Android Auto in 2.7.0 - Initial Impressions

[newlucidguy]

Overall very happy. Some initial thoughts after a few hours of using it ('25 AT). What are your thoughts?
Things I like:
1. That it will auto start if desired when I get in the car and that there's so much flexibility in moving back and forth between AA and native apps. I thought I would use it in more of al "all or nothing" approach (e.g. always yes or not) but I can see how I might use it sometimes and not others, or may move in an out of it during a drive as needed. And, so far, it has no issues with me jumping in / out of it. That was a nice surprise. And overall, I really enjoy the integration of AA to the car's physical controls (buttons, etc). I know that's expected but I am really glad it's working and how it was done (as expected!).
1a. Learned a little trick that if I am not in AA and I long press the mic button to get Google assistant, it will open AA on my car display and interact (and stay open after the voice part is done). Easy way while driving to launch AA (I think!!). Love that I can easily access google assistant by voice via the button.
2. That the car will display the audio track and navigation next turns on the driver display even if it's coming from AA. That's pretty cool and unexpected by me (I had never seen carplay in use in the Lucid). This is great so if I want to have the map take the full AA display, I can still see the audio track. And of course I can see next turns even if I have something else running in AA.
3. That I can still use the car's native audio apps, especially Tidal, when using AA. Wasn't sure if that would be enabled .. it's available on my wife's older BMW with carplay but had no idea what would happen in the Lucid with AA.
Things I am getting used to:
1. Since AA is grabbing my phone's wifi, and the cell signal in my driveway is weak, I find my phone is disconnected from my house wifi when I get into the car. So if I need to plan on google maps on my phone or do something else, I might have to manually connect to my house wifi again. Will have to figure out the flow on this one.
Things I hope can be improved at some point:
1. Would love higher quality audio stream from phone to AA .. I think it's 44.1khz 16 bit (undetermined bitrate) but would love higher quality from the phone youtube music app.
2. Would really like the google map EV features available in Android Automotive (AAOS) version of google maps .. SOC at destination (with amazing accuracy), auto selection of charging stops, and automatic battery pre-conditioning if a L3 charger is the map destination. Unfortunately, even though my profile in google maps on my phone knows that my car is a Lucid, it shows only eco info etc. The AA google maps doesn't calculate charging stops or show SOC at destination. This makes me think that I'll use native maps for longer trips and google maps for non-charge trips, or some back and forth. I'm still doing route verification in google maps before a trip because I think it has slightly better data than the native here maps. and search in the native app is really not good. I also have paid ABRP so that's the best of both .. mapping in AA with charge stops planned. But I think I still trust google maps route calculation more (will have to play with that as I haven't used ABRP much) and also I think the use experience is great (turns overlayed over music app if the music app is taking full screen, etc). I tested and can see the car will only allow one mapping app to run at a time and the last one with the route started is the one that takes precedence and nav in the other is cancelled. Would love additional thoughts on this one and approaches to getting the best of all the mapping apps.

Not much commentary on the screen real estate .. I think everyone wishes it could use more and it's just not how it works with Google, so not a lot to say. I like that my wallpaper theme is used for the background color.
Took a long time, but THANK YOU LUCID TEAM!! (I've only had my car since Dec '24 so not that long for me )

 

[Celeras]

1a. Learned a little trick that if I am not in AA and I long press the mic button to get Google assistant, it will open AA on my car display and interact (and stay open after the voice part is done). Easy way while driving to launch AA (I think!!). Love that I can easily access google assistant by voice via the button.

Can you elaborate on this? I want Android Auto for a few things, but at the top of the list is being able to reply to messages as they are received. Lucid does not let you do this, you either get unchangeable canned replies that you have to manually select on the screen or you have to go through like 3-4 steps with the assistant starting with "Send a text message" from scratch. It's the only car I've ever owned that doesn't prompt you for the chance to do an immediate voice reply after reading the message. Unfortunately, even with Android Auto open on the panel the microphone button on the steering wheel still seems to go to the Lucid Assistant and ignores Android Auto's prompt. That means that even if you have Android Auto read out the message instead of Lucid, in order to reply you have to press the tiny microphone button on the AA touchscreen. That's stupid and occasionally dangerous to do while driving, I think I'd probably just go through all the steps with the assistant rather than fiddle with the tiny button on the screen.

You're saying "long press" is working in that scenario for you?

 

[trnhockey]

Overall very happy. Some initial thoughts after a few hours of using it ('25 AT). What are your thoughts?
Things I like:
1. That it will auto start if desired when I get in the car and that there's so much flexibility in moving back and forth between AA and native apps. I thought I would use it in more of al "all or nothing" approach (e.g. always yes or not) but I can see how I might use it sometimes and not others, or may move in an out of it during a drive as needed. And, so far, it has no issues with me jumping in / out of it. That was a nice surprise. And overall, I really enjoy the integration of AA to the car's physical controls (buttons, etc). I know that's expected but I am really glad it's working and how it was done (as expected!).
1a. Learned a little trick that if I am not in AA and I long press the mic button to get Google assistant, it will open AA on my car display and interact (and stay open after the voice part is done). Easy way while driving to launch AA (I think!!). Love that I can easily access google assistant by voice via the button.
2. That the car will display the audio track and navigation next turns on the driver display even if it's coming from AA. That's pretty cool and unexpected by me (I had never seen carplay in use in the Lucid). This is great so if I want to have the map take the full AA display, I can still see the audio track. And of course I can see next turns even if I have something else running in AA.
3. That I can still use the car's native audio apps, especially Tidal, when using AA. Wasn't sure if that would be enabled .. it's available on my wife's older BMW with carplay but had no idea what would happen in the Lucid with AA.
Things I am getting used to:
1. Since AA is grabbing my phone's wifi, and the cell signal in my driveway is weak, I find my phone is disconnected from my house wifi when I get into the car. So if I need to plan on google maps on my phone or do something else, I might have to manually connect to my house wifi again. Will have to figure out the flow on this one.
Things I hope can be improved at some point:
1. Would love higher quality audio stream from phone to AA .. I think it's 44.1khz 16 bit (undetermined bitrate) but would love higher quality from the phone youtube music app.
2. Would really like the google map EV features available in Android Automotive (AAOS) version of google maps .. SOC at destination (with amazing accuracy), auto selection of charging stops, and automatic battery pre-conditioning if a L3 charger is the map destination. Unfortunately, even though my profile in google maps on my phone knows that my car is a Lucid, it shows only eco info etc. The AA google maps doesn't calculate charging stops or show SOC at destination. This makes me think that I'll use native maps for longer trips and google maps for non-charge trips, or some back and forth. I'm still doing route verification in google maps before a trip because I think it has slightly better data than the native here maps. and search in the native app is really not good. I also have paid ABRP so that's the best of both .. mapping in AA with charge stops planned. But I think I still trust google maps route calculation more (will have to play with that as I haven't used ABRP much) and also I think the use experience is great (turns overlayed over music app if the music app is taking full screen, etc). I tested and can see the car will only allow one mapping app to run at a time and the last one with the route started is the one that takes precedence and nav in the other is cancelled. Would love additional thoughts on this one and approaches to getting the best of all the mapping apps.

Not much commentary on the screen real estate .. I think everyone wishes it could use more and it's just not how it works with Google, so not a lot to say. I like that my wallpaper theme is used for the background color.
Took a long time, but THANK YOU LUCID TEAM!! (I've only had my car since Dec '24 so not that long for me )

Overall I'm pleased with it. One question I have is, is there anyway to make Android Auto to appear on the lower bottom screen or does it have to stay on the upper one?

 

[newlucidguy]

Can you elaborate on this? I want Android Auto for a few things, but at the top of the list is being able to reply to messages as they are received. Lucid does not let you do this, you either get unchangeable canned replies that you have to manually select on the screen or you have to go through like 3-4 steps with the assistant starting with "Send a text message" from scratch. It's the only car I've ever owned that doesn't prompt you for the chance to do an immediate voice reply after reading the message. Unfortunately, even with Android Auto open on the panel the microphone button on the steering wheel still seems to go to the Lucid Assistant and ignores Android Auto's prompt. That means that even if you have Android Auto read out the message instead of Lucid, in order to reply you have to press the tiny microphone button on the AA touchscreen. That's stupid and occasionally dangerous to do while driving, I think I'd probably just go through all the steps with the assistant rather than fiddle with the tiny button on the screen.

You're saying "long press" is working in that scenario for you?

In my only few hours of experience, when I long press the mic button, it brings up the Google Assistant and then you can ask it to read your new text messages, etc. When you read a message, I'm pretty sure it asks if you want to reply. I'm so used to interacting with the Assistant that way on my phone, etc, it was just like that.

 

[DeaneG]

Overall I'm pleased with it. One question I have is, is there anyway to make Android Auto to appear on the lower bottom screen or does it have to stay on the upper one?

Only on the upper screen. A mandate straight from Google (same for Apple)

 

[newlucidguy]

Overall I'm pleased with it. One question I have is, is there anyway to make Android Auto to appear on the lower bottom screen or does it have to stay on the upper one?

I don't think so and I'm pretty sure that's Google's requirement, not Lucid's choice.

 

[Celeras]

In my only few hours of experience, when I long press the mic button, it brings up the Google Assistant and then you can ask it to read your new text messages, etc. When you read a message, I'm pretty sure it asks if you want to reply. I'm so used to interacting with the Assistant that way on my phone, etc, it was just like that.

A+ tip, long press works and yes AA will ask you to reply without any additional inputs.

I'm glad AA can be used to fill this gap, it was crazy the number of steps Lucid made you do to reply to a message!

 

[Genghis]

Long press works to bring up GA. You can also configure with your phone settings to bring up GA as “Hey Google” and that works also. Within assistant settings, you can also pick which assistant - Gemini or Classic GA. With Gemini, you call also ask and do more than the standard AA apps. I’ve been toying around it more and blows away current “Hey Lucid” interactions

 

[newlucidguy]

Long press works to bring up GA. You can also configure with your phone settings to bring up GA as “Hey Google” and that works also. Within assistant settings, you can also pick which assistant - Gemini or Classic GA. With Gemini, you call also ask and do more than the standard AA apps. I’ve been toying around it more and blows away current “Hey Lucid” interactions

yeah, pretty sure the current Hey Lucid interactions are just a placeholder for more to come. I think it was a good idea to split away from amazon alexa (saying that as a google fanboy) but seems they haven't had resource to put into it and I get why that it's probably not the highest priority vs. getting gravity out and also we have siri and google assistant as needed. will be good when it can be developed further for car control.

 

[DeaneG]

...With Gemini, you call also ask and do more than the standard AA apps. I’ve been toying around it more and blows away current “Hey Lucid” interactions

True, though when I asked "Hey Lucid" about tostones, I was amused that it volunteered that they are especially delicious. I'm looking forward to using Google's Gemini LLM in my Air.

 

[Genghis]

Another tip, if you want a bit more of the screen , adjust the task bar widgets settings to on and your AA apps and controls will be at the bottom versus left bar next to the Lucid menu options.

 

[MacBain00]

After using AA for a few days (and outside of screen real estate usage), I'm quite happy with this implementation. The quality of the screen definitely improves the AA experience, and I haven't noticed issues between using the apps in AA like I did with the Lucid built-in apps.

Something that always bothered me with the built-in Spotify was that the next/previous buttons also skipped to next song, podcast, etc. It didn't take into account context of the what's being played. With AA, the steering wheel buttons for Next/Previous skip 15s on podcasts and goes to the next song on playlists. This little change significantly improves driving since I don't need to look away from the road.

This AA release will give the necessary cushion for Lucid to continue to work on the core built-in integrations and software as I imagine the number of android user customer complains drops since they aren't forced to use it anymore. I'm looking forward to the day that I can use just the built-in software instead of AA.

Some other positives that I believe were improved in this release

• improved door handle opening response. I haven't had to take my phone out of my pocket and unlock it like I used to to get the door handles to respond
• improved boot/startup times when hitting the brakes before going into Drive
• app waking car when on wifi seems to work now. It's sluggish, but I don't think I was ever successful in getting the app to show the car awake when in wifi

Next Test on my long drive - Does the built-in Spotify app no longer crash now that AA is present? Before AA, I could barely get 15 minutes of drive time before the app simply became unavailable due to 'server error'.

 

[Celeras]

Has anyone found a setting that allows the car to connect to Android Auto when you enter, but not immediately bring it up on screen? I'd like to sit on the more aesthetic Lucid screens while AA runs in the background to handle my messaging.

Just trying to avoid pressing the home button every time I get in.

 

[MacBain00]

You can go to Android Auto Settings on the phone or after it launches and change the "Start Android Auto automatically" to "if last used on last drive"

Or if you always use AA, you can change the "Start Android Auto while locked" to off. I would assume when you get into the car, your phone is general loccked.

 

[Celeras]

You can go to Android Auto Settings on the phone or after it launches and change the "Start Android Auto automatically" to "if last used on last drive"

Hmm I thought I tried that one before I asked and it didn't stop AA from displaying on the panel automatically. I assumed it was referring to the connection to the phone and not the on-screen displaying.

Changing the "while locked" setting just makes it so you have to unlock the phone to connect which isn't what I'm looking for, I always want it connected.

 

[MacBain00]

Hmm I thought I tried that one before I asked and it didn't stop AA from displaying on the panel automatically. I assumed it was referring to the connection to the phone and not the on-screen displaying.

Changing the "while locked" setting just makes it so you have to unlock the phone to connect which isn't what I'm looking for, I always want it connected.

The changing while locked simply means that AA will start. It shouldn't stop working after the initial connection and the phone is locked.

 

[Celeras]

The changing while locked simply means that AA will start. It shouldn't stop working after the initial connection and the phone is locked.

I'm not so sure, but either way when using this setting Lucid still launches AA automatically but instead of the crooked rectangle is simply a message stating "Unlock your phone to use Android Auto".

So that's the same number of button presses to get back to the Lucid screen anyway.

 

[MacBain00]

That's surprising behavior. I haven't tested this personally, but in my previous car, it didn't do that. I guess there doesn't seem to way to auto-start AA when sitting in the car.

 

[hourglass]

As for ABRP, you can set up lucidlogger and feed data into ABRP

Post in thread 'LucidLogger'

Tuesday at 1:54 AM

LucidLogger with Abetterrouteplanner
Are you guys using Abetterrouteplanner for trip planning?
LucidLogger / Teslalogger can connect with Abetterrouteplanner and calibrate your consumption (different tires / wheels / air pressure / etc).
It also sends current SOC / speed etc... so the planing is very accurate.

Here is a quick tutorial how to connect abetterrouteplanner to LucidLogger:

• bassmaster187

•