- Joined
- Mar 30, 2025
- Messages
- 380
- Reaction score
- 622
- Location
- Somerville, MA
- Cars
- '26 Gravity DE, '19 X-LR
- Gravity DE Number
- 084
(Well, 1090 now and counting -- I'm typing in the back seat right now.)
We finally have the opportunity for a real weekend road trip to the in-laws in NH and friends in Montreal! We just passed 1000 miles just after the border, so I figure now is a good time to write up more thoughts on the driving experience. Nothing major new to report -- all the good things remain good, and no serious issues.
Driving at speed on winding NH and VT roads really shows off the power, dynamics, and comfort of the Gravity. It remains shocking how smooth, stable, and quiet it is to drive. Going 40mph "feels like" going 20 in our X, and even going 80 feels like nothing. The ride is totally smooth, and we can have a conversation easily or even listen to music at a low setting, which is impossible in the Tesla. Curves at any speed are deceptively calm; other than the lateral G forces there's no pulling or slipping or tilting.... the vehicle just effortlessly follows the curve. It's almost less fun because there's just no drama on any public road -- it just goes. I can't compare it to anything else I've driven.
DreamDrive 2 Pro is good, especially on the highway. There's definitely room for improvement. Adaptive cruise control just works, as it should. Lane keeping and triggered lane changes work perfectly on the highway. Lane change suggestions are erratic and the criteria are unclear -- sometimes it suggests moving left, and sometimes I notice I'm sitting behind a car going well under the speed limit for 5 minutes with no hinting. Lanekeeping on non-highway road curves is currently a bit terrifying, and cuts inappropriately over the centerline; I suggest avoiding this for now. It also gets very confused by lanes joining and splitting, like turn lanes. Feels a bit like where the Tesla was 6-7 years ago. One huge advantage of DD2P is that manually overriding steering _does not_ disengage Drive Assist (as it does on the Tesla). This is fantastic because I can manually adjust steering in conditions I know won't work well (crossing a state road intersection, for instance) and then let it resume automatically.
As I've mentioned before, the sound system is fantastic. Don't bop your head to the music too much, though, or the driver attention warning will think you're nodding and suggest stopping for coffee.
I love the head-up display, although I'm still getting used to not looking down at the nav panel. Having the next turn info directly in view reduces distraction significantly. I'm looking forward to the eventual augmented reality functionality; in an area where there are tightly-spaced side streets knowing which is the right turn is hard without checking the nav panel. Having the right street highlighted in-view will be amazing.
I know there have been lots of questions about efficiency, and we've been averaging around 2.7 mi/kWh. This is fine for us, but is probably a bit low on account of being a DE, mid-size wheels, and driving at higher highway speeds. We've only had one charging stop on this trip, at a Supercharger where we held at around 220 kW for most of our charge (rougly 15% to 70%). We had a glitch where plug-and-charge did not work, and I received a notification that Lucid Charging Service is disabled and that I should check my Lucid Wallet, but everything seems fine. I was able to charge with the Tesla app, and opened a ticket with Lucid via text message. I'm guessing there was a problem with the initial attempt to charge my card to initiate the session, as this has worked fine before.
That's all for now!
We finally have the opportunity for a real weekend road trip to the in-laws in NH and friends in Montreal! We just passed 1000 miles just after the border, so I figure now is a good time to write up more thoughts on the driving experience. Nothing major new to report -- all the good things remain good, and no serious issues.
Driving at speed on winding NH and VT roads really shows off the power, dynamics, and comfort of the Gravity. It remains shocking how smooth, stable, and quiet it is to drive. Going 40mph "feels like" going 20 in our X, and even going 80 feels like nothing. The ride is totally smooth, and we can have a conversation easily or even listen to music at a low setting, which is impossible in the Tesla. Curves at any speed are deceptively calm; other than the lateral G forces there's no pulling or slipping or tilting.... the vehicle just effortlessly follows the curve. It's almost less fun because there's just no drama on any public road -- it just goes. I can't compare it to anything else I've driven.
DreamDrive 2 Pro is good, especially on the highway. There's definitely room for improvement. Adaptive cruise control just works, as it should. Lane keeping and triggered lane changes work perfectly on the highway. Lane change suggestions are erratic and the criteria are unclear -- sometimes it suggests moving left, and sometimes I notice I'm sitting behind a car going well under the speed limit for 5 minutes with no hinting. Lanekeeping on non-highway road curves is currently a bit terrifying, and cuts inappropriately over the centerline; I suggest avoiding this for now. It also gets very confused by lanes joining and splitting, like turn lanes. Feels a bit like where the Tesla was 6-7 years ago. One huge advantage of DD2P is that manually overriding steering _does not_ disengage Drive Assist (as it does on the Tesla). This is fantastic because I can manually adjust steering in conditions I know won't work well (crossing a state road intersection, for instance) and then let it resume automatically.
As I've mentioned before, the sound system is fantastic. Don't bop your head to the music too much, though, or the driver attention warning will think you're nodding and suggest stopping for coffee.
I love the head-up display, although I'm still getting used to not looking down at the nav panel. Having the next turn info directly in view reduces distraction significantly. I'm looking forward to the eventual augmented reality functionality; in an area where there are tightly-spaced side streets knowing which is the right turn is hard without checking the nav panel. Having the right street highlighted in-view will be amazing.
I know there have been lots of questions about efficiency, and we've been averaging around 2.7 mi/kWh. This is fine for us, but is probably a bit low on account of being a DE, mid-size wheels, and driving at higher highway speeds. We've only had one charging stop on this trip, at a Supercharger where we held at around 220 kW for most of our charge (rougly 15% to 70%). We had a glitch where plug-and-charge did not work, and I received a notification that Lucid Charging Service is disabled and that I should check my Lucid Wallet, but everything seems fine. I was able to charge with the Tesla app, and opened a ticket with Lucid via text message. I'm guessing there was a problem with the initial attempt to charge my card to initiate the session, as this has worked fine before.
That's all for now!
