Bye Lucid Air and Another Dear Lucid... Letter

Hi everyone,

My original plan was to come on here and be a dramatic troll with a misleading title. I was going to rag on how Lucid is going to go bankrupt, how the door handles and software stink, and how I finally couldn't handle it anymore and traded in my Air Dream Edition Performance. Then, right at the end, I was going to drop the plot twist: I’m now the proud owner of a brand-new Lucid Gravity DE.

But the world had to play a sick joke on me before I could troll.

So yes, I did recently trade my Lucid Air DE-P in. I loved that car and still to this day will tell you that it was my favorite car I've owned. I've owned a healthy lot as well. My car list is as follows:
06 Honda Civic SI (manual)
2015 Jeep Renegade Limited
Tesla Model Y LR
Tesla Model Y Performance
Model S Plaid
Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance
Porsche Taycan (Still in the garage)
Lotus Emira
Porsche GT4RS (Still in the garage)
Lucid Gravity Dream Edition (New in the garage)

So yeah, definitely some great cars on that list yet the Lucid Air ranked above them all. It was so compliant on the road, it was so planted, it was so quick, so luxurious, so comfortable, packaging was and is one of a kind, truly a DREAM to drive. It wasn't without its faults. In my couple years of owning it I had plenty of software gremlins and I had plenty of things fixed. I had the front lip (eyebrow) replaced as the frunk was pulling it up when opening it, I had my door handles replaced a couple times, my whole backseat and door trims replaced, my battery replaced, my window shades replaced, the center console replaced, the trunk latch replaced, steering wheel replaced, and some door seals/trim pieces. However, those were all covered under warranty and even though it was extremely inconvenient (Scottsdale SC is about 1 hour from me), I was just happy they were addressing it for free for me.

So why did I get rid of it? Well it was out of warranty and with the amount of work mentioned above, I couldn't confidently say that I was ready to take on that liability out of warranty. We also had enough sporty cars in the garage and we needed something that could haul more than what our cars can. I didn't fall in the love with the Gravity's looks. Im young and don't love the mini-van look, its defintiely not the "cool car" but historically my whole life I have been a function over form person and in my brain, there is no denying that I think the Gravity is THE best SUV on the road. I also do LOVE the interior and I gaslit myself into thinking "well I look at the interior a lot more than the exterior *shrug*." It does what I bragged about the Air above but in SUV form with loads more room. Furthermore, the amount of incentives they were handing out for the remaining Dream Editions made it too tempting to pass up.

So on June 30th, I took delivery of my new Lucid Gravity DE #405. Its green with the PB interior. And over the past 15 days I have loved driving it every single second of it. In fact, I planned to write a review of it in 30 days as my last air review was well received here on the forums. However, today I took my dog to an eye specialist (he is blind and has glaucoma) which was about 45 minutes away from me. In the parking lot there is a speed bump that I took just fine on the way in. On the way out, I took it at maybe 5 mph, probably closer to 3 and my suspension completely fell. Every single error you could imagine filled the dashboard and the car told me to not drive above 35mph.

Here in Phoenix we have both a service center and a show room. Unfortunately, I believe they have removed the listing for the service center, so after fumbling around trying to find there number I finally called the showroom which allows you to pick either sales or service (wish I knew they changed this but oh well minor inconvenience). I called service 5 times, waited on hold for someone to answer for 10 minutes or so each time, and then the line eventually takes you to their voicemail. I left a voicemail after the 5th time and called sales instead. The first time, no one picked up. The second time someone did and contacted service on my behalf. I was promised a call back in 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, I had a dog in the back and I was still 45 minutes away from the house so I started driving home but at a speedy 35mph per the cars instructions. Every single bump in the road, every single time I braked, every single second was filled with pings and dings and errors on the dash. My cameras were not working, my blinkers were not working, my tail lights (according to the cars dash) were not working and furthermore I was not getting a call back from Lucid.

I made it home eventually and my 45 minute drive turned into 1 hour and some minutes drive taking all the backroads. The Lucid Service Center did reach out to me...1 hours and 30 minutes AFTER I hung up with the Sales team.... 1.5 hours later. And honestly, the Service Rep was pretty meh about the whole situation. I was pretty nice, explained the situation and didnt make a big stink about it but it was a 5 minute call with not much apologies or concerns passed. They are going to come tow the car back tomorrow and they are going to see if they can provide a loaner ( I sure hope so, theres no way I want to daily my 4RS and I can't steal the GFs Taycan too much).

So here's my "Dear Lucid" Letter: Please, for the love of god, get out of your own way. I am a believer, I am an investor, I have owned both models and dream editions at that, I want the company to succeed so freaking much, I have evangelized Lucid for years to everyone around me. But man, you guys have to get out of your way and this includes your Service Team. The Service Team flat out disappointed me today and my patience is weening.

And yeah thats been my 2 week experience with my Gravity. As it stands, I have 433 miles on the dash and a car with 1100 hp that can't go over 35mph in the driveway.

Here's the video snippet my girlfriend took if you want to see and hear the millions of errors I got for over an hour:

Did you try letting it go to sleep mode? Do the errors and warnings remain?

prgarg said:

Did you try letting it go to sleep mode? Do the errors and warnings remain?

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I soft reset the car twice and have left it to sleep in the driveway for the past hour or two. Went out and checked it again about 10 minutes before I wrote the post and unfortunately, still have slammed suspension, no option to adjust it (all options grayed out), and errors on the dash.

Hope they get you back on the road quickly!
BTW, do you know the build date for your car? It's on a sticker on the front of the driver's door jamb.

prgarg said:

Did you try letting it go to sleep mode? Do the errors and warnings remain?

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Oh it sounds to me like a hardware problem.

DeaneG said:

Hope they get you back on the road quickly!
BTW, do you know the build date for your car? It's on a sticker on the front of the driver's door jamb.

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I just went and checked. 10/25 was the manufacturing date.

Nice list of other cars there. With the number of issues you’ve had with your Lucids, how does that compare with the entire list in total?

Leftlane said:

Nice list of other cars there. With the number of issues you’ve had with your Lucids, how does that compare with the entire list in total?

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Note that the OP had very early production of both Lucid vehicles. Likely not representative of current production. I had few issues on my Air, zero so far on my Gravity.

Leftlane said:

Nice list of other cars there. With the number of issues you’ve had with your Lucids, how does that compare with the entire list in total?

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Thank you! I too think I have been extremely fortunate to drive some of these cars!

Heres quick breakdown:
Honda Civic - I mean its a Honda, that thing would never die so minimal issues. It was my first car, had it about 3-4 years before I was able to save up enough money for the next car.
Jeep Renegade - Had it about 3 years, first car I purchased myself. No issues but transparently I was a college kid with less of an eye for cars but no serious issues.
2 Model Y's - I only had each for about 1 year. Bought they both new. Outside of small cosmetic issues, I had 0 real issues with the cars
Model S Plaid - Had it about 1.5 years. Had some fit and finish issues. Had to have some door seals replaced and some trim replaced. Nothing serious though.
Taycan - Have had it for about 2 years now. We did have to have cells replaced recently but covered under warranty. No other issues. That car has about 44000 miles on it.
Lotus Emira - Owned it 9 months. I had to Lemon Law this car actually so this car was very problematic. Constantly was leaking, door handles malfunctioned, 120+ days in the shop before I got my lemon law check.
GT4RS - Have had it for about 8 months now. Rock solid. Had to get my AC lines replaced recently as a rock hit some of the lines and poked a hole. That was an expensive one ($5k) but according to them, it was a me problem which I understand. Seemed more like unfortunate luck over anything.

Regardless, thats been the history with them. Overall, relatively uneventful with the Lotus being the major exception.

DeaneG said:

Note that the OP had very early production of both Lucid vehicles. Likely not representative of current production. I had few issues on my Air, zero so far on my Gravity.

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I get your sentiment and would stand behind you fully with the Air which is why I rarely complained and downplayed it often (even in my post above).

The Gravity is hard to defend. 400 miles in. Lucid is not a new car company at this point. They have years of manufacturing experience. And the service really was just handled poorly IMO.

To each their own but general audience (outside the forums) doesn't care about how early their car was produced. The Lemon Laws don't care about that. Lucid's reputation doesn't care about that. Its a statistic that we can track because we love to on the forums and like to nerd out with each other but it does Lucid 0 favors to the general audience when we have to add astriks to all of the failures we experience. And yes that is coming from a Lucid apologist myself that justifies Lucid's trials and tribulations often to peers, family, and friends around me.

Didn't realize they still had unsold Gravity DEs lurking in their inventory. Your post makes me wonder how many more are still available. I assume a very small number.

TahoeMichael said:

Didn't realize they still had unsold Gravity DEs lurking in their inventory. Your post makes me wonder how many more are still available. I assume a very small number.

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I was told, and this may have been sales being sales but I tend to believe them, that I took the last one. There was 3 on the Friday that I test drove it. Then by Sunday there were 0 or so they thought so they notified me. I told them if something changed or fell through to let me know and they text me back about an hour later letting me know that they found 1 at the factory. So I think they are all gone at this point but thats if you believe the sales team...which I think I do in this case

koflo said:

letting me know that they found 1 at the factory

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For me, that'd give it away that they are making it up

I was told in September last year that the Gravity Dream was sold out.
Why a 10/25 Dream still available almost a year later?
Must be some interesting story.

Hi @koflo, sorry to hear what you went through today. I took delivery of Dream #258 also on June 30th in Scottsdale. I also received the suspension alert. I noticed it was after I had turned on easy access and had the height set to low. It wouldn't throw the suspension alert every time but for 2 days it was about 50% of the time. I realized I didn't see it the error before i had turned that on so I turned it back off and haven't seen the suspension alert sense. Just curious if you may have that same setting on.

And I also sold my Air GT partly because of service and did not want to own outside of warranty. Hope things get better over the next 4.

Pwmac said:

Hi @koflo, sorry to hear what you went through today. I took delivery of Dream #258 also on June 30th in Scottsdale. I also received the suspension alert. I noticed it was after I had turned on easy access and had the height set to low. It wouldn't throw the suspension alert every time but for 2 days it was about 50% of the time. I realized I didn't see it the error before i had turned that on so I turned it back off and haven't seen the suspension alert sense. Just curious if you may have that same setting on.

And I also sold my Air GT partly because of service and did not want to own outside of warranty. Hope things get better over the next 4.

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Delivery day twins!

Glad that yours has been a fluke that has passed. For me I’ve always had the car park and put itself in the highest suspension. I think it looks more suv as opposed to mini van in higher suspension. I’ve had easy entry on since delivery day. Unfortunately I cannot change the ride height currently. Cars just slammed to the floor.

I’ll check in the morning for sure but I think no matter what, I’d rather be safe that sorry and am going to take lucid up on their offer to take a look at my car.

Definitely happy yours is all settled and if I happen to see another gravity dream I’ll be sure to wave!

Interested to hear what they find. I've always been vista cruiser fan so I actually prefer the low setting because I think it looks more like a wagon. I've thought about getting some some fake wood vinyl paneling but not sure if the gravity can pull it off. I'll definitely wave back. Hope you get a resolution soon.

You're breaking my heart with that Emira experience. Never meet your heroes I guess.

Really hope they get you sorted out quickly. Personally, the worst part about the whole experience would be the "didn't you just get this car" shtick from people.

I think we're in for more of these service pains before it gets any better. The effort Lucid put into your Air was admirable but not at all sustainable for a business. That Air probably cost Lucid at least 50k with all the parts and labor. No wonder they're restructuring, and until they do (IF they're able to successfully execute) I think every part of the business is going to feel the squeeze from manufacturing right down to the end user.

Which software version did you run on that Gravity DE?