2026 Lucid Air Thoughts

[kboermeester]

Alright Lucid owners — especially fellow 2026 Air owners — what’s your honest opinion of the car so far?

We have a 2026 Lucid Air Pure, and honestly, it’s been a mix of “wow, this car is amazing” and “how is this still happening?”

Pros​

• Extremely comfortable
• Sleek, beautiful design
• Incredible range, even if it’s not quite as advertised (we average around 4 mi/kWh)
• Very spacious interior
• Smooth, quiet ride

Cons​

• Even with the latest 2.9.2 update that supposedly reduced unnecessary alerts, the car is still far more distracting than it should be.
• Not sure if it’s related to my height or seating position, but the driver monitoring constantly complains it “can’t monitor me” and disables features. So somehow I’m less safe because the car can’t keep tabs on me?
• Phone connectivity is a complete coin flip. Some days it works, some days it doesn’t connect at all unless we soft reboot the system. Even connected, we've had cases when audio wouldn't work at all without pulling off the road to reboot the system.
• We had an issue where the driving system failed to boot entirely. I had to sit there Googling fixes on my phone. The solution? Get out of the car, lock it, use the valet key, and try again. Seriously?
• It took almost TWO MONTHS to get a replacement windshield after ours cracked. Only after escalating things to Lucid did the windshield magically arrive the next day.
• The “Air” badge on the back literally fell off while hand washing the car. I’ve hand washed every car I’ve owned since 1996 and have never had that happen.
• The cruise control speed button fell out and won’t snap back in.

What makes this frustrating is that, despite all of this, I still somehow love the car. Including being embarrassed when family or friends are in the car witnessing these issues after talking the car up.

When it works, it feels special. The design, ride quality, comfort, and range are genuinely impressive. But the software quirks and quality-control issues make ownership feel far rougher than it should for a car at this price point.

It’s honestly not hard to understand why the company is struggling right now — stock issues, layoffs, leadership changes, etc. I genuinely want Lucid to succeed because there’s clearly something great here, but something internally has to change.

Hopefully the new CEO can turn things around.

 

[sdblue]

My 26 AP has been great. My complaints:

- CarPlay takes a while to connect about 10% of the time
- The car is slow to wake up via the app about 20% of the time
- Once I couldn’t lock the car for 20 minutes using the phone key
- On maybe 1/4 of drives the driver monitoring will have false alerts

Everything else has been fine and I’d keep the car if the company seems stable at the end of my lease.

 

[RajD]

We have a ‘25 air pure for 1 year now.

Although we had some quirks the first 6-8 months, for the past 4 months , we have had literally none of the issues you report above.

I’m actually surprised you’re still getting some of the alerts and connectivity issues. I would consider dialing down some of the ADAS stuff like drowsy driver etc. We did that early on and it quieted everything down for us. Not sure if it’s still super sensitive now.

Also I’m sorry to hear about the interior and exterior trim issues - we have never had that with our Air.

The car is driving perfectly, silently, without false alerts or noises. The PAAK works perfectly every time. The CarPlay works well for navigation although I prefer native Lucid Nav because of the lower screen. We are super happy with this car inside and out.

I hope things settle in better for you because the car is such a blast!

 

[bmair]

I only have 1,000 miles on my 2026 Air Touring, but these are some of the most enjoyable miles of my long driving history. The car has been absolutely flawless and has been a real pleasure to own and drive. If it wasn't for this forum, I'd think this car is an engineering marvel with absolutely zero issues and so many fantastic attributes. I came out of a Porsche Taycan 4S and could not be happier with my decision. I've had two OTA updates in my short ownership, both flawlessly downloaded and installed. Clearly the availability of service and how stretched Lucid is as a company are concerns, however I'm not going to worry about that for now....just going to keep driving and loving this exceptional vehicle!

 

[Termie]

I agree with everything you listed, particularly inability to connect to phone (android auto for me). About 20% of drives it doesn't work.
But with the inability to see the driver, I unintuitively discovered I had to set the steering wheel very low to have DDPro work, partially blocking dashboard. The camera's view angle on the driver (I'm 6 feet) clearly does not line up with the driver's view of the dash.

Also I had the terrible frunk jam problem shown on engineering explained. It was not a software issue. It actually got caught on and broke the front headlight. Took 2 months for lucid to fix, including a shocking one month actually at the service center.

Finally, forward cross traffic alert is terrible. It goes crazy pulling out of a parking lot so I turned it off.

Overall nice driving car, but wouldn't buy again.

 

[drb3333]

Alright Lucid owners — especially fellow 2026 Air owners — what’s your honest opinion of the car so far?

We have a 2026 Lucid Air Pure, and honestly, it’s been a mix of “wow, this car is amazing” and “how is this still happening?”

I think your assessment is right on.

It feels like being in a relationship with a beautiful woman.

She may have some profound flaws but in the end it all comes out on the positive side; I will tolerate most of it for the rewards.

 

[martinjlm]

I think your assessment is right on.

It feels like being in a relationship with a beautiful woman.

She may have some profound flaws but in the end it all comes out on the positive side; I will tolerate most of it for the rewards.

Translation...I wouldn't break up with Halle Berry for eating crackers in bed.

 

[joec]

The camera behind the steering wheel needs to be able to see your face. It’s not the best design, for sure. But once you get that, you figure out how to position the wheel such that the camera can easily see you. At that point, most of the “Look at the road” warnings go away. (Unless you are actually not looking at the road.)

That may not be your ideal steering wheel position, but it shouldn’t need to be so far off that it’s totally uncomfortable to drive.

The alternative is to turn off features like drowsy driver, etc. Anything that requires the camera to see you. Personally I like having those turned on, because drowsy driving is an actual thing I want to be warned about. But YMMV.

I found after a couple of days of fiddling, I was able to find a spot that was a good compromise of being able to see the cockpit display, driving comfort, and the camera being able to see me.

 

[martinjlm]

The camera behind the steering wheel needs to be able to see your face. It’s not the best design, for sure. But once you get that, you figure out how to position the wheel such that the camera can easily see you. At that point, most of the “Look at the road” warnings go away. (Unless you are actually not looking at the road.)

That may not be your ideal steering wheel position, but it shouldn’t need to be so far off that it’s totally uncomfortable to drive.

The alternative is to turn off features like drowsy driver, etc. Anything that requires the camera to see you. Personally I like having those turned on, because drowsy driving is an actual thing I want to be warned about. But YMMV.

I found after a couple of days of fiddling, I was able to find a spot that was a good compromise of being able to see the cockpit display, driving comfort, and the camera being able to see me.

Seat height also factors into this. Play around with that a bit. A slight adjustment up may actually help the line of sight of the monitor.

 

[jedwin]

There’s a horizontal rectangular glass panel just above the steering wheel; that’s where the driver camera is, so you need to be able to see that clearly for it to see you.

As Joe noted, this does mean lowering the steering wheel to the point where it blocks some of the upper part of the display. I found that I can have it be at a point where I can just see the very bottom of the current speed and cruise control set-speed (when driver assist is activated and the current speed jumps up higher on the screen). When using driver assist, it’s less essential to keep an eye on the speed, so just seeing the bottom of the number works fine for me. At worst, I need to just slightly dip my head to double check those numbers. I can always see the icon that confirms the driver assist or HFDA is active, as well as the cruise speed setting, but the text strip at the top is always hidden unless I really duck my head.

It took me a while playing with steering wheel adjustments and seat adjustments to find a combination that had enough visibility and comfort (preferred driving stance) for me to live with long-term but I’m confident you’ll also be able to find a sweet spot or two that work for you.

 

[borski]

We had an issue where the driving system failed to boot entirely. I had to sit there Googling fixes on my phone. The solution? Get out of the car, lock it, use the valet key, and try again. Seriously?

You don’t need to use the card. Just lock it with any key and let the car fall asleep, which takes about a minute or so. Then unlock it with any key.

The “Air” badge on the back literally fell off while hand washing the car. I’ve hand washed every car I’ve owned since 1996 and have never had that happen.

They’ll happily let you buy a new one from service. It’s cheap, too. Everyone that has put PPF on the car (essentially) needed a second one.

The cruise control speed button fell out and won’t snap back in.

You need a new steering wheel. It can be done mobile. Sadly, that’s the only fix for this one.

 

[JimmyBreeze]

About 6 weeks with a 2026 Air Touring here, and about 2 weeks away from the service appointment I made about an hour after I got the car:

Pros:

• It's truly a fantastic looking and driving car, and the interior is the best I've ever sat in.
• The seats insanely comfortable and the massage is incredible, very glad I waited for a car with the seats.
• Surreal Sound Pro sounds pretty good especially with Tidal Atmos and USB FLAC tracks. I'll add a sub to fill in the low end and be happy, and I'm hard to please.
• The AC works fantastic, I saw a ton of complaints and was concerned but 10 minutes of preconditioning on a sunny 95 degree day had the cabin a beautiful 68 when I get there and it kepts up, quietly, for the drive.
• My phone connectivity, wireless CarPlay, and mobile key/fob experience has been flawless. Knock on carbon wood.
• It's a small thing, but I was legitimately and pleasantly surprised to see 2.9 add colors to the interior lighting on Purelux. I don't think I've ever seen a feature that wasn't promised "someday" just added for the sake of adding it- that is cool.

Bad things from delivery day:

• Front right speaker sounds blown, I thought the whole "tape" issue was resolved but man it sure sounds a lot like what everyone here posted in the videos.
• Rear deck rattles, tried sticking some foam between the deck and rear window but needs a little more assistance.
• GPS is borked. Car randomly jumps to side roads and, on straight roads, will do a 360 every 30 seconds or so as if it thought it was heading the opposite direction and then changed its mind. It does this even when using CarPlay apps.
• I assume because GPS is borked, Drive Assist hasn't worked for more than 30 seconds before deciding "Drive Assist is not available here" and Hands Free Drive Assist hasn't worked for more than 3 seconds, and then there are constant messages saying one or the other is available when it defaults back to Adaptive Cruise.

Bad things since:

• The exterior fit and finish just isn't up to par. Panel gaps vary from side to side of the car, some pretty noticeably. A lot of the trim is not flush. The hood and trunk don't close flush. I recall this taking Tesla ages to get right, but coming from an Audi it's a bit jarring.
• There's a slight groan every single time I accelerate from a stop, like the brakes were gripping too hard, poking around, this seems more or less normal (is it?), but it doesn't befit a $100k car.
• I had a very weird "brake light issue" alert that immediately went away, and only on checking upon arriving home did I notice that the entire left turn signal just wasn't working. A deep sleep solved it, but yikes, that's not an alert that should go away after two seconds if the car knows it's happening.
• Yeah, the Air badge on the back made it through exactly one car (hand) wash before the long line off of the A cracked off lol.

Cons:

• The biggest dealbreaker of all of this, and the thing that's going to stop people from buying these, is the two month wait for service. It's one thing for a car to have quirks, as long as someone fixes them immediately. None of my issues seem terribly complex.
• Every person I've driven for six weeks has gotten into the car mouth agape, asked a million questions, then watched the GPS spin around or heard the blown speaker. They don't get out saying "man that's an incredible car I'd aspire to own", they get out saying "man that's a buggy car". But then, when it's still broken weeks later on the next ride, they say "man, that's a buggy car they won't fix." That word gets out, and it's definitely getting out, it becomes a bad reputation and that will kill a company 10 times out of 10 on a major purchase like this.

Things I do not understand:

• For a car that's so smart with so many screens, why is there no way to scroll through the errors? Once you dismiss one it goes away, and every now and then I'll just get the triangle with no explanation. The car knows, why not list these somewhere?
• I have spent quite a bit a time with Tidal going through and finding a ton of Atmos albums. It's a pain, but that's Tidal's fault. What I can't understand is why we cannot sort these albums in any way besides order added. Impossible to navigate and lucid assistant is no assistance.
• Those cupholders, man. Jesus.

 

[joec]

Things I do not understand:

• For a car that's so smart with so many screens, why is there no way to scroll through the errors? Once you dismiss one it goes away, and every now and then I'll just get the triangle with no explanation. The car knows, why not list these somewhere?
• I have spent quite a bit a time with Tidal going through and finding a ton of Atmos albums. It's a pain, but that's Tidal's fault. What I can't understand is why we cannot sort these albums in any way besides order added. Impossible to navigate and lucid assistant is no assistance.
• Those cupholders, man. Jesus.

The cupholders don't bug me, because I just never use them. I throw a water bottle in my map pocket and call it a day. Blame the nice, comfortable, wide seats for the lack of center space. Personally, I'm okay with that tradeoff, given I am not a narrow individual.

The Tidal app is a mess. I try and set up things from my phone whenever possible, and then just access them from the car. Makes things easier, as far as finding music goes. But the app still sucks big time. I use CarPlay more often than not for music for this reason, even though the sound quality is not as good.

The error thing is a big wish list item. Somewhere on the settings screen, we should have a simple list of recent errors. Could not agree more. That's something they could add, so let's hope they do. Maybe as part of 3.0? I don't think Gravity has this, either, though.

 

[borski]

GPS is borked. Car randomly jumps to side roads and, on straight roads, will do a 360 every 30 seconds or so as if it thought it was heading the opposite direction and then changed its mind. It does this even when using CarPlay apps.

Do you have other connectivity? If not, you may need to reset your TCU. Takes about a minute.

 

[L-Dude]

I'm coming up on one year of ownership of my 2025 AGT. (Disclaimer: I am not a fussy person) The car has been splendid. It is smooth, fast, quiet, and very well appointed. All my infotainment goes through CarPlay, so my experience with the car's native infotainment is limited. I tried Tidal, and that is one of the worst apps I have ever used. I mean seriously how could any businessperson put that POS out the door? (Yes, I feel better now ).

Here is my exhaustive list of problems with the car:
1) The windshield washer is funky at times

I've only taken a couple road trips, but it has been great on the highway. HFDA works really well for me, but I don't trust it. I'm sure if I used to more, I would feel more comfortable, but for now I am much more likely to use cruise control and drive the car myself (which is, of course, a blast!).

Virtually everyone who rides in the back comments on how roomy it is--many saying it feels like a limo.

I've got a spare tire and jack, a tire repair kit, tire sealant, windshield repair kit, two charger adaptors, a 100' heavy duty extension cord, and first aid kit in the well of the frunk. All of this fits neatly under cover leaving the top level of the frunk available for other stuff.

This is such a great car, and I am enjoying it immensely.

 

[JimmyBreeze]

Do you have other connectivity? If not, you may need to reset your TCU. Takes about a minute.

I do- everything else connectivity-wise is working splendidly.

I originally had some problems waking the car up in my driveway- I had OK wi-fi and noticed the car woke up in a few seconds whenever I was out and about on a cellular connection. But I have poor cell signal at the house. Solution was to buy a AT&T 4G LTE femtocell for about $240- Lucid uses AT&T, as do I, and that's made everything work great.

The GPS is always accurate as far as I can tell except it doesn't seem to know which way it's going, none of the "the car's in the ocean" stuff others have experienced, so I'm nervous to reset to TCU and risk borking the connectivity that's working great.

 

[JimmyBreeze]

The Tidal app is a mess. I try and set up things from my phone whenever possible, and then just access them from the car. Makes things easier, as far as finding music goes. But the app still sucks big time. I use CarPlay more often than not for music for this reason, even though the sound quality is not as good.

Honestly the Tidal app sucks on iOS too, and they seem to have created a cottage industry of websites designed to tell you "hey here is what is available in Atmos", so I do not hold Lucid to a fault on that one. Would be fantastic if they'd cozy up to Apple Music, though...

It's a magnificent car, and the amount of space in the back is absolutely bananas. They just need to get it together on the software and service side of things.