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

[Mister]

I will be cancelling my Touring order (Standard DD) because Lucid bundles the 360 camera in DDP, and refuses to sell the feature a-la-carte. 360 cameras being optional on a 100k+ car with safety and cutting edge technology as selling points in 2022? Come on

 

[Dortreo]

Unsolicited advice: Before you cancel due to the lack of one feature or another or due to Lucid being unclear about one thing or another… drive the car. The Lucid is a driver’s car. You are meant to drive it and not the other way around. All the deficiencies in software and features are more than compensated by the driving experience. If it doesn’t put a smile on your face, please by all means opt for the next Motor Trend Car of the Year, the G90, in all its shiny grilly gas-guzzling ass-coddling (“It’s basically a spa on wheels!”) glory. It’ll be awesome.

 

[wklglider]

I will be cancelling my Touring order (Standard DD) because Lucid bundles the 360 camera in DDP, and refuses to sell the feature a-la-carte. 360 cameras being optional on a 100k+ car with safety and cutting edge technology as selling points in 2022? Come on

FYI, a $40k BYD Han has 360 view, lane centering, auto parking and can do 0-60 in 3.9s. We need completion!

 

[Drendino]

Lucid has by far been the most difficult company to work with. I tried super hard to work with them, I really did.

I really enjoyed your contributions here and appreciated your enthusiasm for the brand. I was sorry to see you go and hope you come back.

I read your post at the time and didn’t put together that you and the blog were the same person. My take was that the headline was clickbait. The body of what you wrote was fine, but the headline felt purposefully misleading. I think I might have even commented something to the effect on the post at the time.

If I was in a management position at Lucid, I would have also come out and discredited the post. I can also understand your position, so it’s not a judgment on you at all.

 

[stratus]

Unsolicited advice: Before you cancel due to the lack of one feature or another or due to Lucid being unclear about one thing or another… drive the car. The Lucid is a driver’s car. You are meant to drive it and not the other way around. All the deficiencies in software and features are more than compensated by the driving experience. If it doesn’t put a smile on your face, please by all means opt for the next Motor Trend Car of the Year, the G90, in all its shiny grilly gas-guzzling ass-coddling (“It’s basically a spa on wheels!”) glory. It’ll be awesome.

God is that thing hideous.

 

[Psymac]

Canceling my Touring reservation as well, or at least, trying to, as Lucid it doesn't seem to want let me do that yet, lol. My basic complaint is similar, Lucid to me just does not have the value, becoming really overpriced and overhyped.

 

[GEWC]

Canceling my Touring reservation as well, or at least, trying to, as Lucid it doesn't seem to want let me do that yet, lol. My basic complaint is similar, Lucid to me just does not have the value, becoming really overpriced and overhyped.

I'm guessing you haven't driven the car, if you think it is overhyped.

 

[Drendino]

Canceling my Touring reservation as well, or at least, trying to, as Lucid it doesn't seem to want let me do that yet, lol. My basic complaint is similar, Lucid to me just does not have the value, becoming really overpriced and overhyped.

Lucid is definitely not a value play and I don’t know of a luxury car that is. I would also be bummed if I thought I was getting a feature and then later found out that I have to pay more for it. I would suggest waiting on cancelling until the dust settles. Plain and simple, the car is expensive because it is worth it.

 

[wklglider]

I'm guessing you haven't driven the car, if you think it is overhyped.

Honestly speaking, not everyone is able/willing to stretch themselves to get the features(like lane centering) that were once promised to get. This is especially true during a recession. I expect to see more cancelations coming if they continue these Porsche-like tricks to nickel-and-dime people.

 

[hydbob]

Canceling my Touring reservation as well, or at least, trying to, as Lucid it doesn't seem to want let me do that yet, lol. My basic complaint is similar, Lucid to me just does not have the value, becoming really overpriced and overhyped.

I'm curious how anyone buying $100k car can talk themselves into it being good value? Honest question, because unless you are buying it for driving dynamics (which are amazing), there are much better value cars out there.

Everyone keeps talking about how the Lucid is missing this and that blah blah, but the only car that comes close to this level of handling is a Porsche Taycan and those ain't cheap either.

The value is the driving dynamics and not the features it comes with and if you haven't driven the car you won't realize that point.

 

[Zenithredgt60]

360 degree cameras and any driver assist feature including adaptive cruise is optional on a Porsche taycan. I had a 175k turbo that didn’t have folding mirrors because it was a $400 option and I didn’t realize i needed to order it. By the way I sold that car a month after i got the lucid as I preferred the lucid and was not driving the Porsche much. Every automaker has options that they choose to differentiate different trim levels of a model - i agree the 360 camera should be a stand alone option but can’t Cry about the fact that lucid decided not to offer it that way. The more stand alone options you have the more difficult production is and the more costly each option becomes. Note on the BMW IX they decided in the second year of production (2023) to eliminate many stand alone options and bundle them into an ultimate package. So your choices are a fairly standard model or a fully loaded model. The dealer told me they did it to simplify production and produce more vehicles. Many Japanese automakers have a similar approach.

 

[Tesla2.0]

One last thing. I've been covering companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc for about 20 years. I work super well with their PR departments and I know all of the top executives at those companies.

Lucid has by far been the most difficult company to work with. I tried super hard to work with them, I really did.

I think generally Lucid staff are courteous and eager to assist like Apple stores. But I have no doubt there are some dickheads at top as with most organizations.

 

[Tesla2.0]

I will be cancelling my Touring order (Standard DD) because Lucid bundles the 360 camera in DDP, and refuses to sell the feature a-la-carte. 360 cameras being optional on a 100k+ car with safety and cutting edge technology as selling points in 2022? Come on

Lucid 360 isn’t like any other 360, it is on 5k screen with highly maneuverable augmented-reality floating 3rd person camera you can scroll any direction. Lucid is not going to offer lesser 360 to look like Hyundai or Polestar just bc needed so. Lucid can do it, but they choose path of highest quality and that comes in DDP.

FYI, a $40k BYD Han has 360 view, lane centering, auto parking and can do 0-60 in 3.9s. We need completion!

Per Capita is significant gap between China to USA. You can move to China to buy one BYD as affordable luxury there.

 

[thecodingart]

“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.”

Ford backed out of pursuing any form of autonomous driving above level 3 for a reason. Highway assist is basically the max that anyone really needs statistically today. If you want FSD like behavior, then you’re prioritizing getting a Tesla… that’s really all there is to it. I don’t agree this impacts resale value much if at all. I also doubt it plays much in regular consumer decisions considering the pricing situation around level 3 + software unlocks now-a-days.

Regarding your comments on vagueness, yeah.. if the online configurator is missing info that’s and issue.

 

[thecodingart]

I think generally Lucid staff are courteous and eager to assist like Apple stores. But I have no doubt there are some dickheads at top as with most organizations.

Inserts my weekly rant about the terrible Riviera Service Center here..

 

[invalidname]

The Lucid Air is an amazing driver's car, but charging $9k-$10k for DDP seems overly priced. $6k would have been a more reasonable price, since most other luxury competitors charge about $2k-4k for those features, and Tesla charges $6k for those features.

 

[Cordy]

I think everyone is entitled to determining what they are willing to accept especially when it comes to purchasing something like a luxury vehicle. If you feel that the price per features are acceptable that is fine, and if you don't, that is perfectly fine too. Yes the car is of a certain price range that not everyone can be able to consider. But just because you can afford to buy it doesn't mean you should have to spend more on features you may not want. There are pros and cons to both the model of bundling options into packages or just offering options. One could argue that it's great that they bundled all the features together to make it easier for the consumer to not nickel and dime them. But on the other hand you could argue that it would've been great to at least have the choice of certain features. Ultimately as a consumer the most important thing is having a choice. Whether that is the choice to option the vehicle the way you want or the choice to not purchase the vehicle because something is not as you expected.

And I did have the opportunity to drive the vehicle and very much enjoyed my experience. I still plan to purchase. However, like many I'm disappointed by one of the features I found valuable being tied to a feature I see no value in.

 

[invalidname]

“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.”

Ford backed out of pursuing any form of autonomous driving above level 3 for a reason. Highway assist is basically the max that anyone really needs statistically today. If you want FSD like behavior, then you’re prioritizing getting a Tesla… that’s really all there is to it. I don’t agree this impacts resale value much if at all. I also doubt it plays much in regular consumer decisions considering the pricing situation around level 3 + software unlocks now-a-days.

Regarding your comments on vagueness, yeah.. if the online configurator is missing info that’s and issue.

No one has Level 3 Autonomy right now because it's too hard, Tesla will most likely be the first to truly unlock it, but others seem to be way behind. This makes DDP less appealing especially since it is expected to not unlock Level 3 Autonomy for possibly a good long while.

Unfortunately, DDP is required for Highway Assist. People are mainly complaining because Highway Assist is very sought after, not Level 3 Autonomy, especially after Tesla popularizing it with the younger crowd. People are complaining that Lucid is charging $9k-$10k to have access to features like Highway Assist when basically every other competitor charges at most $2k-$4k for the same features, and Tesla charging $6k for comparable features. I honestly think they should reduce the price of DDP, or add an intermediate ADAS option that includes popular features like Highway Assist for half the price of DDP.

Studies show a majority of consumers preferring features like Highway Assist are younger, more techy, and hate to have to fight traffic on their way to work. And a majority of consumers who don't care for features like Highway Assist are older, prefer to feel the car, and are likely retired and have more leisurely time with their vehicles.

Studies also show most new cars are purchased by older consumers, and most used cars nowadays are bought by younger consumers. Because younger consumers prefer features like Highway Assist, this will have a direct affect on the potential resale value of a vehicle with features like Highway Assist vs the same vehicle without features like Highway Assist.

 

[Tesla2.0]

AGT wasn’t my first choice. I originally ordered Touring, then wanted to switch to DE as my pre-retirement Christmas treat. But it was sold out and I was on waitlist. I ended up didn’t get DE, but early AGT.

Life is all about choices and practicality vs luxury. If I want to reduce cost of Touring, I wouldn’t buy SSP, but would focus on ADAS. That’s me, I care more driving than audio. And who knows down the road what surprising enhancement will come out out of ADAS, but ATMOS content is limited. This is just my 2c.

 

[C28]

“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.”

Ford backed out of pursuing any form of autonomous driving above level 3 for a reason. Highway assist is basically the max that anyone really needs statistically today. If you want FSD like behavior, then you’re prioritizing getting a Tesla… that’s really all there is to it. I don’t agree this impacts resale value much if at all. I also doubt it plays much in regular consumer decisions considering the pricing situation around level 3 + software unlocks now-a-days.

Regarding your comments on vagueness, yeah.. if the online configurator is missing info that’s and issue.

Highway assist is Level 2, not Level 3 is what I was referring to. I think customers value level 2 driving assist (like basic Tesla Autopilot). I agree with your points on Level 3 not being necessary/relevant today for the most part.