Dream drive pro and autonomy subscription

[Saksak]

It’s more than packaging. The hardware differences are real. DDPremium has 24 sensors instead of 32. It’s missing lidar and 7 cameras (7 cameras instead of 14) compared to DDPro.

We don’t know how important those missing sensors are for just lane centering, and how much engineering work would be involved in supporting lane centering with the reduced hardware. Maybe the missing sensors are critical, maybe not.

Even if it’s possible to support lane centering with DDPremium hardware, there are many other considerations that goes into the decision. Product differentiation, customer value, short and long term engineering feasibility and cost, return on investment, etc. - those are all important factors that come into play.

In any case, we are being armchair quarterbacks. Lucid has made the decision and they probably already know the cost/benefit tradeoff - it’s not just about what’s possible or not. And who knows, as @joec pointed out, maybe that cost/benefit analysis will change over time as DDPro becomes more capable.

 

[DS9]

It boils down to lucid making a choice not to offer hands on lane centering. As other posters have inferred, cars with lesser hardware than the Air with DD Premium have hands on lane centering. I enjoy driving my Air but when we are embarking on longer road trips we take my wife's IX (profile switching works seamlessly, apple car key works 100% of the time, plug n charge available on many other networks, route planning is better and of course the hands on lane centering situation). As a consumer it was my responsibility to check all the features before leasing (which i missed the hands on lane centering) so I'll deal with it for next 19 months.

 

[Aka-none]

Lane centering? Hands on self driving?
I read these posts and wonder what you are talking about. They are different and DD pro is l2 and so is that Leaf mentioned earlier.
Can someone clarify what specific capability you are talking about?

 

[gaskiller]

The Air's steering column design is a bit finicky, because the eye tracker is mounted to the dash and you have to get it just right to get it to behave. I personally have never had excessive warnings with hand-free but it does need a certain person height and seating and steering position....

Clumsy place to put it. After all that engineering!