Android Auto Thursday

[joec]

Knowing what I know about Lucid finances and current demand for Lucid vehicles, if I was Lucid's CEO I would be doing everything possible to help sell more cars. Adding Android Auto would help sell more cars.

This is a massive assumption that isn’t backed by any evidence.

Lucid has gone on the record saying they will eventually support Android Auto. For now, that’s likely good enough for most buyers. It was good enough for me when I bought the car before CarPlay was complete.

If you consider two other EV makers (Tesla, Rivian) who will likely never support CarPlay or Android Auto, you can’t suggest that’s costing either much in sales. Both are crushing Lucid at the moment.

Like I said, Android Auto will come. But it’s not the highest of priorities, and there’s likely a reason for that which is backed by actual internal numbers none of us is privy to.

 

[nadecir]

This is a massive assumption that isn’t backed by any evidence.

Lucid has gone on the record saying they will eventually support Android Auto. For now, that’s likely good enough for most buyers. It was good enough for me when I bought the car before CarPlay was complete.

If you consider two other EV makers (Tesla, Rivian) who will likely never support CarPlay or Android Auto, you can’t suggest that’s costing either much in sales. Both are crushing Lucid at the moment.

Like I said, Android Auto will come. But it’s not the highest of priorities, and there’s likely a reason for that which is backed by actual internal numbers none of us is privy to.

If you don't believe Android Auto would help sales, then we will just have to disagree. For some potential buyers, smartphone integration is very important.

The reason what Tesla doesn't need to support AA or CarPlay is that their native software is more mature. AA and CarPlay support CAC be important as differentiators to Rivian and Tesla.

If you are going to sell cars worldwide and you support CarPlay, then you need to support AA - the sooner the better.

 

[joec]

If you don't believe Android Auto would help sales, then we will just have to disagree. For some potential buyers, smartphone integration is very important.

The reason what Tesla doesn't need to support AA or CarPlay is that their native software is more mature. AA and CarPlay support CAC be important as differentiators to Rivian and Tesla.

If you are going to sell cars worldwide and you support CarPlay, then you need to support AA - the sooner the better.

On that last line we absolutely agree.

 

[borski]

Android Auto should have been a relatively easy addition on top of Android Automotive. It just hasn't been a priority for Lucid for whatever reason.

That’s not how that works. Android Automotive and Android Auto are unrelated. Building Android Auto on top of Android Automotive is no easier than building CarPlay on top of it.

Also, “should have been a relatively easy addition” are definitely someone’s famous last words.

But you can really question whether Android Auto should have been the next priority development item.

You can question anything. Doing so without the internal data, priorities, and reasoning, though, is nothing but an exercise in armchair quarterbacking.

Knowing what I know about Lucid finances and current demand for Lucid vehicles, if I was Lucid's CEO I would be doing everything possible to help sell more cars. Adding Android Auto would help sell more cars.

Please don’t do this. It is against the guidelines:

Also, while it is highly encouraged to post recommendations on ways to improve the vehicles, please refrain from telling Lucid what they should do or how they should run their business; “armchair CEO” comments are widespread on the internet and nearly always missing nuance. Unless you have run a large auto manufacturer, it is very easy to lose the forest for the trees, and there are likely many challenges one is not aware of unless actually in the role. It is easy to forget there are thousands of real people working very hard to design, build, sell, and service Lucid vehicles. Please keep them in mind when you're about to write something negative.

 

[1shah]

bottom line is -- deliver something that was claimed/promised. It's across the board not just AA -- AA is just one of many things.

 

[Tesla2.0]

AA is just one of many things.

Alcoholics Anonymous ?
Associate of Arts ?
Adios Amigo ?
Admin Abuse ?
American Airline ?
Debt paper rating ?

 

[Genghis]

Alcoholics Anonymous ?
Associate of Arts ?
Adios Amigo ?
Admin Abuse ?
American Airline ?
Debt paper rating ?

Come on, in the context of the thread you know better. Also @borski I think in this thread, most of us Android owners have shown great patience so the mods shouldn't be so critical when we throw some armchair passes. I think we can all agree that AA was promised multiple times by Lucid but it's taking a lot longer than anyone expected. Even @Bobby is starting to feel bad for us Android owners. I still want to believe that they are taking their sweet ass time to do a good integration so most of us are still willing to wait by the theme of this thread. Are we there yet?

 

[Bobby]

Come on, in the context of the thread you know better. Also @borski I think in this thread, most of us Android owners have shown great patience so the mods shouldn't be so critical when we throw some armchair passes. I think we can all agree that AA was promised multiple times by Lucid but it's taking a lot longer than anyone expected. Even @Bobby is starting to feel bad for us Android owners. I still want to believe that they are taking their sweet ass time to do a good integration so most of us are still willing to wait by the theme of this thread. Are we there yet?

I felt bad for Android owners long before Lucid even existed!

 

[Genghis]

I felt bad for Android owners long before Lucid even existed!

Now, that's extremely offensive. Where are the mods???

 

[Rogue]

It's been so long since I've been in a car with Android Auto that it is hard to say what the experience was like. Single sign on would fix many of the woes. Native interface is really polishing up nicely.

 

[Ampere]

I try to keep reasonably quiet, but I am very disappointed about the delay with Android Auto. Both my sales and delivery associates assured me it would arrive in the near future, which was seven months ago. I consider the "near future" a three month window. While the Lucid Air is a wonderful car, I probably would not have purchased it had I known that it would not include Android Auto. Yes, it's that important to me. Sure there are work-arounds, but they don't appeal to me. While I respect Apple, all of my computers are PCs and my phone is Android (because it interfaces with PCs better than iPhones). Would it be so difficult for Lucid simply to tell us what's happening with implementing Android Audio?

 

[joec]

I try to keep reasonably quiet, but I am very disappointed about the delay with Android Auto. Both my sales and delivery associates assured me it would arrive in the near future, which was seven months ago. I consider the "near future" a three month window. While the Lucid Air is a wonderful car, I probably would not have purchased it had I known that it would not include Android Auto. Yes, it's that important to me. Sure there are work-arounds, but they don't appeal to me. While I respect Apple, all of my computers are PCs and my phone is Android (because it interfaces with PCs better than iPhones). Would it be so difficult for Lucid simply to tell us what's happening with implementing Android Audio?

This is exactly why companies should never set public timelines for software.

 

[borski]

Come on, in the context of the thread you know better. Also @borski I think in this thread, most of us Android owners have shown great patience so the mods shouldn't be so critical when we throw some armchair passes. I think we can all agree that AA was promised multiple times by Lucid but it's taking a lot longer than anyone expected. Even @Bobby is starting to feel bad for us Android owners. I still want to believe that they are taking their sweet ass time to do a good integration so most of us are still willing to wait by the theme of this thread. Are we there yet?

I appreciate the patience, trust me. I also want it, honestly mostly so we can stop reading about it.

That said, that doesn’t change the guidelines. You can absolutely be upset, annoyed, frustrated, and plenty more, without thinking that this one issue that is important to you MUST be the one issue that should be important to them.

There are likely reasons. I promise they don’t hate you or think you’re not a worthy customer. They certainly don’t want to ignore you.

Occam’s razor says they ran into issues and it was harder than they anticipated. We just don’t know why.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Occam’s razor says they ran into issues and it was harder than they anticipated. We just don’t know why.

I’m sure they don’t want to release an upgrade that is defective. Polestar 2 is Android Auto system, it took them more than 2 years to have OTA upgrade for Apple CarPlay. People were crying about it in their forum. I’m sure Lucid is in the similar shoes, want to make sure get it right instead of blowing up with complaints of bugs and crashes.

 

[Genghis]

I’m sure they don’t want to release an upgrade that is defective. Polestar 2 is Android Auto system, it took them more than 2 years to have OTA upgrade for Apple CarPlay. People were crying about it in their forum. I’m sure Lucid is in the similar shoes, want to make sure get it right instead of blowing up with complaints of bugs and crashes.

As I said before in this thread, I would like their best effort even if it takes more time than originally planned or announced versus releasing something in a rush so buggy that it creates multitudes of threads of why it sucks. I know this from first hand experience so that's why I keep posting patience is the key. Now, after all this time, if they release something super janky, I'll be a really pissed off, and I have every right to curse them out like every other owner in this thread. #dreAAm

 

[wa_lucid]

While we all wait, here is something I have been doing on my phone with some small solace until AA comes. Have the car be a trusted device so it doesn't lock the phone when it pairs. Then, you can talk to the assistant while in the car and it will answer from the phone through the speaker system. It works for basic features like "play <something>" or "call someone".

It is a 70% success though for me, which is sometimes frustrating. But, at least I can use the ecosystem I'm used to (and I'll take the Assistant's 70% over Siri's 110% any day of the week ).

 

[DeaneG]

I'm hoping that Lucid has decided to switch to native Google Maps and Assistant, eliminating the reason for having to implement AA for many, if not most.

 

[1shah]

I'm hoping that Lucid has decided to switch to native Google Maps and Assistant, eliminating the reason for having to implement AA for many, if not most.

It seems to be going in another direction. In fact, now google assistant has been removed from the app.

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

I'm hoping that Lucid has decided to switch to native Google Maps and Assistant, eliminating the reason for having to implement AA for many, if not most.

I could live without Android Auto if the native Lucid nav in Colorado did not suck. The routings in Denver and to the mtns are bizarre. Not slightly wrong, but often drunken sailor bizarrely wrong. When we are out, wife asks, let's see what Lucids Pinball wizard says? As in, deaf, dumb and blind.

 

[DeaneG]

I could live without Android Auto if the native Lucid nav in Colorado did not suck. The routings in Denver and to the mtns are bizarre...

Same here - after a couple bad experiences we always sanity-check Lucid's nav against Google before getting in too deep. Would be so much easier if the car just used Google maps, Nav, and Assistant, as does our Volvo. Other than this I have no use for Android Auto. We've been solid Android users for a decade or so, after a one-year experiment with Apple products.