DD Versions, Trial, and Upgrades

[joec]

A great way to alienate your customers…(I have the DDP trial and don’t expect the freebie when it expires)

Guessing they haven’t implemented the functionality yet. They must have come up with this free trial thing at the absolute last moment when they determined that it was impractical to switch up the assembly line to build cars physically without these features.

My understanding is Lucid has yet to start charging people past the 1st year for wireless connectivity as well. I agree, it's not a good thing. Sets unreasonable expectations and causes disappointment when they eventually catch up and start charging. Suddenly, a "Wow, I'm getting this for free longer than I should have" becomes "Damn, now they want to gouge me for something that had been free."

 

[idiot900]

No price was mentioned for the car LTE as far as I know, and nobody has paid for it yet, so it doesn’t seem so bad…everyone is on equal footing here. But DDP has a clearly defined price which a bunch of people paid, so that seems much worse to me.

 

[Lucidairness]

I didn't order DDP, but my Touring came with it. The delivery SA had mostly forgotten about the trial, but heard that the surround view and blind spot monitoring would remain when the trial ends. The window sticker that came with the car says that it's equipped with DDP and no mention of a trial. The car itself does not say anything about the trial in any of the menus.

So I imagine a future firmware update will actually do a VIN check and disable DDP and/or SSP if the customer hadn't paid for it.

Would be a nice salve for me missing the $7500 discount by three days, if they didn't disable DDP on my car...but I'm not holding my breath.

I just picked up my touring today and the sticker says i have DDP and SSP. Would that mean my touring has those 2 things? Or is it just a trial? Were you able to figure it out?

 

[idiot900]

I just picked up my touring today and the sticker says i have DDP and SSP. Would that mean my touring has those 2 things? Or is it just a trial? Were you able to figure it out?

My window sticker says the car has DDP and SSP and nothing about a trial. The MSRP on the sticker includes these options, but I did not pay for DDP (and was glad to get to try it out on a trial basis). No notice from the car infotainment that there is a trial.

I suspect this was a game time decision by Lucid when they realized assembling cars without the DDP or SSP hardware would hold up deliveries too much and didn't have the "free trial" infrastructure built at that time.

Considering there are people who are > 90 days out and haven't had these features disabled, I believe Lucid will roll out a software update at some point that checks the car VIN and disables these options if you haven't paid. However neither Lucid employee - SA or tech - that I spoke to knew any more than I did and could not speak to how Lucid will handle this.

 

[nikp]

I just picked up my touring today and the sticker says i have DDP and SSP. Would that mean my touring has those 2 things? Or is it just a trial? Were you able to figure it out?

I don't really know what exactly SSP does because it doesn't seem like anything special. I do have DDP which for the most part, at this point, I think it just offers the 360 camera with angled vantage points which is cool. I'm not sure if highway assist is part of the DDP feature or standard. No one walked me through the fact that I had DDP and SSP for the trial period until I mentioned it during vehicle delivery/pick up.

 

[Babyrocko1908]

I don't really know what exactly SSP does because it doesn't seem like anything special. I do have DDP which for the most part, at this point, I think it just offers the 360 camera with angled vantage points which is cool. I'm not sure if highway assist is part of the DDP feature or standard. No one walked me through the fact that I had DDP and SSP for the trial period until I mentioned it during vehicle delivery/pick up.

SSP has Atmos and Tidal's tracks in Atmos sound absolutely amazing. If you only have a 90 day trial, you'll know when they turn off SSP and Atmos. You won't hear it. In my humble opinion because I love music, SSP/Atmos is some of the best sounding music I've ever heard let alone in a car. Honorable mention to Tidal's Master's quality tracks as well. They also sound pretty damn good on SSP.

 

[idiot900]

Counterpoint to @Babyrocko1908 (whose opinions IMHO are always well thought out):

I agree with the various assertions on this forum that SSP is a really accurate system - though I haven't formally tested, it certainly reminds me of a monitor speaker setup.

Surround sound perception depends where you sit in the car. From the driver's seat, I often subjectively prefer the Spotify version to the Atmos mix of the same song on Tidal. Plus there is not enough music in Atmos on Tidal that interests me, and it's annoying to actually find it in the in-car Tidal app. CarPlay apparently doesn't do Atmos.

Plus, the car makes various low-volume but noticeable high-pitched noises that make it more difficult to appreciate the fine points of a sound system. For example, each LCD generates an electrical hum; when they are in phase it's noticeable to me. Plus, the window switches emit a high-pitched electrical whine. And despite the Air's otherwise fantastic NVH, road noise will always interfere with your listening.

Finally, SSP needs a subwoofer, even though its bass extension objectively is fine. Subjectively, this would help both gangsta rap and classical music, both of which I genuinely enjoy and listen to regularly. I can see why there isn't one as many buyers of this car would prefer to have the space such a thing would take up.

All that said, my opinion is ultimately worthless because your ears are the only judge that matters.

 

[Babyrocko1908]

Counterpoint to @Babyrocko1908 (whose opinions IMHO are always well thought out):

I agree with the various assertions on this forum that SSP is a really accurate system - though I haven't formally tested, it certainly reminds me of a monitor speaker setup.

Surround sound perception depends where you sit in the car. From the driver's seat, I often subjectively prefer the Spotify version to the Atmos mix of the same song on Tidal. Plus there is not enough music in Atmos on Tidal that interests me, and it's annoying to actually find it in the in-car Tidal app. CarPlay apparently doesn't do Atmos.

Plus, the car makes various low-volume but noticeable high-pitched noises that make it more difficult to appreciate the fine points of a sound system. For example, each LCD generates an electrical hum; when they are in phase it's noticeable to me. Plus, the window switches emit a high-pitched electrical whine. And despite the Air's otherwise fantastic NVH, road noise will always interfere with your listening.

Finally, SSP needs a subwoofer, even though its bass extension objectively is fine. Subjectively, this would help both gangsta rap and classical music, both of which I genuinely enjoy and listen to regularly. I can see why there isn't one as many buyers of this car would prefer to have the space such a thing would take up.

All that said, my opinion is ultimately worthless because your ears are the only judge that matters.

I agree but about the bass, I actually had to turn my down to 3. I think mine is too deep or hard. Clearly, music is soooooo subjective. I could use more volume tho. I have an old soul, so when I'm listening to something like Chaka Khan's Epiphany -- The Best of Chaka Khan and her track "A Night in Tunisia" came on, I had the volume cranked to the max and I wanted more!

 

[MorganB]

I'm all about SSP but I really really enjoy the ATMOS mixes on Tidal. I love how open and full the sound is and the controlled directionality of the various speakers. It's a true surround sound experience. Sometimes I just want to drive my car so I can listen to music.

 

[idiot900]

I agree but about the bass, I actually had to turn my down to 3. I think mine is too deep or hard. Clearly, music is soooooo subjective. I could use more volume tho. I have an old soul, so when I'm listening to something like Chaka Khan's Epiphany -- The Best of Chaka Khan and her track "A Night in Tunisia" came on, I had the volume cranked to the max and I wanted more!

When I initially took delivery I felt like the bass was really lacking. However now after about 2k miles I've set the equalizer to 0-0-0 because the bass actually seemed to improve quite a bit. Unless something within the car adjusted somehow (perhaps one of the firmware updates?), I think my brain just adjusted. A further demonstration of how subjective these things really are.

 

[Babyrocko1908]

I'm all about SSP but I really really enjoy the ATMOS mixes on Tidal. I love how open and full the sound is and the controlled directionality of the various speakers. It's a true surround sound experience. Sometimes I just want to drive my car so I can listen to music.

Guilty as charged over here too! I've spent way too much time in my garage sitting in this car listening to Atmos tracks. I think SSP is worth every penny and I'll be keeping Tidal beyond the 3 month trial. Once Lucid tweaks the app and gets rid of the bugs in the app, Tidal will be nearly perfect.

 

[Ampere]

Supposedly my Air Touring came with all the hardware for DreamDrive Pro and a 90 day trial period that ends today. How exactly does this end? Do I receive a notification from Lucid? Also, I paid for SurrealSound Pro, but don't listen to Dolby Atmos tracks. Am I getting anything extra for my $3K if I don't care about Atmos? How do I know I'm even getting SurrealSound Pro if I don't subscribe to Tidal? I have no interest in paying for a subscription. I somehow thought I was paying the $3K for a premium audio system, period.

 

[joec]

Supposedly my Air Touring came with all the hardware for DreamDrive Pro and a 90 day trial period that ends today. How exactly does this end? Do I receive a notification from Lucid? Also, I paid for SurrealSound Pro, but don't listen to Dolby Atmos tracks. Am I getting anything extra for my $3K if I don't care about Atmos? How do I know I'm even getting SurrealSound Pro if I don't subscribe to Tidal? I have no interest in paying for a subscription. I somehow thought I was paying the $3K for a premium audio system, period.

So far, no one has seen a trial period end. Lucid has simply let people keep on using the features indefinitely for now. I do not expect that to last forever. They probably just haven't gotten around to implementing the software to cut off the trial yet.

The surreal sound pro system does have more active speakers than the standard system. So there is a difference in quality, even without using Atmos tracks. But Atmos is the main selling point, of course. I'm expecting more services to be able to provide Atmos capability in the future, including CarPlay, though there have been no announcements on that front thus far. So Tidal is the only game in town for Atmos in the Air at the moment. But I don't expect that to be the case forever.

 

[kirpal]

Even though Lucid may allow you use the extra speakers after 90 days, Tidal may charge you subscription fees after 90 days, correct?

 

[EZEVDriver]

My SA suggested twice that Lucid was having discussions about having a middle offer between DDPro and regular DD, such as packaging blind spot monitoring and surround view..My Tesla has EAP on AutoPilot 2.0 and I was offered an upgrade to FSD for $2000 at one point and didn't take it. I'm not unhappy about that decision, since EAP does most of FSD on the highway and I don't trust Tesla's approach to permanent betas. So DDPro, while it is intriguing to see what a Level 3 system could look like, was a last-minute cut from my order. I suspect until they have a game plan for a middle of the road approach, they'll just let us keep using the trial version. But I could be wrong...

 

[borski]

Even though Lucid may allow you use the extra speakers after 90 days, Tidal may charge you subscription fees after 90 days, correct?

They are completely separate and unrelated, and yes, Tidal will charge you after your free trial regardless of what Lucid does.

 

[Alpha]

Just showed up in the configuration tool

 

[joec]

Interesting. If you click on the info button, you get this:

 

[Alpha]

Interesting. If you click on the info button, you get this:

That just showed up, they must have been updating it in real time!

 

[joec]

So the GT no longer gets DDPro or SSPro standard. Only the GT-P does.