First 1,000 mile review from a Touring Owner

joec

Referral Code - MX1KDTYY
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Air Touring
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MX1KDTYY
Just went past the 1,000-mile mark and wanted to report my experience thus far as an owner.

For those who don’t remember: I took delivery of my Stellar White Touring with Santa Cruz interior on December 24th. (Best Christmas gift ever.)

The delivery experience was great. Anton at the Denver Studio was friendly and knowledgeable at showing me around the car and getting me set up (though I was pretty familiar already).
 
Hardware:

The car is solid. No hardware issues to speak of. Fit and finish are miles ahead of my previous car. The detailer who did my ceramic coating said the paint was good all around. (Just a few tiny, minor blemishes on the doors, according to him, which were easily corrected.)

The Santa Cruz carpets are definitely not ideal for Colorado winters. But I ceramic coated them and picked up the graphite all-weather mats from Lucid. This has helped tremendously. Scrubbing out the occasional mud scuff is fairly easy now.

I did have a slight “creak” in the rear of the car when going over bumps. Turned out to be the leather of the back panel rubbing slightly against the rear windshield. I applied the “Bobby” foam tape fix, which took five minutes, cost me a couple of bucks, is completely invisible after careful tucking, and 100% solved the problem. This was my single physical complaint about the car. I have no steering wheel creak, no alignment issues with the frunk or trunk. The doors all close and open just fine. Pilot Panel goes up and down. Zero wind noise leaks in any of my insulation.

The temp here has ranged from 60 degrees down to -14. I have had no notable issues with the cold.
 
Driving:

As so many have said here before, driving the Air is a dream. It’s a blast to take on winding roads up the mountain or to cruise along straightaways on the highway. Highway Assist has been a surprising pleasure to use. It never leaves me scared it might do something completely stupid at any moment, unlike other driver-assist systems I’ve used. Even when someone cuts in front of me, it calmly adjusts speed. I love the way manual lane changes are executed. (Engage turn signal. Wait for three clicks. Wheel releases. Make lane change. Let the car take back over automatically.) It’s clear Lucid is taking its time with these assist features, and I appreciate that.

Sure, HA wants to take an exit every now and then while I’m in the right lane, but a gentle nudge to the left usually solves that quickly.

Speaking of lanes, the lane departure warnings are a bit overly aggressive. I really wish there was an option to “Warn only” visually in the center cockpit, rather than having the car take over and attempt to keep me in the lane every time. There are actually times where being in the center of a lane is not what’s called for. Humans who have been driving for decades know this better than car software.

I’ve considered turning off this feature altogether, but I hate that it leaves an ugly warning icon in the main cockpit screen. So I just deal with it.

I don’t rely on HA to “drive for me” so I don’t feel any disappointments in its current limitations. When I see stopped traffic ahead, I put my foot back on the accelerator, click the “cancel” button, and take over for a few moments. If I get nervous passing a truck, again I take over until I get back to a comfortable space.

When I’m on a winding road with many tight turns, I drive myself and leave the assist off. Why? Because a winding road is a playground. Why would I want to let the car have all the fun?

I have been driving mostly in smooth mode, which has netted me an average of 3.2 mi/kWh. For winter driving, in more than a handful of snowstorms, where I make no attempt to keep it below the speed limit, I’d say that’s very decent. I have a feeling if I drove this car at 55 or even 60 mph in the summer, it would do closer to 3.9 or 4 mi/kWh. Many of our highways are limited at 65 or 75 mph, though, so it’s unlikely I’ll go that slow around here often.

I decided to flip into sprint just for kicks the other day for the first time in a while, and I forgot how much quicker the car can be in that mode. A mere tap on the accelerator, and getting from 70 to 90 is almost instantaneous. I will never have any trouble passing anything in this car (except maybe at GT or Dream Edition). Anyone concerned the Touring isn’t fast enough compared to a GT—unless you are tracking the car, I would not consider it a problem. GT has many advantages over Touring, but to me speed would not be a good reason alone to go for the higher price.
 
Software

Software has been mostly a positive experience. I have had some quirks that required a reset, but that happens less frequently than many of the posts here led me to believe. (It still happens too often. Don’t get me wrong. But less than you may think when reading this site every day.)

My cameras all come up consistently with no dropped frames. My door proximity locks are actually quite consistent (with only very occasional brief pauses before the car recognizes and unlocks for me). And I like the UI, despite some of its current limitations. Many functions are far easier to get to than other car systems I’ve used. And the physical buttons are handy. I look forward to improvements over time. Overall I think most criticism I’ve read of the interface design is unwarranted, frankly. It’s certainly very good for a new company doing their first interface. It’s not perfect of course, but I am confident it will get better with OTA updates.

My two biggest gripes with software are sound and profile related. My sound occasionally just drops out for no reason. Sometimes it’s just sound over Bluetooth via my phone. Sometimes it’s Tidal pausing when it loses connection. Other times, all sound in the entire car just dies. Turn signals, warnings—everything. A reset always brings these things back, but I’m hoping they have a bug fix update soon that specifically addresses sound problems.

With profiles, I feel like Lucid needs to have a rethink. For one, whenever both my wife and I approach the car, it almost ALWAYS chooses her profile over mine. With my previous car this was a problem as well. But it was maybe 50/50. The Air just likes her better, even though I am driving 99.9% of the time. At least with the Air, the seat doesn’t attempt to automatically reposition to her preference. (That almost injured me a few times in my Model 3.) There is an option in settings not to automatically load profile settings. That way, the seat stays put, and I get a little popup asking if I want to move the seat. (It’s as if the car knows it likely has chosen the wrong profile.)

I’d be fine with this if I could just say “no thanks” and switch quickly over to my profile. But switching profiles involves a reboot of the entire infotainment system. And that takes way too long. I know this is some sort of Android Automotive limitation, but it sucks. A profile is a set of preferences. Switching should be near instantaneous. I have no idea how hard it would be to make it faster, but if I were in charge, I’d be setting this as a high priority goal.

In the meantime, I’ve turned off automatic profile detection for her profile. Which means whenever she gets in the car to drive, she will have to select her profile manually. She doesn’t drive the car that much, so it’s not the worst thing in the world. But I want Lucid to do better.

I believe facial recognition is supposed to come into play here. But as far as I can tell, facial recognition doesn’t do anything at all. I get the little check indicating it recognizes me, but then nothing happens. It does not switch profiles.
 
Conclusion

After 1 month and 1,000 miles, that’s my report. I love, love, love this car. It’s a marvel of engineering. Keep working on the bug fixes, Lucid, and give some thought on how to improve profiles.

For those out there still waiting for your car, worrying because of all the issues you see here getting posted: I can’t promise you won’t ever experience any of that. But I can tell you I haven’t. Whether that’s because my car is newer and Lucid has improved production quality by that much, or if I’m just part of a less vocal but large group of owners who actually have few issues to report, I don’t know. But I am certainly proof that not all owners are having major issues with their Airs.
 
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Conclusion

After 1 month and 1.000 miles, that’s my report. I love, love, love this car. It’s a marvel of engineering. Keep working on the bug fixes, Lucid, and give some thought on how to improve profiles.

For those out there still waiting for your car, worrying because of all the issues you see here getting posted: I can’t promise you won’t ever experience any of that. But I can tell you I haven’t. Whether that’s because my car is newer and Lucid has improved production quality by that much, or if I’m just part of a less vocal but large group of owners who actually have few issues to report, I don’t know. But I am certainly proof that not all owners are having major issues with their Airs.
Anecdotal evidence is interesting but not scientifically accurate. You are correct. A particular car with no problems is not evidence that others won't have problems; and a particular car with lots of problems is not evidence that others will have problems. Forums do, unfortunately, tend to accentuate the negative.
 
Joe, thanks for the great review.
One question for you, what product did you use to ceramic coat the carpets?
 
Nice writeup. Agree 100% on lane departure - we need an option to just warn. I've turned it off and the yellow warning light does drive me a bit nuts.
 
Joe, thanks for the great review.
One question for you, what product did you use to ceramic coat the carpets?
Thanks. I had it professionally done by a detailer. I believe they use Ceramic Pro branded stuff. They did the entire interior, too. Not just the carpets. But the benefits have been immediately noticeable on the carpets.
 
Thanks for the review! It was quite informative and nice to read your perspective and experience

I echo your feedback regarding the improvements needed for profiles.

I love my Touring A LOT and last week I put the Highway Assist to the test during our first long distance drive. The car is extremely comfortable for short and long distance trips. The car is performing exceptionally well and has exceeded my expectations thus far.
 
Thanks. I had it professionally done by a detailer. I believe they use Ceramic Pro branded stuff. They did the entire interior, too. Not just the carpets. But the benefits have been immediately noticeable on the carpets.
For anyone else reading this: be careful when coating the alcantara (and maybe don’t do it) as it can make it sticky, and be careful when coating the wool fabric, as it can darken the color.

The carpets and leather and plastic, go for it.
 
Nice writeup! I'm at 844 miles and have had a similar ownership experience with only a few minor issues. Other than the delivery day, I haven't taken the car out of smooth mode as it provides a perfect power, regen and suspension combo that also has enough oomph when you put your foot down to pass (unlike Tesla's similar setting).
 
I have ~500 on my Touring and it has been nothing but great so far. A few times the camera’s took a bit to boot, but always came on. The sound has gone out on me a few times as well, but luckily both times were on short drives and came back on when I parked and came back to the car.
 
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