Free software is limited to 4 years

[nevadagame]

Did everyone know that in the buyers contract (the only one that’s signed by lucid) it clearly says that ota updates are only free during the 4 years of the original vehicle warranty.
Lucid sales people tell you they are for the lifetime of the car, that’s just not true, here’s the clause directly from the buyers contract, the only one that counts.

 

[nevadagame]

4. Design Changes - Software Updates
The design of the Lucid Air may change at any time without notice and without obligation to make the same or similar changes to Vehicles previously purchased or shipped. Lucid will provide over-the-air software updates for your Vehicle during the term of your Warranty, which may add new features or functionality. After the Warranty expires, future software updates may not be available depending upon the age, model, configuration, or data storage capacity of your Vehicle. You will be responsible for all costs to upgrade any parts or hardware, including labor costs, to receive such future software updates after the Warranty expires. Lucid will not be liable for any issues that arise if software is installed without required upgrades or
if the hardware is damaged or obsolete, unless covered by the warranty

 

[goshen]

Did everyone know that in the buyers contract (the only one that’s signed by lucid) it clearly says that ota updates are only free during the 4 years of the original vehicle warranty.
Lucid sales people tell you they are for the lifetime of the car, that’s just not true, here’s the clause directly from the buyers contract, the only one that counts.

Wow, that’s scary! Unless I read incorrectly somewhere, can someone confirm how long we get the high speed connectivity free as well? Not sure if that is also limited to the first year before it becomes a paid subscription.

 

[hydbob]

Wow, that’s scary! Unless I read incorrectly somewhere, can someone confirm how long we get the high speed connectivity free as well? Not sure if that is also limited to the first year before it becomes a paid subscription.

1 year. Haven't been charged...yet..lol

 

[Tim-in-CA]

4. Design Changes - Software Updates
The design of the Lucid Air may change at any time without notice and without obligation to make the same or similar changes to Vehicles previously purchased or shipped. Lucid will provide over-the-air software updates for your Vehicle during the term of your Warranty, which may add new features or functionality. After the Warranty expires, future software updates may not be available depending upon the age, model, configuration, or data storage capacity of your Vehicle. You will be responsible for all costs to upgrade any parts or hardware, including labor costs, to receive such future software updates after the Warranty expires. Lucid will not be liable for any issues that arise if software is installed without required upgrades or
if the hardware is damaged or obsolete, unless covered by the warranty

I think this is legal CYA so if a future feature requires new HW And you are outside of the warranty term, Lucid is not obliged to upgrade you. I think this is to cover the mess Tesla is in having to upgrade HW on features that are still in development. Slightly differs from Tesla situation, but Lucid is covering their bases.

 

[HC_79]

Best hope Highway Pilot isn’t like Tesla’s “coming next year” and in 4 years time we all miss out on the OTA

 

[SDHacker]

Did everyone know that in the buyers contract (the only one that’s signed by lucid) it clearly says that ota updates are only free during the 4 years of the original vehicle warranty.
Lucid sales people tell you they are for the lifetime of the car, that’s just not true, here’s the clause directly from the buyers contract, the only one that counts.

Technically incorrect. What they state is your car will remain OTA compatible for 4 years guaranteed. Your hardware might remain compatible for 6. But like Tesla, may require a cpu upgrade at some point. I had to replace my iPad because Apple won't update the OS any longer. Same concept except that lucid provides an upgrade path without having to buy a new car.

 

[joec]

Technically incorrect. What they state is your car will remain OTA compatible for 4 years guaranteed. Your hardware might remain compatible for 6. But like Tesla, may require a cpu upgrade at some point. I had to replace my iPad because Apple won't update the OS any longer. Same concept except that lucid provides an upgrade path without having to buy a new car.

This. I wrote a similar answer in the other thread you posted this on. Software updates are not limited to four years. They just might actually have software in four years your car’s computer is too old to run. My old Mac SE from 1986 can’t run the latest Ventura macOS.

This is the reality of computers. And it‘s good Lucid isn‘t pretending otherwise, like some other person we won’t mention.

I agree staff should be trained to explain this properly to customers, though. Otherwise, folks will read this and make faulty assumptions. Or miss this and assume their car will get free hardware updates for life.

 

[tmilone103]

My 2016 Tesla needed MCU upgrade if I wanted new entertainment features that the new vehicle's had. Cost me $2000 to upgrade. You can't expect as technology changes for your hardware to not need an upgrade at some point.

 

[babwine]

4. Design Changes - Software Updates
The design of the Lucid Air may change at any time without notice and without obligation to make the same or similar changes to Vehicles previously purchased or shipped. Lucid will provide over-the-air software updates for your Vehicle during the term of your Warranty, which may add new features or functionality. After the Warranty expires, future software updates may not be available depending upon the age, model, configuration, or data storage capacity of your Vehicle. You will be responsible for all costs to upgrade any parts or hardware, including labor costs, to receive such future software updates after the Warranty expires. Lucid will not be liable for any issues that arise if software is installed without required upgrades or
if the hardware is damaged or obsolete, unless covered by the warranty

The language does not say future OTA's/updates will be charged to owners but rather gives LUCID the "out" to require certain upgrades be made to the car so it can receive new OTA's. Given how fast technology changes, and the unknown requirements needed to accept/receive new software. this seems reasonable for LUCID since it's really impossible to know what future software could bring to our cars and what our cars are capable of receiving. No different from say WINDOWS upgrades to our laptops. After a few WINDOWS updates, many of us ran out of sufficient memory. This seems to me just sensible CYA language. Time will tell.

 

[Shuasha]

My 2016 Tesla needed MCU upgrade if I wanted new entertainment features that the new vehicle's had. Cost me $2000 to upgrade. You can't expect as technology changes for your hardware to not need an upgrade at some point.

Unless you paid for full self driving and they require a hardware upgrade to make it function. There was a small lawsuit won last week (Tesla didn’t show to defend themselves) where someone with a MS sued because they required him to pay for a hardware upgrade after Tesla sold the car to him as “full self driving capable”.

 

[tmilone103]

Unless you paid for full self driving and they require a hardware upgrade to make it function. There was a small lawsuit won last week (Tesla didn’t show to defend themselves) where someone with a MS sued because they required him to pay for a hardware upgrade after Tesla sold the car to him as “full self driving capable”.

The FSD computer upgrade was Free for me. The MCU computer has nothing to do with FSD and that is a paid upgrade if you wanted all the features of the newer cars you needed to pay for that one.

 

[borski]

After the Warranty expires, future software updates may not be available depending upon the age, model, configuration, or data storage capacity of your Vehicle.

The key word there is may. They aren’t saying that after four years you’ll never get updates again. They are saying that after four years there may be some software updates that can’t be applied to your car as your hardware may not support it.

That’s not rocket science or novel; my 2012 Mazda 3 didn’t get CarPlay because it didn’t have an infotainment system compatible with CarPlay. 2014+ models got CarPlay because they did have compatible systems.

 

[GEWC]

Wow, that’s scary! Unless I read incorrectly somewhere, can someone confirm how long we get the high speed connectivity free as well? Not sure if that is also limited to the first year before it becomes a paid subscription.

How is this scary?

 

[goshen]

How is this scary?

Lol…unknown cost of potential hardware upgrade post warranty period.

 

[changinator]

That’s not rocket science or novel; my 2012 Mazda 3 didn’t get CarPlay because it didn’t have an infotainment system compatible with CarPlay. 2014+ models got CarPlay because they did have compatible systems.

I agree to this. We aren't buying quantum computers for our cars. In terms of computing power alone, the hardware will eventually need an upgrade for any car with OTAs. Expecting a car to be compatible with all OTAs in perpetuality is like expecting an iPhone 4 to be compatible with the latest iOS and of its features. I'd be happy enough if Lucid allows for upgrading my Air with future hardware.

 

[HariK]

Do you know why smart phones and routers seem to die after about 4 years? One of the main reasons is flash memory degrades and gets corrupted with multiple re-writes. Frequent read/write cycles cause "wear" and there is some redundancy built in with a technology called wear leveling to minimize wear.
The solution is to replace the flash memory when that happens and re-install the OS. However, operating systems and apps need more memory and CPU for each new release. That means DRAM and CPU need to be replaced as well. I hope the design of the boards in Lucid is modular to allow not just future upgrades but to be able to add new devices such as 5G IOT capability for V2I Vehicle to Infrastructure (traffic signs, lights), V2V (Vehicle to Vehice) etc. At some point, we will have to be prepared to pay for hardware and software upgrades and cannot expect for free just as we replace phones and routers.

 

[borski]

Do you know why smart phones and routers seem to die after about 4 years? One of the main reasons is flash memory degrades and gets corrupted with multiple re-writes. Frequent read/write cycles cause "wear" and there is some redundancy built in with a technology called wear leveling to minimize wear.
The solution is to replace the flash memory when that happens and re-install the OS. However, operating systems and apps need more memory and CPU for each new release. That means DRAM and CPU need to be replaced as well. I hope the design of the boards in Lucid is modular to allow not just future upgrades but to be able to add new devices such as 5G IOT capability for V2I Vehicle to Infrastructure (traffic signs, lights), V2V (Vehicle to Vehice) etc. At some point, we will have to be prepared to pay for hardware and software upgrades and cannot expect for free just as we replace phones and routers.

One of the papers we had to write for a class at MIT (6.033, for those who might wear a rat) was about designing a wear leveling scheme for NAND flash memory / SSD: https://web.mit.edu/6.033/2008/wwwdocs/dp1/index.html

Honestly it was one of my favorite classes of all time. Just look at this syllabus: https://web.mit.edu/6.033/2008/wwwdocs/schedule.html

 

[stratus]

Do you know why smart phones and routers seem to die after about 4 years? One of the main reasons is flash memory degrades and gets corrupted with multiple re-writes. Frequent read/write cycles cause "wear" and there is some redundancy built in with a technology called wear leveling to minimize wear.
The solution is to replace the flash memory when that happens and re-install the OS. However, operating systems and apps need more memory and CPU for each new release. That means DRAM and CPU need to be replaced as well. I hope the design of the boards in Lucid is modular to allow not just future upgrades but to be able to add new devices such as 5G IOT capability for V2I Vehicle to Infrastructure (traffic signs, lights), V2V (Vehicle to Vehice) etc. At some point, we will have to be prepared to pay for hardware and software upgrades and cannot expect for free just as we replace phones and routers.

Thanks for explaining this; it’s extremely useful information.

 

[Shuasha]

The FSD computer upgrade was Free for me. The MCU computer has nothing to do with FSD and that is a paid upgrade if you wanted all the features of the newer cars you needed to pay for that one.

Maybe I'm crazy but isn't the FSD computer mounted to the MCU in the earlier Model S? And if you bought FSD, yes it was a free upgrade which is why said "Unless you bought FSD".