What is the point of Auto - low and Auto - high wiper setting?

The wipers in Lucid Air has 5 settings. Off, Auto Low, Auto High, Low and High. In all the vehicles I have owned, there was one Auto setting in which the wipers will auto sense the rain intensity and adjust the wiping action. What is the point of having an Auto Low and Auto High, where there is alreay a manual low and high setting. Yesterday, my left panel turned off and it started raining really hard on the highway. I was stuck in the Auto low setting and had to drive very slow to a rest area to reset the car. Can someone explain it to me what were the Geniuses at Lucid thinking when the planned this?

Every car with Auto wipers I’ve owned across multiple brands also had the ability to adjust the sensitivity of the reaction to the rain sensor, “Auto Low/Auto High” would the implementation that sensitivity control.

Historically with physical controls, this would have been achieved with a ring or dial on the wiper stalk, first putting the stalk in the Auto position and adjusting between 1-3 raindrops, a spectrum of bars, -/+, etc. for sensitivity. If instead you chose the intermittent mode, the same ring or dial would fall back to adjust the frequency of wiping in intermittent mode.

If your post is more about the issue of putting wiper controls behind a screen and a software layer and the reliability issues that can arise as a result, I have nothing to add as that is a market trend. Over time, I do hope automakers collectively find a happier balance of physical and digital controls.

AUTO HI (Higher Sensitivity) is tuned to trigger at a lower threshold of detected water droplets. It reacts more eagerly to light mist, fine drizzle, or minor road spray, wiping earlier and more frequently as water accumulates. AUTO LO (Lower Sensitivity) requires a greater buildup of moisture or heavier raindrops on the windshield before initiating a wipe cycle, preventing premature or dry-wiping during light or intermittent precipitation. Manual LOW and HIGH speed is continuous wiping at a low or high speed independent of windshield water buildup.

Those behaviors are consistent with other vehicles I've owned that had auto wipers. While I would prefer AUTO with user-adjustable sensitivity, I can appreciate the simplicity of two presets.

bcjenkins said:

AUTO HI (Higher Sensitivity) is tuned to trigger at a lower threshold of detected water droplets. It reacts more eagerly to light mist, fine drizzle, or minor road spray, wiping earlier and more frequently as water accumulates. AUTO LO (Lower Sensitivity) requires a greater buildup of moisture or heavier raindrops on the windshield before initiating a wipe cycle, preventing premature or dry-wiping during light or intermittent precipitation. Manual LOW and HIGH speed is continuous wiping at a low or high speed independent of windshield water buildup.

Those behaviors are consistent with other vehicles I've owned that had auto wipers. While I would prefer AUTO with user-adjustable sensitivity, I can appreciate the simplicity of two presets.

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Thanks for the explanation. Wouldn’t the camera just see the visibility and adjust the speed automatically?

watermelonrooste said:

Thanks for the explanation. Wouldn’t the camera just see the visibility and adjust the speed automatically?

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In AUTO (I presume), per the note in the Owners Manual: "Intervals between wipes reduce as the vehicle’s speed increases." I.e., the wipers operate more frequently with higher vehicle speeds in the context of the sensitivity. That's the only auto "speed" adjustment I'm aware of.

My comments are based solely on (a) personal experience with non-Lucid vehicles equipped with similar functionality and (b) the Lucid Owners Manual, whose digital pages are getting worn out from me reading it so many times.

Lucid's wiper controls make me miss the Intermittent/Fixed-Time settings dearly. In light showers or mist from following traffic on a wet road, the Auto modes rarely work to satisfaction. I've never had to leave my hand on the Mist button as much as I do in the Air. Some drives, I'll have hit that thing 40+ times. Continuous isn't the answer, as it'll leave streaks due to being too frequent.

Gee, if I could just set it to a 5 or 10-second interval, all the visibility issues would be solved. No idea why automakers take steps backward like this; it isn't even a cost-savings.