10,000 mile review - the good and the not-so-good, but nothing ugly

[EZEVDriver]

After ~20 months and 10,000 miles of driving an Air Touring, I can now make a reasonable balance sheet. I'm going to starts with picking nits. I'll avoid topics like "Hey Lucid," because there are really long discussions about this and only once did it try to navigate me to the south of Mexico.

One nit I haven't seen complained about by anyone else:

• The order of seat restoration. I am taller than my wife. No, that's not a complaint. She is the most frequent driver and her seat position is really far forward. That's also not the complaint. What irk me is that when the Lucid recognizes me, it starts by changing the recline of the seat rather than the horizontal position. So because the seat is also really reclined, this takes a long time. I do not understand the use case in which the recline of the seat is more urgent that its horizontal position.

Nits I have seen others complain about:

• The charge curve. I'm not really sure whether to complain about it or not. I plan to hold on to the car for a while, so I should be happy with any efforts to minimize battery degradation. But if it's possible to maintain a higher rate of charge for longer, this would take 5-10 minutes off every stop at EA. Improving the charge curve is more important to me than, for example, Android Auto.
• The RangeXchange charging adapter requires a $650 (!) mobile charging kit. So, we finally get V2V out of the promise of bidirectionality, but the original mobile adapter can't handle the promised feature? And don't get me started on V2L or V2H.

Regrets on my part:

• Massage seats weren't an option when I bought the car.
• The glass canopy. I really love the glass canopy, but I don't like cabin heat. My wife loves the glass canopy and just turns up the air conditioning. Oh, well.

The good:

• Best car I have ever driven. Most powerful, most comfortable, most efficient, most stylish (of the cars I've owned). The Tahoe interior is gorgeous.
• EA replaced the nearest chargers to my house with the newer models. Rarely out of order and frequently has only a five-minute wait.

 

[DeaneG]

If you haven't bought these yet, they make a big difference in warm weather:

Lucid Air Sunshade, Glass Canopy

Lucid Motors official store for Lucid Motors and Lucid Air t-shirts, jackets, caps, and drinkware. Browse our Lucid Living accessories and merchandise collection.

store.lucidmotors.com

 

[joec]

The order of seat restoration. I am taller than my wife. No, that's not a complaint. She is the most frequent driver and her seat position is really far forward. That's also not the complaint. What irk me is that when the Lucid recognizes me, it starts by changing the recline of the seat rather than the horizontal position. So because the seat is also really reclined, this takes a long time. I do not understand the use case in which the recline of the seat is more urgent that its horizontal position.

I have a theory about this: The curved roof. They want to be absolutely sure the top of the seat doesn't get mashed into the glass roof/ windshield. You'll notice when the seat is really far forward horizontally and up vertically, it won't even let you bring the recline all the way up. It starts moving the seat down if you try and bring the back forward too far.

It does drive me nuts, though. I think if they just let us switch profiles from the app, it wouldn't matter how long it took I'd do it before I left my living room.

 

[EZEVDriver]

It does drive me nuts, though. I think if they just let us switch profiles from the app, it wouldn't matter how long it took I'd do it before I left my living room.

Great workaround.

 

[LucidDropkick]

Nits I have seen others complain about:

• The charge curve. I'm not really sure whether to complain about it or not. I plan to hold on to the car for a while, so I should be happy with any efforts to minimize battery degradation. But if it's possible to maintain a higher rate of charge for longer, this would take 5-10 minutes off every stop at EA. Improving the charge curve is more important to me than, for example, Android Auto.

Unfortunately, as much as I love my car, I have completely given up on the idea that I will ever charge faster than 150 kW or that I'll sustain a moderately high speed while charging. I've received many different explanations, but none of them really change the fact that I bought a car that was supposed to be one of the fastest-charging cars ever, and I still haven't experienced that immense charging speed.

Meanwhile, an Ioniq 5 (the car I was considering at first) pulls in next to me and gets 120+kW charging all the way to 80%. Go figure.

I've reconciled this by at least acknowledging the seats are quite comfortable and if I'm going to be waiting, I'll at least be waiting in luxury

 

[borski]

Unfortunately, as much as I love my car, I have completely given up on the idea that I will ever charge faster than 150 kW or that I'll sustain a moderately high speed while charging. I've received many different explanations, but none of them really change the fact that I bought a car that was supposed to be one of the fastest-charging cars ever, and I still haven't experienced that immense charging speed.

Meanwhile, an Ioniq 5 (the car I was considering at first) pulls in next to me and gets 120+kW charging all the way to 80%. Go figure.

I've reconciled this by at least acknowledging the seats are quite comfortable and if I'm going to be waiting, I'll at least be waiting in luxury

You live near me. I have both an Ioniq 5 and DE. Can we run a side by side test?

Our Ioniq 5 consistently sucks at charging, and my DE doesn’t. Let’s compare and contrast?

 

[SaratogaLefty]

My wife's GV60 on a fast charger always pulls more kW and for a longer period than my Lucid.

 

[borski]

My wife's GV60 on a fast charger always pulls more kW and for a longer period than my Lucid.

I know nothing about the GV60. Half the time I’m lucky if I can get the Ioniq to charge at all. And there’s a recall for the ICCU out *again*

 

[DeaneG]

Unfortunately, as much as I love my car, I have completely given up on the idea that I will ever charge faster than 150 kW or that I'll sustain a moderately high speed while charging...

The Air GT is one of the fastest charging cars as measured by miles added per minute. I too wish my GT had a more satisfying brick-shaped charging curve like the Taycan or e-GMP cars, but it is what it is, and that's still quite good.

10% challenge — Out of Spec Studios

outofspecstudios.com

 

[Daniel2022AT]

My Touring almost always starts at 215-220kw at EA but after 35% SoC it begins to decline to about 100kw. I average about 110-115kw for a charge session going from 20% to 80%. The software seems to be way too conservative. Maybe battery tech is that fragile?

The Lucid Air thankfully has 700-900v architecture but it is definitely not the fastest charging car in reality.

After a dozen road trips of 600-1500 miles, I think the most important factors for a happy EV road trip experience are: 1.) efficiency and 2.) charging speed. The absolute battery size matters less if you are like me and want to stop every 3-3 1/2 hours or 240-250 miles. That said, things are much more sour at 3mi/kwh (or 2mi/kwh for you Rivian, Lightning, or Hummer folks) than the 4.0-4.2mi/kwh I enjoy.

Road trips become far more realistic at 5 to 5.5 mi/kwh and reliable fast charging averaging 200+kw from 20% to 80% SoC. I think we are just a few years away from that level of performance being a reality.

I cannot wait for the Lucid Air 2.0 in a few years. It will be fantastic.

 

[EVCar]

Unfortunately, as much as I love my car, I have completely given up on the idea that I will ever charge faster than 150 kW or that I'll sustain a moderately high speed while charging. I've received many different explanations, but none of them really change the fact that I bought a car that was supposed to be one of the fastest-charging cars ever, and I still haven't experienced that immense charging speed.

Meanwhile, an Ioniq 5 (the car I was considering at first) pulls in next to me and gets 120+kW charging all the way to 80%. Go figure.

I've reconciled this by at least acknowledging the seats are quite comfortable and if I'm going to be waiting, I'll at least be waiting in luxury

Wishing it not true, but same experience here.
Agree that we have better driving dynamics, comfort, and style than Ioniq 5.