AGT price decrease

[xponents]

I'm curious as well.

They could call it touring, but that would just mean a touring with alcantara and massaging seats. If they called it a tier of grand touring, it would delete the sense of "excellence" that the name grand touring feels. Im guessing its an upgraded version of touring. I would call it the "premium interior package," because really, what else is GT other than massaging and alcantara?

 

[xponents]

https://insideevs.com/news/627491/lucid-lowers-air-grand-touring-starting-msrp-138000-usd/ articles out

 

[xponents]

I also wonder if this is a step in the direction of phasing out the Touring. Take some standard featues from the GT, add more options to the Pure. Meet in the middle.

Please add leather to pure. That is my only wish.

 

[Whisky0225]

They could call it touring, but that would just mean a touring with alcantara and massaging seats. If they called it a tier of grand touring, it would delete the sense of "excellence" that the name grand touring feels. Im guessing its an upgraded version of touring. I would call it the "premium interior package," because really, what else is GT other than massaging and alcantara?

Maybe this is a way to get rid of existing grand touring inventory? Lower the entry price, other features becomes negotiable or sales incentives?

 

[xponents]

Maybe this is a way to get rid of existing grand touring inventory? Lower the entry price, other features becomes negotiable or sales incentives?

I dont think lucid's are negotiable, but who knows..

 

[tmilone103]

This is all speculation but it's also possible they will not be including the hardware if you do not pay for it on a new build. It's also possible they are just stripping these options on customer cancelled orders to help move just those vehicles by making them more affordable.

 

[Coho]

Im wondering if this isnt the beginning of steps to blend the Air line. Perhaps eliminate a category or 2 and allow more builds/options. Simplify as you go along and then allow another Lucid sedan on smaller frame to emerge. I for one would have opted out of the DDP and kept the upgraded sound system even with my bad ears. But it will allow more choice in the future.

 

[Rogue]

I think we can all agree the hardware does not cost 14k. However, 14k a month would be barely enough to cover a software engineer's salary in California at the lowest end. They are only hiring in California as well. Trust me. I checked as I have applied a handful of times, but they are only hiring people with 5-10+ years to completely skip journeyman and junior positions.

Fancy software features cost money, lots of it. I don't know what size the teams are, but let's assume 5-6 apiece for UI/UX, Dream Drive, embedded systems, and app development... Let's say average all in cost of an engineer is $250,000 times 20 puts software development at $5 million a year as a conservative estimate. Apple dude probably costs them that much by himself.

 

[joec]

I think we can all agree the hardware does not cost 14k. However, 14k a month would be barely enough to cover a software engineer's salary in California at the lowest end. They are only hiring in California as well. Trust me. I checked as I have applied a handful of times.

Fancy software features cost money, lots of it. I don't know what size the teams are, but let's assume 5-6 apiece for UI/UX, Dream Drive, embedded systems, and app development... Let's say average all in cost of an engineer is $250,000 times 20 puts software development at $5 million a year as a conservative estimate. Apple dude probably costs them that much by himself.

Yeah, but they have to spend that money, regardless. No car company can afford not to be developing advanced ADAS features. And they are selling DDPro to some customers. So those engineers are a sunk cost. Giving that same software to more customers costs nothing.

The only real additional cost in development is the gate keeping. Detect whether this car has access to this feature and show it or not. That doesn’t take much effort.

So the question is, will more people buy DDPro after having tried it than otherwise? And how much do the cost savings of making production more uniform offset the extra cost of the hardware?

It’ll be interesting to see what they do with Touring and Pure customers who have not ordered these features. If they build all Pures with the hardware included for DDPro, we’ll know the math works out in Lucid’s view. If not, then maybe only the GT has sufficient margins to make this worthwhile?

Gotta hand it to Lucid. They keep giving us stuff to talk about.

 

[Lucken]

Since Lucid, unsurprisingly, tends to often follow the path of Tesla, it wouldn't surprise me if they included the hardware for DDPro in all the Pures. I don't know if Tesla still does it, but that was the way they did it when I had my MS. Hardware was included for advanced features and you could pay for it later to have it activated.

 

[Halodde]

Did you notice that with the GT's at the lower price with the "Trial" of DDP and SSP that they are not offering the same financing? So, instead of paying $154k you're paying $138k cash. BUT if you finance through them, your monthly payment is only $15 lower due to the much higher interest rate charged on the $138k.

 

[xponents]

Im wondering if this isnt the beginning of steps to blend the Air line. Perhaps eliminate a category or 2 and allow more builds/options. Simplify as you go along and then allow another Lucid sedan on smaller frame to emerge. I for one would have opted out of the DDP and kept the upgraded sound system even with my bad ears. But it will allow more choice in the future.

Exact thing I wanted.

 

[dolphinsafe]

Does it? I think of it this way:
1. They're streamlining production. Makes it much easier if every car is the same
2. People can just pay $10k to unlock DDP or $4k to unlock SSP. The hardware for DDP isn't 10k, its probably $2-3k, so if the buyer doesn't end up upgrading, oh well lucid bites the bullet for that customer, but for secondary owners, they still have the opportunity to unlock those options without buying a brand new car.
3. If they do charge subscriptions, it wont be for something like heated seats which are in themselves a relatively trivial cost ($300-500?), so forcing people to pay subscriptions seems stupid. But things like DDP are massive purchases ($10k) and if somebody can pay for DDP for a road trip for maybe $100 a month (? i have no idea what they would charge for it), then lucid gets a bit of money, and the customer doesn't have to pay $9900 for something they might only use once.
4. There was that unconfirmed rumoured camera upgrade that enabled 360 cameras etc because some people wanted 360 cameras but not highway assist/pilot. By including the hardware necessary, people wont need a retrofit; they can just pay a fraction of the $10k just for 360 cameras.

In general, I think lucid realises they cant make stupid decisions that'll really anger people (like charging a subscription for heated seats), because that just gives people like Elon an opportunity to scream about how bad lucid is. Just my opinion.

If you think about it - the heated seat subscription model might make sense if the overall price of the car were reduced. How often does someone use heated seats in the south? Not very often. But it's a nice feature to have when it does get cold. I have heated and cooled seats in my other car (I hesitate to provide a name because the moderators might get pissy for making a comparison ) but don't use either very often. I'd be fine with paying less for the car up front and just buying the feature when it became needed. But, alas, that all requires that I'm actually saving money up front.
SSP is another issue - That's a feature I use daily. DDP is nice and it's a suite of features - so as long as it improves it'll probably be worth the expense (hope springs eternal).

 

[Drendino]

I wonder what this means for old reservations. I was considering upgrading to a gt at the old price, but I didnt feel the need for DDP. Does this mean old reservations start at around 126k?(assuming old option prices are minused from 139k)

I know you don’t want DDP, but it’s fantastic and is getting better each month. After driving 6,500 miles, I definitely would not be happy with the car without it. Just my 2 cents.

 

[gavram]

I like this decision to lower the base price due to the economy and provide options and I think it's also smart to bring the price in line with the Model S Plaid. I wonder if they'll also move to a subscription model for DDP & SSP?

When I bought my 2022 Model S I decided not to pay the $15K for full self driving thinking that I'd just activate the $200 subscription as needed for road trips. After the fact I found that I had a hard time making a decision on when to justify activating the monthly subscription so I only used it once and wished I had just committed up front. Because of this, I ended up paying the $10K for DDP on my Touring in the hopes that we get hands free or auto lane change capabilities in the future that help justify the added expense. I also wonder if this decision will accelerate DDP updates with more advanced driving functions to help get more buyers to justify adding DDP into their orders.

 

[joec]

I like this decision to lower the base price due to the economy and provide options and I think it's also smart to bring the price in line with the Model S Plaid. I wonder if they'll also move to a subscription model for DDP & SSP?

When I bought my 2022 Model S I decided not to pay the $15K for full self driving thinking that I'd just activate the $200 subscription as needed for road trips. After the fact I found that I had a hard time making a decision on when to justify activating the monthly subscription so I only used it once and wished I had just committed up front. Because of this, I ended up paying the $10K for DDP on my Touring in the hopes that we get hands free or auto lane change capabilities in the future that help justify the added expense. I also wonder if this decision will accelerate DDP updates with more advanced driving functions to help get more buyers to justify adding DDP into their orders.

That's a good point. The prospect of subscription revenue and free trials should put some additional pressure on the software team to get those ADAS features out.

Of course, they probably spent the last month setting up the gatekeeping and subscription infrastructure, which may be why CarPlay / Android Auto are not released yet.

 

[KySerenity]

Guys… look on the lucid build your gt page. It starts at 138 k now, but wheels ddp and ssp are options. Either this means lucid is testing the stripped down gt, or they actually decreased it. Will look for a press release tomorrow.

It will be interesting to discover what happens when the free trial of SSP expires. SSP includes Dolby Atmos software in addition to a larger number of speakers. Do these extra speakers stop working or do these owners get a larger number of functioning speakers without having to pay the 4K upgrade?

 

[Keithmaj]

It will be interesting to discover what happens when the free trial of SSP expires. SSP includes Dolby Atmos software in addition to a larger number of speakers. Do these extra speakers stop working or do these owners get a larger number of functioning speakers without having to pay the 4K upgrade?

Interesting question... but if you purchase SSP you had better be getting a full premium sound system CAPABLE of playing any format of HD content regaqrdl3ess of the source. Certainly Lucid won't turn off some speakers as I am planning on enjoying the full sound spectrum from my own sources. Don't know if I will also go with TIDAL, XM, etc. after the trial expires until I can sample it more closely...

 

[thecodingart]

I also wonder if this is a step in the direction of phasing out the Touring. Take some standard featues from the GT, add more options to the Pure. Meet in the middle.

Honestly, the Touring shouldn't really exist at this point. I'm still confused on the purpose it serves. It would be far more effective to option out things and a simple lineup is the best thing Lucid can do at this stage. Having the Pure, Sapphire, a GT.. and then the "cheaper" car would lead to the perfect lineup and speed pricing pretty nicely. The Pure can never really be priced out to a GT nor spec'ed to a GT, same regarding the Sapphire ... it's a proper gap.

Just to be transparent, other OEMs (cough) have issues around having too many model car variations out in the wild right now which makes dealing with the software and other things a bit of a nightmare. Yes Lucid's vehicles are on the same core platform, but their goal should be simplifying their line up rather complexing it.

 

[HC_79]

Honestly, the Touring shouldn't really exist at this point. I'm still confused on the purpose it serves. It would be far more effective to option out things and a simple lineup is the best thing Lucid can do at this stage. Having the Pure, Sapphire, a GT.. and then the "cheaper" car would lead to the perfect lineup and speed pricing pretty nicely. The Pure can never really be priced out to a GT nor spec'ed to a GT, same regarding the Sapphire ... it's a proper gap.

Just to be transparent, other OEMs (cough) have issues around having too many model car variations out in the wild right now which makes dealing with the software and other things a bit of a nightmare. Yes Lucid's vehicles are on the same core platform, but their goal should be simplifying their line up rather complexing it.

I agree, the Touring makes no sense. My original order was for the Touring but then when I added DDP and SSP it wasn't too much of a leap to get to the GT with the bonus of more miles and more HP. Clearly the sentiment is the same within the public because the Touring is 3rd on the list when it comes to what people are ordering from Lucid. I also think there are too many "Air" varients and one or two need to be dropped.