Enthusiast Canceling after the Launch event - in Depth Reasons/discrepancies noted

[C28]

As a longtime follower of this forum, I wanted to share that I have decided to cancel my Touring & Pure reservations. I post this here so Lucid sees it, as I have several friends & family who reserved Lucid's at my recommendation given I am die-hard car, EV, and tech enthusiast, and I am similarly advising them to cancel. Reasons follow

1) Lucid has not been forthright about the feature of Dream Drive 'standard'. See the launch event, time 6:52-7:00 mark, where Peter says 'Dream Drive Pro delivers expanded set of features today.... highway assist etc'. As a software engineer, I totally get they use the in production system with advanced sensors and enable that first for highway assist. I also believe Lucid's various press releases from 2020 to today, even the one earlier this year were a bit ambiguous about what Dream Drive 'standard' included.

So I called Lucid today, and asked specifically, do you intend to EVER offer something like Highway assist on Dream Drive Standard. They said no. I asked again a different way "are you sure it's not just in development, note how Peter said 'today' during the launch. I won't cancel if you are working on it, that is totally understandable, even if you don't get there for a year or two I am willing to take delivery and be part of the community. They said no."

On this forum there have been mentions that Lucid tried to use a vendor (NVIDIA) for highway assist/regular Autopilot like functionality, but it didn't work out, this supports the case maybe they are working on it & it is delayed. These responses are the main reason I am canceling. Of course in store people told me dream drive 'standard' had Tesla autopilot like Highway Assist, but I have always taken their word with a grain of salt.

I unfortunately feel Lucid resales values will plummet on non-dream drive pro models if this issue around highway assist is not clarified or it never gets released. Tesla's Full Self Driving take rate (yes I know it's different tech, but its similar price), is sold with 11% of cars and falling. Imagine what Lucid's brand image (and resale) will be like if some similar percent of cars don't have highway assist (for comparisons sake, lets assume 80% don't buy Dream Drive pro of the Pure mass market volume cars). See what happens when you asked someone to buy a used car without CarPlay now.

Similar is happening on lane keeping, especially with the prime working age adults that Lucid needs to capture for years/decades to support the brand/buy up to more premium models, just like BMW/Mercedes have. To those of you who say you never use highway assist like features and I am crazy, I believe that you are quickly becoming the minority. See AGT used prices dropping like a rock pre-SW 2.0 (we will see if they stabilize, of course adjusted for interest rate), what do we think will happen to large numbers of Pure/Touring on the road without highway assist once people figure it out en masse 2 years from now?

2) The official communication around Pure features was abysmal. Power Frunk? Window Shades? Rear shade? What else was decontented? Official communication for a car that had a launch event would be nice. Note it looks like side window shades are still on the Pure design studio online (updated version). Charging speed for RWD Pure? It said the packs were the same between Pure & Touring, so why would the charging speed be different (note it says 250kw on the 'compare tool', but then when you go to features and specs for Lucid Air General, it says 250kw without the asterisks). So which is correct? If the Wunderbox or electronics are different, then what is the deal? Is the argument going to be it's harder to pre-heat the battery with just one motor (I don't buy it if so). Note, I am the original poster from May who was also told that the Pure RWD was 88kw, and Pure AWD & Touring were 92KW, so I am aware of that potential.

3) Torque, AWD, HP, 0-60 - all hard to parse for Pure AWD/RWD. Once again, if you look at the Pure page (https://www.lucidmotors.com/air-pure), it says 0-60mph 3.8sec. 480HP max for AWD. OK, so if the AWD motor weighs a bit more for the 2nd front motor, or the AWD batter pack is a bit bigger, or both, makes sense you need a little bit less HP to meet that performance mark, assuming you have summer tires on the RWD Pure to generate sufficient traction to still hit 3.8sec 0-60. Lucid should just state this if it's the case!!! Or correct their website to make it clear the RWD is a slower 0-60 mph. When I spoke with sales today, they said the RWD was slower than 3.8 0-60. I brought up the website issues. They said they can confirm it is slower. It is so incredibly frustrating the sloppiness of the launch.

Lucid, if you wish to discuss, you are welcome to contact me here via a DM.

 

[idiot900]

I am biased as my ego feels the need to defend my upcoming purchase, but:

1. DDP will be inferior to tech 5 years from now and I don't think the then-ancient technology will be in huge demand. So with a non-DDP car I expect to lose a few thousand dollars of resale against my >$100k purchase price. That is not a big deal to me.

2. True, Lucid absolutely sucks at communication from engineering to PR/marketing. I was waiting for a real, detailed spec sheet too.

3. A couple of tenths one way or the other on 0-60 is impossible for the customer to tell without timing equipment, a prepared track surface, sticky tires, etc. Do they do a 1-foot rollout? Makes a real difference. But yes, this is a marketing failure.

 

[Slam08]

I agree that lucid has its issues and just cancelled a reservation myself.

I feel like true self driving cars (Level 4+ autonomy) are still years away because they would require changes to street markings and construction before legislators will trust it. I don’t think people will be upset that some Lucids don’t have the best autonomous driving. Taycans a have horrible autonomous driving. Most don’t even have adaptive cruise control. People don’t seem to care.

 

[Steveinarizona]

I agree that lucid has its issues and just cancelled a reservation myself.

I feel like true self driving cars (Level 4+ autonomy) are still years away because they would require changes to street markings and construction before legislators will trust it. I don’t think people will be upset that some Lucids don’t have the best autonomous driving. Taycans a have horrible autonomous driving. Most don’t even have adaptive cruise control. People don’t seem to care.

In another post you indicated you believe in spirited driving. So why did you cancel and what are you going to get to replace it?

 

[Slam08]

In another post you indicated you believe in spirited driving. So why did you cancel and what are you going to get to replace it?

I initially cancelled my touring reservation with the intention of buying a used GT for 125k. For now I am driving a 2022 I pace that honestly fits all my needs. It’s a great car. Jaguar worked out a lot of the issues with the first generation I pace and the second gen seem to be solid. Mine has been free of major issues (just some annoying minor software bugs)

I’ve realized that most of my road trips to see friends/family are within 300 miles. So upgrading to the GT would make it possible for me to drive most of the places I frequent on a single charge!

Now if only those dream edition range prices would drop into my budget!

 

[Steveinarizona]

I initially cancelled my touring reservation with the intention of buying a used GT for 125k. For now I am driving a 2022 I pace that honestly fits all my needs. It’s a great car. Jaguar worked out a lot of the issues with the first generation I pace and the second gen seem to be solid. Mine has been free of major issues (just some annoying minor software bugs)

I’ve realized that most of my road trip are about 300 miles. So upgrading to the GT would make it possible for me to drive 309 miles on a charge in most circumstances.

That makes sense. Amazing how prices on used cars have dramatically changed in the last year.

 

[Slam08]

That makes sense. Amazing how prices on used cars have dramatically changed in the last year.

Used cars have been crazy during the pandemic. I used to drive by a CarMax every day. At one point I thought they shut down, there were so few cars on the lot. Now the lot is completely full, more than before the pandemic

 

[Bobby]

I initially cancelled my touring reservation with the intention of buying a used GT for 125k. For now I am driving a 2022 I pace that honestly fits all my needs. It’s a great car. Jaguar worked out a lot of the issues with the first generation I pace and the second gen seem to be solid. Mine has been free of major issues (just some annoying minor software bugs)

I’ve realized that most of my road trips to see friends/family are within 300 miles. So upgrading to the GT would make it possible for me to drive most of the places I frequent on a single charge!

Now if only those dream edition range prices would drop into my budget!

As a longtime follower of this forum, I wanted to share that I have decided to cancel my Touring & Pure reservations. I post this here so Lucid sees it, as I have several friends & family who reserved Lucid's at my recommendation given I am die-hard car, EV, and tech enthusiast, and I am similarly advising them to cancel. Reasons follow

1) Lucid has not been forthright about the feature of Dream Drive 'standard'. See the launch event, time 6:52-7:00 mark, where Peter says 'Dream Drive Pro delivers expanded set of features today.... highway assist etc'. As a software engineer, I totally get they use the in production system with advanced sensors and enable that first for highway assist. I also believe Lucid's various press releases from 2020 to today, even the one earlier this year were a bit ambiguous about what Dream Drive 'standard' included. So I called Lucid today, and asked specifically, do you intend to EVER offer something like Highway assist on Dream Drive Standard. They said no. I asked again a different way "are you sure it's not just in development, note how Peter said 'today' during the launch. I won't cancel if you are working on it, that is totally understandable, even if you don't get there for a year or two I am willing to take delivery and be part of the community. They said no." On this forum there have been mentions that Lucid tried to use a vendor (NVIDIA) for highway assist/regular Autopilot like functionality, but it didn't work out, this supports the case maybe they are working on it & it is delayed. These responses are the main reason I am canceling. Of course in store people told me dream drive 'standard' had Tesla autopilot like Highway Assist, but I have always taken their word with a grain of salt. I unfortunately feel Lucid resales values will plummet on non-dream drive pro models if this issue around highway assist is not clarified or it never gets released. Tesla's Full Self Driving take rate (yes I know it's different tech, but its similar price), is sold with 11% of cars and falling. Imagine what Lucid's brand image (and resale) will be like if some similar percent of cars don't have highway assist (for comparisons sake, lets assume 80% don't buy Dream Drive pro of the Pure mass market volume cars). See what happens when you asked someone to buy a used car without CarPlay now. Similar is happening on lane keeping, especially with the prime working age adults that Lucid needs to capture for years/decades to support the brand/buy up to more premium models, just like BMW/Mercedes have. To those of you who say you never use highway assist like features and I am crazy, I believe that you are quickly becoming the minority. See AGT used prices dropping like a rock pre-SW 2.0 (we will see if they stabilize, of course adjusted for interest rate), what do we think will happen to large numbers of Pure/Touring on the road without highway assist once people figure it out en masse 2 years from now?

2) The official communication around Pure features was abysmal. Power Frunk? Window Shades? Rear shade? What else was decontented? Official communication for a car that had a launch event would be nice. Note it looks like side window shades are still on the Pure design studio online (updated version). Charging speed for RWD Pure? It said the packs were the same between Pure & Touring, so why would the charging speed be different (note it says 250kw on the 'compare tool', but then when you go to features and specs for Lucid Air General, it says 250kw without the asterisks). So which is correct? If the Wunderbox or electronics are different, then what is the deal? Is the argument going to be it's harder to pre-heat the battery with just one motor (I don't buy it if so). Note, I am the original poster from May who was also told that the Pure RWD was 88kw, and Pure AWD & Touring were 92KW, so I am aware of that potential.

3) Torque, AWD, HP, 0-60 - all hard to parse for Pure AWD/RWD. Once again, if you look at the Pure page (https://www.lucidmotors.com/air-pure), it says 0-60mph 3.8sec. 480HP max for AWD. OK, so if the AWD motor weighs a bit more for the 2nd front motor, or the AWD batter pack is a bit bigger, or both, makes sense you need a little bit less HP to meet that performance mark, assuming you have summer tires on the RWD Pure to generate sufficient traction to still hit 3.8sec 0-60. Lucid should just state this if it's the case!!! Or correct their website to make it clear the RWD is a slower 0-60 mph. When I spoke with sales today, they said the RWD was slower than 3.8 0-60. I brought up the website issues. They said they can confirm it is slower. It is so incredibly frustrating the sloppiness of the launch.

Lucid, if you wish to discuss, you are welcome to contact me here via a DM.

You’re missing out on a wonderful car.

 

[joec]

I agree that lucid has its issues and just cancelled a reservation myself.

I feel like true self driving cars (Level 4+ autonomy) are still years away because they would require changes to street markings and construction before legislators will trust it. I don’t think people will be upset that some Lucids don’t have the best autonomous driving. Taycans a have horrible autonomous driving. Most don’t even have adaptive cruise control. People don’t seem to care.

This brings up a very important point about all these automation features that I don't think gets talked about enough.

So many on this forum seem to want Lucid to check little checkboxes in order to be "competitive". AutoPark. Check. Adaptive cruise control. Check. Lane Centering. Check. Unassisted lane changes. Check. And so on.

And this makes sense, given it's what every car manufacturer seems to do. But what gets lost in the discussion is the quality of those features.

Yes, tons of cars have lane centering, adaptive cruise control, and on an on. And most of them suck at it. I've driven quite a few cars over the past five years or so that had all these bells and whistles, and none of them impressed me much. Most made me feel unsafe at least some of the time.

What's the value of checking off boxes when the experience of using these features sucks anyway? When you pressure companies to fill out features with half-assed efforts, you aren't doing yourself any favors.

Personally, I'd rather Lucid takes its time with this stuff, because it's really, really hard. And getting it wrong has consequences.

Even some of the most die-hard Tesla fans are starting to realize for all their bluster about FSD, it's still many years away from being anything more than a dangerous parlor trick. Took the better part of a decade, but at least some of them are finally coming around.

So if Lucid wants to limit Highway Assist for now to cars that have LiDAR, which gives them better data about what's going on around the car, then I say let them be cautious about that. Trust them when they say they don't feel confident Dream Drive cars will do it well.

As they gain more confidence about what they can deliver, they will reassess. Meanwhile, at least they aren't peddling snake oil.

 

[Tesla2.0]

I am completely agreeing with @joec here. Lucid is making prudent assertions when it comes to automation as oppose of Tesla constant hyping it year after year with many accidents on the road with user misconceptions and abuse.

I have drove and riden all Tesla models as driver and passenger except for the original roadster. Lucid’s cabin comfort is just totally different level, road noise insulation and ridiculous space is second to none in the sedan marketplace. If you think current ADAS software is its limitation, you are missing out as we are seeing many software features roll out last 3 months.

 

[MoniputerLM]

I agree that lucid has its issues and just cancelled a reservation myself.

I feel like true self driving cars (Level 4+ autonomy) are still years away because they would require changes to street markings and construction before legislators will trust it. I don’t think people will be upset that some Lucids don’t have the best autonomous driving. Taycans a have horrible autonomous driving. Most don’t even have adaptive cruise control. People don’t seem to care.

Ford, GM and Mercedes have very useful "driver assist" technology now. It is not full self-driving but it's useful. If Lucid can catch up to them next year, I will be happy.

 

[HRoussel]

No lane centering on standard DD is a big negative for me. I'm highly likely (95% confidence) to cancel my Air Pure reservation because of that.

 

[C28]

I agree with many of the points above about the tech being nearly outdated by the time things such as 'Level 3/4 driving using Lidar' is out. At minimum, the processors in the vehicle.

In the end I just wish Lucid would say "hey we tried to do highway assist without Lidar and just haven't gotten there yet/had issues with our vendor, we are still trying as the non-DDPro fleet grows, but no promises it will ever ship if we don't hit quality bar X". Instead it's a NO, please pay $10,000 more for it, and that is just not acceptable for a ~$100K car in todays market, especially when it was implied for a while to have something similar to basic Tesla autopilot, or at a minimum miscommunicated.

Lucid is not some mythical company that is so much smarter than others about taking risks, see the (admittedly intermittent) drive failures & doors not opening (on SW 1.x) etc. I am sure the risk departments at giant automakers that have Level 2 autonomous driving (ie Ford Bluecruise/GM SuperCruise) are risk adverse.

I have a Rivian R1S, and agree it doesn't match the Lucid AGT I test drove quality/serenity wise. Rivian has so far been been honest about issues & limitations, and yes it's Driver+ could get better..

Point being, Lucid just needs to be honest & detailed, and say 'this is the full spec sheet, these starred items are pending final validation, or still under development'. Not just a blank or a star saying TBD take you best guess but please confirm your $100K car order with us without said details.

I canceled out of frustration with a moving target particularly around the highway assist, as my wife complains nonstop when we even rent a car without it now. It's a standard feature on so many cars, Lucid made a huge mistake by not just putting Lidar on every vehicle if they have an extreme dogma around that for highway assist. Just look at the Volvo EX90, lidar is standard on a $80K vehicle, with a 111kwh battery, 4.7 0-60 AWD,300mi range, and bi-directional charge to power your home. With the latest Qualcomm, NVIDA processors, and true Android Automotive, not the free forked version Lucid uses. That is not so far off the Lucid features that attracted me for the Pure/Touring. Yes the EX90 is a different kind of vehicle, but you can't argue that the Pure has a tough comparison there at even the old price of $77.5K. The Pure even now has 'Scandinavian design' to boot.....

 

[HC_79]

I understand point 1 as I’d be annoyed to have to fork out $10K for Highway Assist that comes standard on a majority of cars these days.

Lucid’s original press release also stated Highway Assist was in DD and Highway Pilot was DDP so the fact they removed it along the way and kept quiet about it was pretty shady. I suspect many people may cancel based on this information but time will tell.

 

[hmp10]

No lane centering on standard DD is a big negative for me. I'm highly likely (95% confidence) to cancel my Air Pure reservation because of that.

Even after almost almost eight years on the market Tesla Autopilot requires keeping your hands on the wheel and paying attention to the road -- and only on geo-fenced roads with clear lane markings. While it may save you a few twitches of the arm or wrist muscles going down the highway, it won't make full turns for you. In other words, all it spares you is actually having to move the wheel now and again on your own. It certainly does not free up your hands for other tasks or let you safely take your eyes off the road.

The Lucid Air Pure will lead its market niche in range, power, handling, room, and comfort. To forgo all that because you have to occasionally move the hand you're having to keep on the steering wheel anyway seems a bit extreme to me.

 

[hitmanray]

I have no knowledge of Lucid’s development plans, but suspect we may see highway assist on non DDPro cars in the future. Tesla is not (primarily at least) programming their cars how to self-drive, they are collecting millions of miles of data associated with what the sensors are observing as they are being driven. It is that data set that is being leveraged to teach Tesla’s how to self drive.

For Lucid, the DDPro cars have all the same sensors the standard DD has, plus a bunch more. It wouldn’t surprise me if while rolling out self driving type technologies on DDPro (like highway assist) Lucid could be gathering data and determining if satisfactory and safe results could be achieved based on the data provided by the more limited set of sensors on DD standard. I believe this type of thinking is what drove Tesla to decide they can do without ultrasonic parking distance sensors and rely fully on the vehicles cameras.

As the amount of vehicles on the road increases and the amount of collected data goes up, perhaps Lucid will get to a point where they are comfortable offering automated driving solutions on DD standard.

But I also suspect a marketing element and we likely wouldn’t see such a development until the next advance in automated driving for DDPro.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Yeah I’m with @joec on this one. What matters more than the features are the quality of those features. The Subaru version of “Highway Assist” sucks, Mercedes version is much better but more rigid than the Lucid’s. DDPro is worth the $ to upgrade for me because it itself is upgradeable. I definitely won’t talk anyone out of canceling as everyone has unique tolerances and expectations. It just happens that Lucid’s combo of features fit well with what I needed. I don’t need full self driving but very much appreciate highway assist if I have an urgent work text I need to reply to (not texting while driving, I’m using Siri voice text on my watch which is still distracting!), or need to open my coffee, etc, and it’s also useful for lengthy road trip stretches to give your feet and arms a break for a few minutes.

I don’t think any choices anticipating used market value of the car matter though, unless you’re planning to sell it before you’ve paid it off.

 

[Babyrocko1908]

I agree that lucid has its issues and just cancelled a reservation myself.

I feel like true self driving cars (Level 4+ autonomy) are still years away because they would require changes to street markings and construction before legislators will trust it. I don’t think people will be upset that some Lucids don’t have the best autonomous driving. Taycans a have horrible autonomous driving. Most don’t even have adaptive cruise control. People don’t seem to care.

You're probably right. I don't particularly care but I am going to spend the $9,000k for DDPro particularly for the resale value down the line. Look at the value of the used Tesla's right now that have FSD already installed. If I get use out of it and enjoy it, that's gravy.

 

[C28]

I hope that @hitmanray is correct, that DD standard will eventually have some version of highway assist. I too believe this will be the case at some point, but I cannot buy a car where the sales rep sales a definitive 'no' today.

The reason I posted any of this is that after years of waiting with a confirmed pre-order, I lost my patience with Lucid's Launch event for the Touring/Pure. If Lucid wants to argue its some super coy marketing, thats fine, by then why all the sloppiness & inconsistencies on the website post Launch which I noted in the original post? It's nothing more than laziness or an incompetent specification writer on their part. Seriously, I caught these discrepancies in a few minutes. They have thousands of employees, come on.

Product development is hard, I do it daily, I get it. Just be honest & transparent about feature development, thats all I'm asking. After a few unusual moves by Lucid that made me question their ethics and/or transparency, this was the last straw. The AGT I drove was awesome as a drivers car, I have owned serval Porsches so was really looking forward to it.. After I saw how @rbbarry was treated on Twitter, after writing a fantastic LucidInsider blog, and then the continue 'lack of official detail' after this launch & continued shiftiness on answers when I asked about Dreamdrive, I was done. I wish Lucid success, I want to see a startup American EV maker truly scale to profitability, but when such a tech/luxury focused brand, they NEED to be clear about the specifications and progress...

 

[borski]

I hope that @hitmanray is correct, that DD standard will eventually have some version of highway assist. I too believe this will be the case at some point, but I cannot buy a car where the sales rep sales a definitive 'no' today.

The reason I posted any of this is that after years of waiting with a confirmed pre-order, I lost my patience with Lucid's Launch event for the Touring/Pure. If Lucid wants to argue its some super coy marketing, thats fine, by then why all the sloppiness & inconsistencies on the website post Launch which I noted in the original post? It's nothing more than laziness or an incompetent specification writer on their part. Seriously, I caught these discrepancies in a few minutes. They have thousands of employees, come on.

Product development is hard, I do it daily, I get it. Just be honest & transparent about feature development, thats all I'm asking. After a few unusual moves by Lucid that made me question their ethics and/or transparency, this was the last straw. The AGT I drove was awesome as a drivers car, I have owned serval Porsches so was really looking forward to it.. After I saw how @rbbarry was treated on Twitter, after writing a fantastic LucidInsider blog, and then the continue 'lack of official detail' after this launch & continued shiftiness on answers when I asked about Dreamdrive, I was done. I wish Lucid success, I want to see a startup American EV maker truly scale to profitability, but when such a tech/luxury focused brand, they NEED to be clear about the specifications and progress...

Wait, how was @rbbarry treated on Twitter?