5G?

[tuccur]

Does the Lucid have 5G for it's network?

 

[Alex]

Does the Lucid have 5G for it's network?

Yes, that's what I've been told.

 

[tuccur]

Yes, that's what I've been told.

I would like to think so... would be silly to put LTE in there now... and what is Tesla going to do, almost all of their cars are LTE only... It also makes me wonder... I got a CPU upgrade for free about a year after I bought the car. Is Lucid going to have to update their CPU? Which is to ask, do the Dream Editions use the NVIDIA Drive platform? The announcement made it sound like Lucid will begin using the NVIDIA chip

 

[Alex]

I would like to think so... would be silly to put LTE in there now... and what is Tesla going to do, almost all of their cars are LTE only... It also makes me wonder... I got a CPU upgrade for free about a year after I bought the car. Is Lucid going to have to update their CPU? Which is to ask, do the Dream Editions use the NVIDIA Drive platform? The announcement made it sound like Lucid will begin using the NVIDIA chip

I've been told that certainly the cars have 5G. II got this from Customer Service when I asked:

Thank you for reaching out to Lucid Customer Care with your questions regarding the LTE network used by your vehicle. ​

The Lucid Air will utilize 5G when accessible, and will use 4G LTE during other times. 5G is still being rolled out across the nation and improving all the time, so expect 5G connectivity to continue to improve.​

Since the Dream Edition and the GTs have Dream Drive Pro (DDP) capability, and the announcement mentioned that the the NVIDIA system was part of the DDP suite, then I would assume it has the NVIDIA system.

 

[PompousAss]

I've been told that certainly the cars have 5G. II got this from Customer Service when I asked:

Thank you for reaching out to Lucid Customer Care with your questions regarding the LTE network used by your vehicle. ​

The Lucid Air will utilize 5G when accessible, and will use 4G LTE during other times. 5G is still being rolled out across the nation and improving all the time, so expect 5G connectivity to continue to improve.​

Feels odd to be replying to an 18-month-old message, but it seems to be the best way to go.

Alex seems to have gotten a canonical answer from Lucid in the spring of 2022, but on June 29, 2023 borski said "It is AT&T, and LTE, not 5G" in post 143335, which I'm unable to quote directly.

So which is it? Do the cars have 5G modems? If not, someday the mobile carriers will turn off 4G, and there'll be no Spotify, Tidal, SiriusXM, or anything else requiring OTA data. Hope you like FM radio? There's no satellite antenna.

Search of the forum suggests nobody has located an actual SIM card, and discussion suggests most people think it's an eSIM, which is fine except nobody seems to know how one would update it when the free mobile data gravy train terminates, which it almost certainly will some day.

I don't mean to sound harsh here, but it seems this could become a really serious issue in the future and answers are scarce.

 

[joec]

Even if it were a 5G modem, that too will eventually become obsolete. Such is the nature of a car that connects to the internet.

But you can drop a 7-inch screen into a 1998 Porsche and get CarPlay, backup camera, and a front camera. So I’m guessing someone will figure out how to offer some sort of third-party upgrade to all these current cars with computers as well. For the few who are still actually driving them at that point.

Of course you’ll likely have to replace the battery long before the modem is disconnected.

 

[PompousAss]

The difference between 4G and 5G here is huge. My 2015 S6 only had 2G capability, which wasn't a big deal since Audi Connect was sort of a toy service and completely unimportant with regard to most of the infotainment system. During the nine years I've owned the car, both 2G and 3G capabilities have disappeared from the majority of the North American wireless scene.

The infotainment system of the Lucid Air, on the other hand, is heavily dependent on cell service. If it's a 4G modem, it is a near certainty it will become obsolescent long before the warranty runs out on the battery in 2031, and "somebody will come up with a kludge" is not comforting.

 

[joec]

The difference between 4G and 5G here is huge. My 2015 S6 only had 2G capability, which wasn't a big deal since Audi Connect was sort of a toy service and completely unimportant with regard to most of the infotainment system. During the nine years I've owned the car, both 2G and 3G capabilities have disappeared from the majority of the North American wireless scene.

The infotainment system of the Lucid Air, on the other hand, is heavily dependent on cell service. If it's a 4G modem, it is a near certainty it will become obsolescent long before the warranty runs out on the battery in 2031, and "somebody will come up with a kludge" is not comforting.

The chances of LTE disappearing by 2031 are next to nil. Much of the world is still nowhere near having reliable 5G coverage.

 

[PompousAss]

Well, this is a totally non-productive discussion, so you can make a final reply and have the last word, but between 1988 and 2018 I spent the vast majority of my time working in the wireless telco industry, mostly for companies you've probably never heard of but that make much of the "magic" happen, and I wish there was a way to make a wager with you that I could collect in 2031. There is no way 4G will still be ubiquitous in the United States in 2031, and if the cars do not have 5G capability that may be a showstopper for me.

 

[Rossb2k]

Why do you assume it won't be upgradeable? My 2014 Tesla came with 3G, and it took a 1 hour service appointment to get it upgraded to 4G when 3G became obsolete. Why would Lucid be any different?

 

[Lucken]

Isn’t it possible that the modem is modular and replaceable?

 

[MorganB]

4G/LTE and 5G networks use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access. They use the same hardware. There's no reason to phase out 4G unless 5G goes with it. Also there's no reason Lucid couldnt offer an upgrade if this were actually to happen as unlikely as it is.

 

[Snafu]

I'm wondering if 5G is not the main issue with the more frequent dead spots I am finding, especially because I am not in an urban/suburban area. A few months ago, the AT&T network was extremely unreliable for almost a week because it was used for another network's customers while that network finally started upgrading its towers. AT&T doesn't seem to have rebounded 100% since then. Isn't the tower coverage smaller for 5G, which would require more towers, therefore making handoffs (and possibly misses) more frequent? I have not seen any great increase in towers. I don't know if I understand this correctly, but OFDMA is supposed to send the signal to multiple towers simultaneously to enable the seamless handover, but could the spacing of the cell towers for 4G/LTE coverage not be close enough together for 5G stability in cars? I'm not sure of the differences in capabilities of the modems in phones as opposed to cars. (i.e. my phone on bluetooth to the car works fine, whereas the applications on the car seem to be less reliable.) Just trying to understand how this actually works.