Did anyone have a poor/delayed delivery?

[@LV-Air-Touring]

Did anyone have a poor/delayed delivery experience with Lucid? My Touring should have been delivered on 2/16, but my delivery representative (Hewitt) told me the truck driver picked up my car then got sick and pulled over at a truck stop and will find new driver to complete delivery. He wasn’t proactive in updating me, and I had to constantly ask for updates with no real solutions. Meanwhile I’ve dealt with multiple people trying to get my car delivered, my car was never picked up from Costa Mesa for delivery and was delayed by 5 days. I expected so much more from this company.

 

[MHDave]

My Touring time was quite reasonable and met my expectations, although scheduling was a bit more difficult due to a number of deliveries that week. On the other hand, my son-in-law shipped his (non-Lucid) car from Texas to California this last week on a car carrier, and that was delayed by 4 days from the expected delivery date. It is winter still, travel gets impacted by road conditions, people get sick, tires go flat, ....
Hard to be patient when you're awaiting delivery of that long anticipated car, isn't it?

 

[DeaneG]

I had a Maserati that spent an unexplained month on the road between Texas and California. And my Model 3 delivery was scheduled and cancelled three times. It's unfortunate but not unusual.

 

[NanoGauntlet]

I was supposed to get my Touring on 3/26, but day before they pushed it back to 3/31 because of an issue they didn't give details about until monday. The glass roof had a crack in it so needed to be replaced.

 

[Ames8910]

I had the worst delivery experience ever! I think it was more related to the specific location than to Lucid as a company. Here is my story:
I put my deposit down in 2019 before they added the different trim levels and when the car (features now on the Touring ) with the $7500 rebate was $72K (actually the first number was $65K)
When time came for me to order they had raised the price and I had to push for them to give me the grandfather pricing though they applied it to the Pure so ultimately I ended up paying $30K more for the car than I thought it was going to be.
When I finalized the order they assigned me a DA and told me that they would be flying me up to Tyson's Corner and cover the hotel for me to get my car.
No one proactively communicated with me, I had to keep calling to get information. My car arrived but it apparently had a defective sensor so they postponed my delivery. It took 3 weeks for them to fix it and again, I had to keep calling to check on it. The orginal DA never called me once. Then I was assigned a 2nd DA because the 1st one "was no longer with Lucid"
They booked my flight and hotel.
I was traveling with my boyfriend and when we got there we had the worst seats on the plane not even sitting together, then when we landed we got a text message with a Lyft link to take us to the hotel.
We arrive at the hotel and it was not paid for so I had to pay it myself ( I still havent been reimbursed ).
I did not receive any communication from the DA about the plan for the next day. We wake up the next day and call the service center at 10am when they are supposed to open. I end up having to leave a message because no one answers. We had to check out of the hotel so we decided to just walk because the Sales Center was less than a mile away.
We arrive at the sales center in the mall because that is the address on the site for that location. The sales person says "Oh, this isnt were you pick up your car, you need to go to the Service Center"
They called the Service Center and we had to wait 20 min (it was less than a mile away) for someone to pick us up.
We get there and they introduce me to a 3rd DA because the 2nd one was off that day I guess
DA3 spends about 20 min showing me how to set up my profile. I ask him about different icons on the panel and he tells me I can look them up in the user manual. He does not offer me a test drive.
I drive off and because I had never driven an EV and he did not explain ReGen Braking to me the car stops dead in the middle of the street. Luckily there was no one behind me or we would have been rear ended. We go eat lunch and my boyfriend notices that the headliner isnt installed correctly so we go back to the Service Center. When we get there, the DA3 is no longer there ( lunch maybe, I dont know ) so I get another new person. They go to fix it and I mention how much I dont like my wheels (standard 19") because I didnt realize the black part was actually plastic....looked like a hubcap on a Kia Soul.
The service tech says "oh, we can take those off and we have these lug caps we can put on that look nice" I say "let's do that!"
They bring my car back out, fixed, and he comes out with a tablet and says "that will be $127 for the wheel caps"
Before we leave, I ask them if they think we will make it to Charlotte on the full charge...they say "yes, it says you have 380 miles and it's only 360 to your house you should be good" I had asked DA3 if the navigation would tell me when I need to plug in and provide the available charging stations. He said "no, you have to pick an area on the map and it will show you the charging stations nearby but it wont tell you what is available on your full route"
We start our drive
About half way a lil charging icon pops up but I assume it's just because we are driving past it...I now know we should have stopped there. We drive probably another 50 miles and the miles left as stop display says insufficient so we decide to find someplace to charge ( note he also did not explain all the different charging apps nor the different levels of charge etc so I had to use Google )
The first place we find is at the back of a bus station and they are all offline. So back to Google and we find an EvGo near a Target, plug in and go shopping, but it will only charge for an hour...I assume that should be more than enough.
We resume and as we get closer to home we notice it says we dont have enough to make it..again. We are 15 miles from the house and it says we have 6 miles of charge...it's now 1am
Find what it says is another EvGo at an Advanced Auto Parts... oh no, its some sort of special charger that you have to have a card to use ( now credit care or tap to pay options )
I am now hysterical, I call Customer Care for road side assistance and get a message that their phone system is down and I can leave a message.
Back to Google and find another charger less than a mile away....but when I get to it, it's one of the super slow ones. I say in the car while my boyfriend slept for almost 2 hours just to get 9 miles on the meter to get home.
I had to plug the car into the wall socket at home for 3 days to get it charged because the installer for my home charing unit didnr know he needed a 100W breaker...and wanted to charge me $1800 (my electrician installed it for me for $700).

Conclusion...
If any one of these things happened by itself I wouldnt even mention it but the collection was unacceptable
I posted this in the FB group and soon after someone from Customer Service reached out to me to apologize which was appreciated...this is what I said to them:

 

[Ames8910]

If someone can afford a Lucid they probably can afford to sit in Business Class, if you offer to arrange transportation than it should be up to par, I could have booked my own travel
When I landed it would have been nice to have someone there already to meet me, the hotel should have been pre-paid and there should have been some sort of agenda provided to include a pick up at the hotel to the service center.
I should not have been charged for the wheel caps
At very min all owners should be given a test drive at pick up and making sure they have a good grasp on ReGen is critical
Making sure that buyers who are new to the EV experience need to have a detailed understanding of planning a trip and the different charging station options

I love my car now, that night I said I wished I never bought it, now I can't even fathom driving my other cars I am so thrilled to float in my AIr. But the buying experience was awful....and after that one call, no one has called me, I havent gotten my money back for the hotel...so I just hope it doesnt act up on me until/unless a new service center opens closer to me.

 

[Sandvinsd]

I’m sorry you had such a poor delivery experience. It sounds like this was your first EV so all the range and charging was new for you. the DAs should inquire as to if it is the first EV, if you have any experience with EVs, the charging experience and if you have a 220v charging plug at the house. If they do that, your experiences could have been avoided. They should spend much more time during delivery with someone who has not had an EV before, or provided information on the phone, telling you about various apps, asking and answering questions, etc. as the car was nearing the delivery stage. That way newbies know what to expect. If I were the DA, I would have mapped out your trip home for you, including charging stations that would have avoided any and all range anxiety.

I am glad you love your car now! It was all worth it in the end.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

It may be news to some but you can survive just fine in the poor people seats on airplanes, I’ve done it my whole life. One other thing you may not know is that most airlines no longer allow you to choose your seats unless you pay extra, and if you book a seat via a 3rd party travel search as most do, you cannot choose your own seats even though those discount sites trick you and make it look like you can. None of that has anything to do with Lucid.

I never heard of any auto manufacturer flying a buyer to their delievery and putting them up in a hotel before this (maybe Rolls Royce or Bugatti has?), so my recommendation to Lucid is this: don’t offer flights or hotels to people picking up a car, otherwise they’ll complain about it.

I think Lucid could definitely have done more to educate a new buyer, as they should know that some new buyers (especially anyone new to EVs) cannot be expected to have educated themselves about the car or EVs, or to have researched their drive back to make sure they don’t need to stop and charge. Otherwise they may risk a singular negative buying experience being dumped online in many locations.

 

[Adnillien]

Lucid has a lot of first time EV buyers and I would like to see them do a better job of educating buyers about their EV. Show buyers how to find charging stations on the navigation and how to filter those stations. Defaulting the display to %SOC rather than EPA range that almost nobody will meet. I have heard other stories from first time EV owners who believed the range on the battery display and headed to a place too far away and without any DC fast chargers.

As and aside, I test drove and R1S yesterday and asked if I could make it from Moab to Flagstaff with only DC fast charging. I know that with my Air GT this route requires driving at 65 MPH so I knew that the R1S would not make it without Level 2 charging for several hours. My guide was very honest and showed me that it would not.

All EV manufacturers need to help educate new EV owners. It may be the luck of who you talk to or it may be that some manufacturers do it better than others.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

True. My DA who was covering a lot of the Northeast spent over an hour with me going through everything, had me drive it with her in the car so she could show me one pedal driving stuff, I asked her so much stuff that my wife thought I was taking up too much of the DAs valuable time haha. My delivery experience was excellent so I really think it’s region dependent.

 

[joec]

It may be news to some but you can survive just fine in the poor people seats on airplanes, I’ve done it my whole life. One other thing you may not know is that most airlines no longer allow you to choose your seats unless you pay extra, and if you book a seat via a 3rd party travel search as most do, you cannot choose your own seats even though those discount sites trick you and make it look like you can. None of that has anything to do with Lucid.

I never heard of any auto manufacturer flying a buyer to their delievery and putting them up in a hotel before this (maybe Rolls Royce or Bugatti has?), so my recommendation to Lucid is this: don’t offer flights or hotels to people picking up a car, otherwise they’ll complain about it.

I think Lucid could definitely have done more to educate a new buyer, as they should know that some new buyers (especially anyone new to EVs) cannot be expected to have educated themselves about the car or EVs, or to have researched their drive back to make sure they don’t need to stop and charge. Otherwise they may risk a singular negative buying experience being dumped online in many locations.

I agree Lucid should probably stop offering to fly people to deliveries. It’s setting an expectation they can’t possibly sustain.

Set aside the risk of complaints from folks who assume Lucid should lose money on the sale by flying them first class (still trying to wrap my head around that one), but after the person drives home, what hope is there for maintaining a good level of service in the short term?

As someone who lives in a state where there is a Studio but not a Service Center, I have seen first hand how hard it is for them to keep up with demand for local repairs. If the nearest showroom is a flight away, there’s no way you’re going to get “white glove” service treatment when something goes wrong.

Better to concentrate on those areas where you have infrastructure built out already. Selling a thousand more cars in CA, as much as I hate to say it, is smarter than selling a thousand in states where Lucid has no service presence.

 

[xponents]

I agree Lucid should probably stop offering to fly people to deliveries. It’s setting an expectation they can’t possibly sustain.

Set aside the risk of complaints from folks who assume Lucid should lose money on the sale by flying them first class (still trying to wrap my head around that one), but after the person drives home, what hope is there for maintaining a good level of service in the short term?

As someone who lives in a state where there is a Studio but not a Service Center, I have seen first hand how hard it is for them to keep up with demand for local repairs. If the nearest showroom is a flight away, there’s no way you’re going to get “white glove” service treatment when something goes wrong.

Better to concentrate on those areas where you have infrastructure built out already. Selling a thousand more cars in CA, as much as I hate to say it, is smarter than selling a thousand in states where Lucid has no service presence.

Lucid offers flights? That does seem a bit excessive..

 

[Sandvinsd]

Lucid offers flights? That does seem a bit excessive..

It was probably cheaper for them than transporting the car to the home for delivery. I’m sure that is why they did that.

 

[Plg]

My delivery experience was a good one, but being an early adopter requires a certain amount of research and education. It’s a new world and if you choose to join it - be prepared.

 

[jsf1993]

Personally, I had a great delivery experience a little over a month ago. My DA spent over 2 hours with us, patiently answered all of our questions and walked us through everything that the car had to offer. Honestly, I think that one of the keys to a good delivery experience is scheduling delivery on a weekday morning if you can, when the DA’s are less likely to be busy with other deliveries. Our delivery on a Monday morning after a busy delivery weekend worked out great. Our DA also arranged a 90 minute Lyft ride to the showroom pickup. Could not have been happier with the whole experience and the car was delivered in immaculate condition.

 

[billvb]

We had a great delivery experience, although it was delayed for 2 weeks from the original delivery date due to some cosmetic damage in shipment. The local Service Advisor kept in touch about the delivery delay and the status of the replacement parts and the local DA was super friendly and helpful taking us through the setup and interface at delivery. We felt great about the whole experience and the local Seattle Lucid team! That said, this was not our first EV and I have kind of a tech background, so we didn't require a lot of hand holding.
Ultimately, after having had a 'pandemic-era' Tesla delivery, where the car was just dropped off at our place with the key cards inside, this felt like superb customer service and a first-class experience!

 

[Bobby]

My delivery (9/27/22) at Costa Mesa, CA went without a hitch. I must admit, though, I thoroughly read this forum and knew pretty much exactly how to operate the car. I also have owned another EV (Jaguar I Pace) since 2018 so I was familiar with the one pedal driving experience, etc. In fact, while my delivery advisor was explaining things to me, I was more itching to get out of there! The delivery was about 70 miles from my home and they sent me in Uber XL, which was a nice gentleman in a Mercedes C300.

 

[Neurio]

To have reserved in 2019, which is something I did (in December), you had to have been seeking out EVs to purchase because Lucid was still in its infancy and not found through general searching. How could someone that interested in EVs 4 years ago (!) not have done any research on EVs or even driven one in the interim? That's the part that makes no sense to me (aside from the entitlement).

 

[xponents]

My delivery (9/27/22) at Costa Mesa, CA went without a hitch. I must admit, though, I thoroughly read this forum and knew pretty much exactly how to operate the car. I also have owned another EV (Jaguar I Pace) since 2018 so I was familiar with the one pedal driving experience, etc. In fact, while my delivery advisor was explaining things to me, I was more itching to get out of there! The delivery was about 70 miles from my home and they sent me in Uber XL, which was a nice gentleman in a Mercedes C300.

And also the delivery checklist we have somewhere here helps I assume?

 

[joec]

My delivery back in December went very smoothly. They sent an Uber Black to drive me down to Denver. I was met at the curb where my Uber dropped me off by a Lucid staff member. I was taken into the studio, where I was greeted and congratulated by other members of the team. Then we went out to the parking garage where Lucid has a section reserved. Staff member went over everything, told me to take my time. Helped me to get my account set up. Went through all the settings. I had been an EV owner before, and I had done a test drive, so I was very familiar with the car. Drove home with no issues.

I do think Lucid needs to ensure everyone has as smooth a delivery experience as possible. Consistency is pretty important to customer experience. Hopefully, Lucid will continue to improve on this.

Owning an EV for the first time is a big leap. Everyone involved in this transition should feel responsible for helping out newcomers as they step into this much larger, better world. It's one of the reasons I care so much about this forum and what it provides to the greater community.

I have yet to meet anyone who switched to an EV who is dying to get back to an ICE car. We need to keep it that way.