[Resolved] Brake release on hills, slopes, and inclines

[Bnwbaron]

Hi, all.

I have a reservation on an Air Touring. One of the Lucid staff brought a GT to my house for me to test drive, and I had a really weird experience.

My driveway is long-ish and pretty steep. When backing the GT out of this steep driveway, I stopped midway to check street traffic/exit angle/sidewalk/etc. When I released the brake and hit the "gas," NOTHING HAPPENED! That GT rolled head first down the driveway even though it was in reverse. The car went a good 4-6 feet before the motor engaged and started going backwards again. It freaked us (the Lucid employee and me) out. I think both of us imagined that if I had been parked facing downhill, we would have rolled into the car parked in front of us. As it was, we nearly struck the SUV that was in my driveway. I asked the Lucid representative to see if he might get a better result, and he said no--that he was not comfortable trying to back out of my driveway. I attempted to back out again later (after the test drive), and it worked okay because I didn't stop mid driveway. Rather, I got a running start.

Question to the owners out there: How does your Lucid perform going forward and backward on an incline from a stop or after stopping midway?

Obviously, I am concerned about getting out of my driveway every day and/or running into trouble on inclines. Lucid is bringing the car back out for us to see if we can tinker with a setting and practice a little to give me some comfort.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

 

[windscar911]

This is a bug in the drive logic of the car.

I've recorded a video of something very similar and reported it to Lucid and also to the NHTSA.

They've been completely silent about it. I'm sure they're working on it but this is a safety issue and the lack of acknowledgement hasn't been great.

It appears to be an edge case when some wheels are on an incline and others are not.

 

[Adnillien]

I have also seen this while on an incline and have reported it to customer care. My local service center told me that it was a known software bug but no word on when it may be resolved.

 

[Bel]

Hi, all.

I have a reservation on an Air Touring. One of the Lucid staff brought a GT to my house for me to test drive, and I had a really weird experience.

My driveway is long-ish and pretty steep. When backing the GT out of this steep driveway, I stopped midway to check street traffic/exit angle/sidewalk/etc. When I released the brake and hit the "gas," NOTHING HAPPENED! That GT rolled head first down the driveway even though it was in reverse. The car went a good 4-6 feet before the motor engaged and started going backwards again. It freaked us (the Lucid employee and me) out. I think both of us imagined that if I had been parked facing downhill, we would have rolled into the car parked in front of us. As it was, we nearly struck the SUV that was in my driveway. I asked the Lucid representative to see if he might get a better result, and he said no--that he was not comfortable trying to back out of my driveway. I attempted to back out again later (after the test drive), and it worked okay because I didn't stop mid driveway. Rather, I got a running start.

Question to the owners out there: How does your Lucid perform going forward and backward on an incline from a stop or after stopping midway?

Obviously, I am concerned about getting out of my driveway every day and/or running into trouble on inclines. Lucid is bringing the car back out for us to see if we can tinker with a setting and practice a little to give me some comfort.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Yes, similar happend to me. Ive had my agt for three weeks. Used one pedal driving and stopped at red light. The car was in hold. It was slightly uphill. The light was red for an unusual long time -- minutes. All of a sudden the car started rolling backwards! I dont know if it was just rolling or driving in reverse because i scrambled to press the brake and also engaged the parking brake. Rolled for several feet before i relized what happend. Since then i always brake when stopped -- same as i do with a gas car with automatic transmission. I find this a safety hazard, extremly sloppy, and how can this possibly pass car development testing.

 

[maractwin]

I have seen the same thing while backing out of our driveway. I reported it as well.

 

[hellolucid]

i have experienced it while backing out of my driveway. it did not surprise me because i have heard of it happening to other lucid owners in this forum. someone actually took a video of it happening which shows the issue perfectly well.

 

[Bnwbaron]

i have experienced it while backing out of my driveway. it did not surprise me because i have heard of it happening to other lucid owners in this forum. someone actually took a video of it happening which shows the issue perfectly well.

Is it something you learn to work around? Do you regret the purchase?

 

[hellolucid]

Is it something you learn to work around? Do you regret the purchase?

i haven't been in the same situation since. i believe some other forum members had it worse with traffic behind them. no, i don't regret the purchase.

 

[bobofat]

I posted a similar experience I had while playing with the car in certain modes on inclines. You can read it here. I may have linked to my latest reply, and my scenario might be up a few posts.

Post in thread 'How is creep mode supposed to work?' https://lucidowners.com/threads/how-is-creep-mode-supposed-to-work.2856/post-82403

 

[Bnwbaron]

Update: last week, Lucid rep came back, and we tried to recreate the problem. Or maybe better said, I wanted to see if I could learn to live with it. It turns out that the exercise was not needed. Our best guess is the the software update erased the issue. The car did great multiple times on a very steep hill and my driveway. The whole thing was a complete 180 from the first time.

 

[Bobby]

Update: last week, Lucid rep came back, and we tried to recreate the problem. Or maybe better said, I wanted to see if I could learn to live with it. It turns out that the exercise was not needed. Our best guess is the the software update erased the issue. The car did great multiple times on a very steep hill and my driveway. The whole thing was a complete 180 from the first time.

Great news!

 

[Bnwbaron]

Great news!

100%!

 

[JayZee#293]

Update: last week, Lucid rep came back, and we tried to recreate the problem. Or maybe better said, I wanted to see if I could learn to live with it. It turns out that the exercise was not needed. Our best guess is the the software update erased the issue. The car did great multiple times on a very steep hill and my driveway. The whole thing was a complete 180 from the first time.

Ever since hearing about this bug, I have tried to re-create it with no success. I have continued to not experience this issue since driving mine since March

 

[Bnwbaron]

Ever since hearing about this bug, I have tried to re-create it with no success. I have continued to not experience this issue since driving mine since March

I mark that in the “good” column!

 

[Bnwbaron]

Update #2. I took delivery of a the Touring on 12/31. Today, I tried to recreate the original problem, and unfortunately, I could. Same deal—while in reverse, I stopped halfway up the driveway and put on the brakes. When I let off the brake the car went forward about 15-20 feet (which is farther than the demo car went) without stopping. I did this about 20 times and changed the “hold” and “roll” settings back and forth. The results were inconsistent. Sometimes it would work perfectly and others the car slid forward down the driveway while in reverse. The “roll” setting seemed to perform a little better. I don’t know what to make of it. I can train myself on the driveway, but I am a little concerned with the real world hills. Glad I’m not in San Francisco.

 

[Ironman]

I have owned a Dream P for about a year and it has been a wonderful experience. It is by far the best car I have ever driven.
Recently, the Goose Island service facility in Chicago took my car in for a few days to swap the winter 19" wheels for the 21s and to attend to few other minor things. Luckily they had a GT loaner available, which they graciously offered to let me drive until the work on my car had been completed. While running an errand in the GT yesterday, my wife and I stopped to pick up something for lunch. I parked in the restaurant's lot on a somewhat steep downhill incline in a space situated right at the busy entrance to the lot. There were cars parked in all the adjacent spaces (on both sides and in front). For some reason, our order was delayed so I had to wait in the car for quite a while, perhaps 10-15 minutes. After the food arrived, I attempted to back out of the space. What followed was a frightening experience. When I shifted into reverse and let my foot off the brake, despite being set in Hold Mode, the car began to drift forward toward the car parked facing me. Normally when this has happened in my car, a gentle press on the accelerator will cause the car to stop drifting and slowly reverse. This time, however, nothing happened. I continued to drift forward until I had pressed the accelerator pedal about halfway to the floor. When the power finally engaged, as you might imagine, the car jerked powerfully into reverse, so I abruptly let pressure off the pedal. Doing so caused the car to begin drifting forward again despite that I was still pressing the accelerator pedal even more than a bit. I then put the car in park and did a soft reset. The next time I tried to back out of the space, however, the same thing happened. What I was forced to perform was a herky-jerky, very hard to control exit from the space that took the better part of two minutes as I alternated from hard acceleration in reverse to braking, making progress by 6-12 inches each time, all the while blocking all traffic entering and leaving the lot from three directions. The tension of the moment caused my wife to demand I take her straight home. She said she didn't want to finish our errands because she didn't trust the car and didn't want to be in it any longer than she had to. Had I been inexperienced in driving a Lucid, I don't believe I would have been able to execute the maneuver without damaging the car I was driving and at least one other. After that experience, however, the GT operated normally--that is to say, very well. It is virtually impossible to distinguish the way the GT drives in normal situations from my Dream P.
When I returned home, I took the GT out to see if I could duplicate the prior experience in a safer setting, but without success. I even tried to let the brake off slowly while tapping the accelerator pedal repeatedly (because I read on the forum doing so caused another poster a similar problem by somehow engaging Roll Mode), but the car performed just as it should. The one abnormal operation I was able to tease out was on a similarly steep incline. Facing either way on the hill, when lifting my foot off the brake, the car tried to hold its place only for a few moments before it let go and began to drift down the hill. As I drove home from the test, I stopped to check if any of the car's settings had changed and found that neither Hold nor Roll was shown to have been selected. A strange thing to be sure, but the car did respond to my re-selection of Hold Mode.
I intend to report this to Customer Service on Monday. All the people with whom I have interacted at the Goose Island facility have been great and always responsive. Mohamed, who is currently my customer service advisor, deserves a special shout out as he has always answered my questions and responded to my concerns.
I haven't posted my experience here to complain, but rather in the hope that further discussion of this problem, which apparently others on the forum continue to experience, will help the folks at Lucid Motors diagnose and correct the issue.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Thanks for the heads up. There was another thread where an owner had a loss of hold mode (it was greyed out) and he was told by a service rep that a quick double tap of the accelerator can disable hold mode. In any case, the situation suggests some kind of fault as hold mode is merely engaging the friction brakes, so the car really should not move if in hold.

 

[Bnwbaron]

I have owned a Dream P for about a year and it has been a wonderful experience. It is by far the best car I have ever driven.
Recently, the Goose Island service facility in Chicago took my car in for a few days to swap the winter 19" wheels for the 21s and to attend to few other minor things. Luckily they had a GT loaner available, which they graciously offered to let me drive until the work on my car had been completed. While running an errand in the GT yesterday, my wife and I stopped to pick up something for lunch. I parked in the restaurant's lot on a somewhat steep downhill incline in a space situated right at the busy entrance to the lot. There were cars parked in all the adjacent spaces (on both sides and in front). For some reason, our order was delayed so I had to wait in the car for quite a while, perhaps 10-15 minutes. After the food arrived, I attempted to back out of the space. What followed was a frightening experience. When I shifted into reverse and let my foot off the brake, despite being set in Hold Mode, the car began to drift forward toward the car parked facing me. Normally when this has happened in my car, a gentle press on the accelerator will cause the car to stop drifting and slowly reverse. This time, however, nothing happened. I continued to drift forward until I had pressed the accelerator pedal about halfway to the floor. When the power finally engaged, as you might imagine, the car jerked powerfully into reverse, so I abruptly let pressure off the pedal. Doing so caused the car to begin drifting forward again despite that I was still pressing the accelerator pedal even more than a bit. I then put the car in park and did a soft reset. The next time I tried to back out of the space, however, the same thing happened. What I was forced to perform was a herky-jerky, very hard to control exit from the space that took the better part of two minutes as I alternated from hard acceleration in reverse to braking, making progress by 6-12 inches each time, all the while blocking all traffic entering and leaving the lot from three directions. The tension of the moment caused my wife to demand I take her straight home. She said she didn't want to finish our errands because she didn't trust the car and didn't want to be in it any longer than she had to. Had I been inexperienced in driving a Lucid, I don't believe I would have been able to execute the maneuver without damaging the car I was driving and at least one other. After that experience, however, the GT operated normally--that is to say, very well. It is virtually impossible to distinguish the way the GT drives in normal situations from my Dream P.
When I returned home, I took the GT out to see if I could duplicate the prior experience in a safer setting, but without success. I even tried to let the brake off slowly while tapping the accelerator pedal repeatedly (because I read on the forum doing so caused another poster a similar problem by somehow engaging Roll Mode), but the car performed just as it should. The one abnormal operation I was able to tease out was on a similarly steep incline. Facing either way on the hill, when lifting my foot off the brake, the car tried to hold its place only for a few moments before it let go and began to drift down the hill. As I drove home from the test, I stopped to check if any of the car's settings had changed and found that neither Hold nor Roll was shown to have been selected. A strange thing to be sure, but the car did respond to my re-selection of Hold Mode.
I intend to report this to Customer Service on Monday. All the people with whom I have interacted at the Goose Island facility have been great and always responsive. Mohamed, who is currently my customer service advisor, deserves a special shout out as he has always answered my questions and responded to my concerns.
I haven't posted my experience here to complain, but rather in the hope that further discussion of this problem, which apparently others on the forum continue to experience, will help the folks at Lucid Motors diagnose and correct the issue.

Since my original post back in November, I have had a mixed bag when it comes to parking on a slope and using my steep driveway. Bottom line for me: usually I am okay. But I can feel it in my bones when I am about to experience an unwanted wrong direction roll like you describe. I nearly hit a Tesla parked in front of me on a slope a couple months ago. I only saved myself by nearly launching backwards to overcompensate and not roll into the Tesla in front of me. As a cheap insurance policy, I bought a tire block to keep in the frunk. Its annoying, but welcome to early adoption.