First 3 Days …

[Travelguy2500]

Black Dream #138 in fort Lauderdale here. 8th EV (2 volts, 2 Models S, 1 X, 1 3 and currently also have a Model Y and a 2019 Cayenne Plugin.

3 days of mostly local driving - haven’t yet been on the highway. After using my MY as a daily driver for a year, forgot how much heavier a Full size sedan is. That said, pretty quickly used to the Air and it is a dream to drive. The only finish/hardware issue I’ve had is a ver small ‘creak noise’ when the motor first engages - I am only noticing as the driver and if it does go away through regular driving I will get it checked out. Honestly that is it and otherwise the mechanics of the car have been prefect.

software is stipl a work in progress but I had one of the first 150 Telsa S‘s delivered day 1 and had a VIN <100 on my Model X and the Lucinda is no worse than the first Ms and far,far better than the first iteration of the X.

biggest thing I have discovered:

1. phone key does not work reliably. Sometimes I have to open the app to get it to recognize and sometimes it works great. As. Any others have noted, that needs work - not a showstopper more annoying than anything else
2. slow boot times - already noted by many and having to wait extra for nav stinks. At least middle screen and primary rear view boot fastest so you can get underway quickly
3. Cannot save any favorites in the nav
4 can’t answer phone when rings unless you switch to home the press answer. Phone should show in top of those screens when ringing
5 not being able to keep nav on top and radio in bottom or otherwise mix content between top and bottom screen is dumb - assume that’s an up Ong fix
6 streaming controls about where Tesla was day 1 - no global favorites, leggy when switching between services - see ‘buffering’ more often than I should
7 car does not recognize loss of Wifi when I leave home. It will show Wifi connected icing on dash and give no interne errors until I manually turn Wifi off them on somcar recognizes Wifi is gone and switches to cellular
can’t save drive type (smooth etc) in profiles - not smart
8 profilemswitching not yet smooth or consistent - often already driving b4 screens show my chosen home/work locations
9 streaming music takes awhile to come back when driving and then randomly picks up where it left off or comes back on pause

those are the ‘biggies’ (so to speak) that impact my daily driving but honestly none a major show stoppers and don’t really detract from my enjoyment of the car
Back seat passengers are in love with the amount of legroomcompared to any other Tesla - even the X. They said S class space/comfort and that is true.

the supplied car maTS stayed clean for 10 minutes - the loomcool but that light beige color is a dirt magnet and anything on your shoes transfers to the mats. I bought some cheapie temp mats on amazon until I can find proper lucid mats. Lucid could have given a better. Quality mat or at least one that is more stain resistant (maybe vinyl or runber) in the nidd
emwhere your feet usually site

final note - beware when closing the frunk. You have to lean over and reach in the press the close button but it then moves really fast - that could be a bad head bang waiting to happen.

overall very, very happy with the vehicle so far

 

[Paladin732]

Only 138?! That’s not promising…

 

[hydbob]

I would suggest using the key fob to close the frunk. Hold and press the fob and you also won't run into phone key issues as much using the key fob.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

I plan on using the fob and only deal with app for charging. Is that possible?

 

[hydbob]

That's what I do. The app right now is worthless for charging also, since plug and charge is working properly.

The only time I use the app is to check the status of the charging.

 

[hmp10]

The app right now is worthless for charging also, since plug and charge is working properly.

Kyle Conner's dad posted a video on "Out of Spec Motoring" yesterday. He was ending a trip to his condo on Marco Island (just south of Naples, FL) and had only 3% charge on his VW ID.4. He arrived at the only EA charging station in the area and found three of the four charging posts malfunctioning. After spending some time on the phone with EA customer service, he was finally able to do some charging at the sole 350kW charger, which he regretted tying up as his car can't charge very quickly. Two other EV's showed up while he was there (an Audi E-Tron and a Hyundai Ioniq 5) with the lone charging position occupied.

And, once again, I was left wondering what this would have been like in a rain storm (which can be daily occurrences for half the year here), as he got in and out of his car, moving from post to post to try out cables and read screens and report to EA what he was seeing.

We still have a very long way to go to make long-distance travel as convenient in an EV as in an ICE vehicle. The fact that not even Tesla bothers to think about weather protection at so many of its charging stations indicates just how primitive things still are on this front. (Three of the four Tesla Superchargers in southwest Florida have no weather protection. At least they usually work seamlessly.)

 

[manitou202]

I saw the video. I'm a bit mixed on the message. It feels like an attempt to be a little over dramatic for views.

Charging infrastructure is a mess and a long road trip in an EV needs to be planned in advance. If he had simply checked the PlugShare rating and reviews, he would have seen that the charger had been down for about a week. This isn't really news. I've had issues at Tesla chargers in the past. They aren't magically immune from problems. Obviously EA has a lot of work to do and needs to improve their reliability, but I've taken multiple long road trips using EA networks and found with some basic planning I had no problems. Check each charging location and read the reviews to make sure they are properly working.

Unfortunately you can't buy an EV an expect to drive it on road trips without some level of education on charging infrastructure. A close friend of my just took his Model Y into some remote areas of Colorado and planned on using a ChargePoint charger. He thought he could simply use the adapter (J1772) that came with his Tesla to plug into the CCS cable. Obviously this doesn't work. He suddenly had to sit at a level 2 charger for a few hours to get enough range to make it to a Tesla SuperCharger.

Until everyone jumps onto a single plug standard (probably CCS) and there is enough coverage with redundancy, it's going to be a bit of the wild west.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

I will be keeping an eye on status of one particular charger in Utah just for this reason.

Can anyone speculate why "free" DC fast chargers don't seem to go down or is this an illusion?

 

[hmp10]

Can anyone speculate why "free" DC fast chargers don't seem to go down or is this an illusion?

It may be that people don't use them often enough to generate many reports of failures. There are almost always several Teslas at Supercharger stations, but I seldom see Teslas plugged in to the Tesla Level 2 chargers around town. I suspect it's the same with CCS Level 2 chargers.

 

[hmp10]

Charging infrastructure is a mess and a long road trip in an EV needs to be planned in advance.

Yes, that is why I said we're still well short of ICE cars in fueling convenience on long road trips.

Over the past few weeks, I've been mapping out charging strategies for the first few trips we're planning in the Lucid Air, and there are several legs where very careful planning using suboptimal routes is required. And even then, I won't know if the charging strategy is viable if we're short on certainty that a station will be functioning. The situation would be somewhat better if we used the Model S Plaid instead, even with its considerably shorter range.

In our ICE cars, we'd just hop in and go, taking the shortest routes in whatever order we wished.

And, yes, maybe Conner would have seen that the EA station in Naples had been down for about a week if he had checked. But that begs the question of why EA was so slow in resolving the problem. I live in Naples, and if you're heading to Marco Island in a EV with range as short as the VW ID.4, there is a dearth of Level 3 CCS charging options for a very wide radius, so I don't know that Conner would have had any other Level 3 charging options.

I posted just before Thanksgiving about a friend in Naples who has an ID.4. He charges at home but was about to take his first road trip over to Fort Lauderdale. As he had not yet tried out an EA station, he drove over to the same one Conner was using to be sure he'd have no problem charging in Fort Lauderdale. He found the EA system unable to recognize his car (which came with 3 years of free charging) and spent 20 minutes on the phone with EA customer service before he was able to get a charge. As a consequence, he switched his hotel reservations in Fort Lauderdale to one with a Level 2 charger, as he was no longer confident he could charge at an EA station over there.

 

[Lucken]

Kyle Conner's dad posted a video on "Out of Spec Motoring" yesterday. He was ending a trip to his condo on Marco Island (just south of Naples, FL) and had only 3% charge on his VW ID.4. He arrived at the only EA charging station in the area and found three of the four charging posts malfunctioning. After spending some time on the phone with EA customer service, he was finally able to do some charging at the sole 350kW charger, which he regretted tying up as his car can't charge very quickly. Two other EV's showed up while he was there (an Audi E-Tron and a Hyundai Ioniq 5) with the lone charging position occupied.

And, once again, I was left wondering what this would have been like in a rain storm (which can be daily occurrences for half the year here), as he got in and out of his car, moving from post to post to try out cables and read screens and report to EA what he was seeing.

We still have a very long way to go to make long-distance travel as convenient in an EV as in an ICE vehicle. The fact that not even Tesla bothers to think about weather protection at so many of its charging stations indicates just how primitive things still are on this front. (Three of the four Tesla Superchargers in southwest Florida have no weather protection. At least they usually work seamlessly.)

I really can't understand why EA chargers seem to be inherently less reliable than Tesla's SCs. It's not just EA, it seems all non-Tesla chargers don't have the same level of reliability.

 

[Paladin732]

I really can't understand why EA chargers seem to be inherently less reliable than Tesla's SCs. It's not just EA, it seems all non-Tesla chargers don't have the same level of reliability.

I believe it is partly around billing.

Tesla has the luxury of allowing you to plug in and charge and bill directly from the car later if there is a network issue getting the superchargers to fully authorize.
EA does not have that luxury.

I still think that Tesla should be required to share the Supercharger network (at reasonable rates, using industry standards) like they are having to do in the EU.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

I believe it is partly around billing.

Tesla has the luxury of allowing you to plug in and charge and bill directly from the car later if there is a network issue getting the superchargers to fully authorize.
EA does not have that luxury.

I still think that Tesla should be required to share the Supercharger network (at reasonable rates, using industry standards) like they are having to do in the EU.

I agree, that is why I made my comment about the "free" DC chargers not having issues. I'm not an EV owner yet but just looking at some of our favorite vacation spots around the country and doing virtual planning I've found most chargers offering free power are rarely down. I've had issues using my watch to pay at some vendors so I can imagine payment networks could be a mess. I've also been wondering if the chargers are hard wired or rely on cellular which is victim to usage and dial in issues.

 

[Sandvinsd]

I agree, that is why I made my comment about the "free" DC chargers not having issues. I'm not an EV owner yet but just looking at some of our favorite vacation spots around the country and doing virtual planning I've found most chargers offering free power are rarely down. I've had issues using my watch to pay at some vendors so I can imagine payment networks could be a mess. I've also been wondering if the chargers are hard wired or rely on cellular which is victim to usage and dial in issues.

Not true. There is a Volta charging station near us and 3 of the 4 units are currently down. Plus, it is virtually impossible to find an open slot when they are operational, mainly because it’s free.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

Not true. There is a Volta charging station near us and 3 of the 4 units are currently down. Plus, it is virtually impossible to find an open slot when they are operational, mainly because it’s free.

Thanks! Are Volta level 2 or DC fast charging? Which makes me think of compact discs when they first came out. They were labeled as scratch proof. But once adopted it was clear they were referring to audiophiles. Which is my question are the J1772 connectors as durable as a gas nozzle?

Are they down because of cable connector abuse or something internal. How about mall turned off power?

 

[manitou202]

Apparently EA uses several third party vendors to build their charging stations. It seems that there are certain versions built by one of the vendors that are very unreliable. The EA chargers that are around me pretty much all have 10 ratings and have been great.

ChargePoint which has great coverage in the remote areas of Colorado has been really reliable. Although they are much slower than the EA chargers.

EA really needs to up their game and repair chargers with a much great sense of urgency. But like I said above, my experience has been relatively good. I've only run into a few minor problems, mostly needing to switch to a different charging stall, but I've never faced a situation where I haven't been able to charge.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

Grearing up to be an EV owner I'm more conscious of chargers. I've seen them thrown on the ground and other abuses. Is this a coal rolling type of thing?

 

[Lucken]

Thanks! Are Volta level 2 or DC fast charging? Which makes me think of compact discs when they first came out. They were labeled as scratch proof. But once adopted it was clear they were referring to audiophiles. Which is my question are the J1772 connectors as durable as a gas nozzle?

Are they down because of cable connector abuse or something internal. How about mall turned off power?

In all the high speed charging I've done as well as charging at home, I've yet to see an issue with the connectors.

 

[Sandvinsd]

Thanks! Are Volta level 2 or DC fast charging? Which makes me think of compact discs when they first came out. They were labeled as scratch proof. But once adopted it was clear they were referring to audiophiles. Which is my question are the J1772 connectors as durable as a gas nozzle?

Are they down because of cable connector abuse or something internal. How about mall turned off power?

They are level 2, J1772 plug. Not sure why they are down as the plugs seem to be intact.

 

[Sandvinsd]

ChargePoint which has great coverage in the remote areas of Colorado has been really reliable. Although they are much slower than the EA chargers.

Most ChargePoint chargers are Level 2 so definitely will be slower. There are some level 3 DC chargers from ChargePoint but they are rare. I have yet to see one in my area.