Hello all. I will detail some real world experience. I will try to be objective, but my subjective opinions are strong. I have the performance addition with the 21" wheels. For perspective I am 6'2", race in World Racing League endurance races for fun, have owned an Alpine B7 which is my all time favorite sedan, and unfortunately still is. I put an early deposit on the car as I wanted an EV, but I was waiting for better range and performance, plus a design mind set different than Tesla. I was/am driving a Yukon AT4. My wife and I picked the car up in Costa Mesa on 12/10. We spent about 3 hours going over the car with our delivery specialist and the service advisor spent some time with us as well. Our first trip was back to San Diego. No issues and we charged at home with a 14-50 outlet we had installed with a 50 amp breaker and the cable included with the car. I set the car for "Daily charging" and waited till 9pm to plug it in as scheduled charging is an unknown update away. I down loaded the iPhone app prior to picking up the car and have been using it almost exclusively as my "key". Saturday and Sunday we drove the car everywhere we went. My wife quickly realized that the car got more attention than she is comfortable with. Monday through Thursday I drove the car to work ~14 miles each way. Took people on test drives. The acceleration is truly breathtaking. I race cars and have owned a GTR and a 911 Turbo S. This car is fast. The handling and ride are great, the brakes are good, it's just hard to slow this much weight. With the week of commuting plus test drives the estimated range in miles has been going down some. I appreciate that the expected range is changing based on my driving, but it is still optimistic. On Thursday I went to a electrify america 150kw fast charger at walmart to test in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Santa Barbara over the weekend. I wanted to make sure everything worked. This is my first EV and first time charging other than at home. I used the Lucid app and everything worked great. The highest charge rate I saw was 77kw. I got about 100 miles of range in 28 minutes. Looking at Electrify America site, I ordered a level 2 home charger while charging so I could schedule charge times without waiting on an update from Lucid. The trip from San Diego to Santa Barbara after a full charge, range was indicated to be 459 at start. 222 miles later it showed as 171. I drove in "smooth" mode. I am no "miler", but I drove with the flow of traffic and no big acceleration runs. The hotel indicated they only had Tesla charging. The next day I found a charge point charging station, downloaded the app and starting charging with no issues. I got ~100 miles of range in 4 hours for $5. When we got back to the hotel I went to look at the Tesla charging stations. There were 2 stations per pole and maybe 10 stations over all. Each pole had a Tesla sign, but looking closer the last charger was on a pole with a Tesla charger but was a J1772. I went and got the Lucid and plugged in. The next morning the car showed a full charge and 429 miles of range. 99.5 miles later stopping for the night in Long Beach the car indicated 3.4mi/kWh and a range of 316 miles. The valet card has no hole punch for a valet to attache an identifier tag and hang the card on the key board. Also, it has a pictograph on how to unlock the car, but not how to "start" the car. I gave the valet a remote. They were able to park the car and retrieve it without issue. They could not figure out how to open the trunk. 115 miles to home. When we got home the car indicated a remaining range of 150 miles. My real world driving indicates for me a range of ~400 miles on a full charge. Our only mechanical issue so far is when I use the app to open the Frunk, it "pops" the latches, but doesn't open. So far the fix is press the open button on the panel in the car and it opens and then shuts as expected. I am sure some will be disappointed with my real world range. I am not. Drivetrain, suspension, brakes, paint, fit, finish, range, the car meets my high expectations. Now the software. It would be an insult to beta software to call this software beta. It is inconsistent, crashes, and is in many cases just plain bad even if it works. My wife feels it is a car designed by men for men because the security issues are so bad. Using the iphone app the proximity unlock does everything from unlock at 15' to not unlocking at all. Locking is even worse. I trust it not at all. My wife wants the car to unlock the driver door only when she touches it, be able to open the trunk with the doors looked. My expectation is higher, the AT4 I can open the rear hatch by getting close and waving my foot under the bumper. We both want the doors to lock if we are outside and press on the door handle. Sometimes it does, mostly it does not. Can we have an off button? The car shows the same status if you are getting out or about to shift into D. The cameras and park distance are truly awful. They show you are hitting something when in fact you are 24" away. It locks the brakes in a tooth filling loosing way when you are 18" away. If you over ride that jarring brake, the screen goes all red and crashes the system at 12" away. The GM vehicle at less than half the price, goes full "red" at 9" away. The car has the most sophisticated sensors on the planet, but the programers feel 24" equals stop. Trying to parallel park in this car is a nightmare. Unless you want to park 18" off the curb it has a defining and very urgent and anxiety producing audible response and then hits the e brake over and over and over. I have never been uncomfortable parking a car until now. The nav is awful, the music controls are awful, and in general there is a folder based mentality for the interface that predates the 2007 iPhone. Why even waste time on Nav. People are more attached to their phones than their cars. Have android auto and car play working from day one. People are attached to their cars, they are more attached to their phones. I would estimate Lucid owners are 80%+ iPhone. Car play not working on day one is a huge mistake. I bought the car to share with my wife. She wants a car that works as expected every time. This is not that car. First car we have ever owned that makes her feel "unsafe". Unfortunately, there is lots more on how bad the software is. Yes, it will get better. Telling me I am hitting something when it is 24" away shows me a mind set that is as bad or worse than Tesla philosophy. The grey scale map that represents the car in black and your location in white. Awful. Water is black, green space is black, buildings are black with dark grey roofs. The number of steps to transfer an address someone has texted me to the car is ridiculous. The Nav stops working if it loses internet. That is the only value of built in nav, working even if you lose cell connection. Alexa in the car finally makes siri look good. Homelink is per profile. Garage door openers have a limit of the number of links they store. A Lucid with 2 or 3 profiles will cause your other cars or openers to drop. Neither the nav or home display show direction. There is zero chance I would let software on this car drive for me. Software is what will decide the winners and losers. If there are not some impressive updates and soon, the aspects of this car that are great will soon be over run by the awful day to day experience of phone interaction, parking, navigating, music/audio controls, and just waiting forever for the car to boot. My wife would prefer I sell the car. Opposite of my intent to get her to embrace EV's. Everything that is bad in this car, is either good or great in my 40K Honda Accord and/or my 80K GMC AT4. Being different to be better is awesome, being different to be different is stupid. The remote feels cheap, looks cheap, it reminds me of a $10 powerpoint clicker. It is not intuitive, has a bad form factor, and is literally attached to your other keys by a thread. The door handle. The double clutch required to open is annoying, it is a cheap plastic on plastic part. It feels cheap, it has a plastic on plastic binding feel. Everyone is going to use this everytime they drive the car. I have had no other car where the door opener has such a "cheap" feel. Yes, I have high expectations for 185K car. This car both delights and infuriates me. BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes, are all working hard on EV's. Lucid has a small window before their chance at converting those enthusiasts who want an EV to Lucid will close. The impressive 900V architecture, the great performance, and good looks will all be for naught, if the software does not get much better quickly. I hope Lucid stops doing gimmicky things that look nice, but are shit. Benchmark a Honda accord. Benchmarking, BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, and Porsche can come later for Lucid, but only if they survive this start up period. I hope they get better.
