsistency that gets me. I left my Gravity at the airport for 55 hours. It just sat there. When I came back last night, fob worked, are opened and started. Zero issues. No alerts on the ride home. Awesome.

Get in this morning with fob, but get the typical key not detected, etc extravaganza of meaningless alerts and it’s annoying. BUT, not incapacitating.

These are all the reasons my wife made me defer delivery of our second GGT.

Look - if you take one of the zillions of soccer moms/dads driving an R1S right now, and let them drive a Gravity, unless they’re stuck on a huge car, I bet they’d pick the Gravity. That’s the audience. Those are the folks who don’t want to drive minivans, but need the space, etc. BUT, not if they can’t get it to start. Period. My wife will not drive our Gravity because there’s a chance it won’t start. Love my car, love Lucid but whatever the issue is, they’ve got limited time with their core market.

The R1S has a “meh” rough ride and meh software - but PaaK works (it didn’t at first).

If 3.3.5 addresses “most” of the key issues, sorry that won’t be enough. The craptastic VW Atlas I just had as a loaner had a fob that worked 100% of the time and it just sat in my pocket. Proximity worked. Starting worked, etc.

Effectively agreeing with many folks here.

 

[Leftlane]

Stopped into a studio in Boston last week to see and poke around the Gravity for the first time with my wife. She drives a huge Infiniti QX80 and is ready to go a bit smaller, and the form factor of the Gravity is really good for her. Materials, build quality, looks - all favorable. She loved the Aurora Green too - but I am 100% certain that if she got one, the first time any of these fob/key/reboot/no reverse issues happened I would be in serious trouble and my life would suck. After decades driving Lexus and Infiniti (or Suburbans), no way she will tolerate any excuses or failures because she never has any now - ever. So - that excludes us from potential buyers no matter how awesome it drives or looks. That is the shame, Lucid losing customers over dumb stuff. Diehard fans will give them a pass but normal buyers won’t.

Edit - Ron’s comments posted as I was typing - virtually the same.

 

[TahoeMichael]

Today may be the last day I can cancel my GGT order and get my deposit back, as my SA tells me that my order goes into production next week. As the GGT will be my only vehicle, I'm having serious concerns about going forward. Less so on my behalf, and more out of fear of what my wife will say if she encounters the various problems reported here. I'm encouraged by the 3.3.5 announcement, and also the cadence of roughly one OTA update a month. So perhaps there will be yet more improvement from a software update in November, around the time my car could be expected to be in my hands.

I'm leaning towards moving forward and hoping for the best. But the widespread problems with the Gravity don't at all make it an easy decision. It's really sad to see so much great engineering diminished by all the bullet holes Lucid has put into it's own feet. It also pushes me quite hard towards leasing, to provide some safety net against Lucid going out of business. If they repeat the screw-ups of the Air and the Gravity in the mid-market, than the odds of the entire company going under are much much higher. And at this point there's not a lot of evidence that they know how to have a more reliable vehicle at launch the next time around.

 

[HC_79]

Today may be the last day I can cancel my GGT order and get my deposit back, as my SA tells me that my order goes into production next week. As the GGT will be my only vehicle, I'm having serious concerns about going forward. Less so on my behalf, and more out of fear of what my wife will say if she encounters the various problems reported here. I'm encouraged by the 3.3.5 announcement, and also the cadence of roughly one OTA update a month. So perhaps there will be yet more improvement from a software update in November, around the time my car could be expected to be in my hands.

I'm leaning towards moving forward and hoping for the best. But the widespread problems with the Gravity don't at all make it an easy decision. It's really sad to see so much great engineering diminished by all the bullet holes Lucid has put into it's own feet. It also pushes me quite hard towards leasing, to provide some safety net against Lucid going out of business. If they repeat the screw-ups of the Air and the Gravity in the mid-market, than the odds of the entire company going under are much much higher. And at this point there's not a lot of evidence that they know how to have a more reliable vehicle at launch the next time around.

I mean, it’s been 4 months already and it’s not fixed and this update seems like it’s not promising complete resolution either. It definitely does seem to be luck of the draw though, touch wood, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had a key issue.

You could be shooting yourself in the foot canceling but also understand the hesitation.

 

[Bdr100]

My WAG (Wild Assed Guess) on how Lucid got here with the fob issues. There was an interview someone quoted saying that at first, Lucid did not plan on having any fob at all (like Tesla now) and going straight to PaaK. I am thinking that Lucid was all in on PaaK but due to inevitable software issues they realized that they might not have PaaK ready by planned production date. So they had to add fob use at the last minute which did not allow enough time to properly vet the whole hardware/software fob functionality. They got it to a “good enough” functionality for Gravity release in early 2025 and then released Gravity and prayed. This might also explain the shortage of fobs (only one fob unless GDE)

Once again, just my wild ass guess.

 

[TahoeMichael]

I mean, it’s been 4 months already and it’s not fixed and this update seems like it’s not promising complete resolution either. It definitely does seem to be luck of the draw though, touch wood, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had a key issue.

You could be shooting yourself in the foot canceling but also understand the hesitation.

Part of the problem is the care with which corporate communications people tend to craft their words. Is Twork trying to say that there are still known fob issues after 3.3.5 is installed? Or do they really think they've resolved the problem, but he's waffling a bit because they want to make sure they outperform the expectations they're setting? No way to tell until the update is in a lot of people's hands.

 

[TahoeMichael]

My WAG (Wild Assed Guess) on how Lucid got here with the fob issues. There was an interview someone quoted saying that at first, Lucid did not plan on having any fob at all (like Tesla now) and going straight to PaaK. I am thinking that Lucid was all in on PaaK but due to inevitable software issues they realized that they might not have PaaK ready by planned production date. So they had to add fob use at the last minute which did not allow enough time to properly vet the whole hardware/software fob functionality. They got it to a “good enough” functionality for Gravity release in early 2025 and then released Gravity and prayed. This might also explain the shortage of fobs (only one fob unless GDE)

Once again, just my wild ass guess.

Honestly, it's a bit baffling to me that a car company might think that PaaK is all you need. There are plenty of luddites, and are probably relatively common in the age ranges that are likely to afford a $100K+ vehicle. I have a hint of that myself, in spite of working in high tech (maybe because of it) for many many years. And then there are the use cases that fob's serve very well, like tossing a friend the fob when they're borrowing your car.

Tesla makes baffling decisions all the time, just for the laughs near as I can tell, but that doesn't mean other companies should follow their approach.

 

[Ron_Burgundy]

Honestly, it's a bit baffling to me that a car company might think that PaaK is all you need. There are plenty of luddites, and are probably relatively common in the age ranges that are likely to afford a $100K+ vehicle. I have a hint of that myself, in spite of working in high tech (maybe because of it) for many many years. And then there are the use cases that fob's serve very well, like tossing a friend the fob when they're borrowing your car.

Tesla makes baffling decisions all the time, just for the laughs near as I can tell, but that doesn't mean other companies should follow their approach.

Well, the other piece is, except for Lucid, fobs are easy, proven tech. Even Tesla will sell you one of you want.

Who knows what or why. They’ll get it fixed because they have to. How long will it take? IDK and neither does Lucid. They’d be idiots to say “this fixes it completely” because odds are it won’t and then they’ll look even worse.

I continue to believe it’s mainly a fob hardware/firmware issue - especially given the fob battery “reset” being so important - so not expecting much from 3.3.5 until I get the fob update. I intend to bring my car in to get that update as we don’t need to schedule. But I will be super annoyed if I arrive and they make me wait 20 minutes or something. In that case they’d be better off making folks schedule to respect our time. We shall see.

 

[Xminus6]

My WAG (Wild Assed Guess) on how Lucid got here with the fob issues. There was an interview someone quoted saying that at first, Lucid did not plan on having any fob at all (like Tesla now) and going straight to PaaK. I am thinking that Lucid was all in on PaaK but due to inevitable software issues they realized that they might not have PaaK ready by planned production date. So they had to add fob use at the last minute which did not allow enough time to properly vet the whole hardware/software fob functionality. They got it to a “good enough” functionality for Gravity release in early 2025 and then released Gravity and prayed. This might also explain the shortage of fobs (only one fob unless GDE)

Once again, just my wild ass guess.

I believe the current speculation is that Lucid was waiting for Apple to their API for using the phone as a key (for cars and homes). Apple evidently has delayed the introduction so it probably messed up Lucid’s timeline.

Although that, in no way, absolves them of having reliable technology for car keys. I mean, they’re a car manufacturer after all. I’ve never had a car have problems with its key fob like this and I’ve owned cars way before the advent of key fobs at alll

 

[bryway]

I believe the current speculation is that Lucid was waiting for Apple to their API for using the phone as a key (for cars and homes). Apple evidently has delayed the introduction so it probably messed up Lucid’s timeline.

Although that, in no way, absolves them of having reliable technology for car keys. I mean, they’re a car manufacturer after all. I’ve never had a car have problems with its key fob like this and I’ve owned cars way before the advent of key fobs at alll

Yeah. Agree the blame doesn't sit with Apple (or mobile in general). Cars were delivered with fobs and cards. They should all work. I can't imagine the thrash that's going on inside Lucid HQ over these issues. Kudos to them for trying to patch the bugs, and for at least acknowledging they exist, and updating us on when to expect the next patch (and what it will and will not fix).

Having said that, I've had my Gravity Dream Edition for 10 weeks now (three of those were spent in service), and still contend it's the best car I've ever owned -- including the last four cars which were, sequentially, a 2012 BMW 740Li, a 2016 BMW 750i, a 2019 Tesla Model X P100D and a 2022 Tesla Model X Plaid. This car drives better, rides better (especially on such a large wheel / tire combo -- I have the 22/23 wheels) and, frankly LOOKS better than my prior cars. But I never had an issue simply hopping into those cars, and driving away. The Gravity at this point in my ownership experience is a mystery. I never know if it'll automagically unlock upon approach, or whether I'll have to stand there waiting for it to unlock, or if I'll have to press a door handle or something to get it to respond to my presence and unlock. When inside, I never know if it's going to wake up, and if it *does* wake up, whether the screens will respond instantly, or if I'll have to sit there (sometimes for more than a minute) looking at black screens until they deign to come alive. This is especially embarrassing when I've been singing the praises of the car to first-time riders, then have to sit there explaining why we can't drive away just yet, and explaining away bugs, etc.

I still love this car and am in this for the long haul (as are most of you who are reading this). I just hope the access and drive-away issues are solved sooner rather than later.