Grand Touring Test Drive Experience - Feb 7, 2022

slushy

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Cars
Grand Air Touring
Yesterday I test drove a Grand Touring model at the West Palm Beach location. Having followed this forum for a few months, I am well aware of the general sentiment of the car thus far – the hardware is great, and the software needs work. I went into the one-hour test drive with a bias of excitement and optimism but left feeling cautious. Very cautious. Here are some notes from my experience::
  • I believe this is the only Grand Touring available to demo East of the Mississippi
  • The Lucid staff who accompanied me was super-nice, and she had a notepad where she was capturing the issues because everything was “pre-production” (I heard that term about 15 times during the drive). By the end of the ride, she probably had a page of notes.
  • Once I got into the car, I was told the navigation, radio, and Alexa wasn’t working
  • Whenever the car came to a stop, it regularly made a loud clunking sound when I reengaged the car, which was probably the brake releasing.
  • I had a heart-pounding moment making a left turn on a busy road with the car abruptly stopping on its own in the middle of oncoming traffic with the electronics freezing for a second. This was a VERY serious safety issue and frankly shattered my confidence in the tech. I had a total loss of control of the vehicle for a few seconds and I’m feeling blessed nothing catastrophic happened to either of us. The Lucid staff said it was probably related to the line markings on the road and the camera.
  • When we returned to the showroom after the drive, they were going to demo the Dolby Atmos audio from a car that has the most updated software. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the car to connect to the internet, so that didn’t work.
In summary, it was quite unfortunate that software glitches hampered my enthusiasm for this vehicle. I am really glad I did a test drive but will have to take another one before they receive any money beyond my deposit. It’s early days, I get that, but I don’t want to spend this much money until I see more progress. After the test drive, I drove back to my hotel in a $25,000 Nissan Sentra rental car that was much more enjoyable – it worked well with no uncertainty.
 
Thanks for your input. Lucid should really dump the preproduction models except for static display because you only get to make a first impression once. They should take the first day of GT production ( with the latest software) and ship those cars to various regions for test drives. Who knows, maybe they are but potential customers should not be treated to a smorgasbord of glitches. My Tesla would occasionally phantom brake but the car would not shut off and I could always override with the accelerator. That is concerning.
 
Hmmm. I called the West Palm Beach Studio yesterday to try to schedule a test drive for mid-March, when I'm going to be in that area. I was told that someone would call me back to schedule my test drive. Haven't heard anything back yet. After your experience with the car stopping abruptly on its own, I wonder if Lucid is trying to figure out exactly what happened here before allowing more test drives of the West Palm Beach vehicle.
 
Once I got into the car, I was told the navigation, radio, and Alexa wasn’t working
  • Whenever the car came to a stop, it regularly made a loud clunking sound when I reengaged the car, which was probably the brake releasing.
  • I had a heart-pounding moment making a left turn on a busy road with the car abruptly stopping on its own in the middle of oncoming traffic with the electronics freezing for a second. This was a VERY serious safety issue and frankly shattered my confidence in the tech. I had a total loss of control of the vehicle for a few seconds and I’m feeling blessed nothing catastrophic happened to either of us. The Lucid staff said it was probably related to the line markings on the road and the camera.
  • When we returned to the showroom after the drive, they were going to demo the Dolby Atmos audio from a car that has the most updated software. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the car to connect to the internet, so that didn’t work.
In summary, it was quite unfortunate that software glitches hampered my enthusiasm for this vehicle. I am really glad I did a test drive but will have to take another one before they receive any money beyond my deposit. It’s early days, I get that, but I don’t want to spend this much money until I see more progress. After the test drive, I drove back to my hotel in a $25,000 Nissan Sentra rental car that was much more enjoyable – it worked well with no uncertainty.
Yikes! I haven't heard of that happening to anyone on the forum, but that's pretty scary nonetheless. I also don't understand why the GT didn't have the navigation or radio working when it's working in other cars. The GT follows the DE, so it's not like this is the first implementation of the nav or radio. Odd.
 
Yesterday I test drove a Grand Touring model at the West Palm Beach location. Having followed this forum for a few months, I am well aware of the general sentiment of the car thus far – the hardware is great, and the software needs work. I went into the one-hour test drive with a bias of excitement and optimism but left feeling cautious. Very cautious. Here are some notes from my experience::
  • I believe this is the only Grand Touring available to demo East of the Mississippi
  • The Lucid staff who accompanied me was super-nice, and she had a notepad where she was capturing the issues because everything was “pre-production” (I heard that term about 15 times during the drive). By the end of the ride, she probably had a page of notes.
  • Once I got into the car, I was told the navigation, radio, and Alexa wasn’t working
  • Whenever the car came to a stop, it regularly made a loud clunking sound when I reengaged the car, which was probably the brake releasing.
  • I had a heart-pounding moment making a left turn on a busy road with the car abruptly stopping on its own in the middle of oncoming traffic with the electronics freezing for a second. This was a VERY serious safety issue and frankly shattered my confidence in the tech. I had a total loss of control of the vehicle for a few seconds and I’m feeling blessed nothing catastrophic happened to either of us. The Lucid staff said it was probably related to the line markings on the road and the camera.
  • When we returned to the showroom after the drive, they were going to demo the Dolby Atmos audio from a car that has the most updated software. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the car to connect to the internet, so that didn’t work.
In summary, it was quite unfortunate that software glitches hampered my enthusiasm for this vehicle. I am really glad I did a test drive but will have to take another one before they receive any money beyond my deposit. It’s early days, I get that, but I don’t want to spend this much money until I see more progress. After the test drive, I drove back to my hotel in a $25,000 Nissan Sentra rental car that was much more enjoyable – it worked well with no uncertainty.

For what it’s worth, the only time my DE had ever come to an abrupt stop was when I had that emergency braking while parking feature on, and it was off by default and I immediately turned it off after it braked abruptly the first time. In the latest version of the software, that feature doesn’t even exist and is removed entirely.

I’ve never lost control of the vehicle.
 
For what it’s worth, the only time my DE had ever come to an abrupt stop was when I had that emergency braking while parking feature on, and it was off by default and I immediately turned it off after it braked abruptly the first time. In the latest version of the software, that feature doesn’t even exist and is removed entirely.

I’ve never lost control of the vehicle.
Same problem with our DE. The car would do an abrupt stop entering our garage. The car thought I was attempting to park and did not have enough space. No issues since the latest 1.1.5 update.
 
Same problem with our DE. The car would do an abrupt stop entering our garage. The car thought I was attempting to park and did not have enough space. No issues since the latest 1.1.5 update.

Yup, that was exactly the situation and feature I’m talking about. It was never a safety issue, but I turned that feature back off immediately. Now the feature doesn’t even exist, since they realized it was too sensitive, heh.

I’ve never had any issues with abrupt stops while driving other than in my garage while parking, and only on the old software.
 
I drove the same pre-production white Air at West Palm Beach on Jan 9 and didn’t experience any of the issues you had except for the clunky sound. Radio was working. But I agree that they should use a newly produced GT instead of that pre-production one. I’m still keeping my GT order and can’t wait to get it in the coming weeks.
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Yesterday I test drove a Grand Touring model at the West Palm Beach location. Having followed this forum for a few months, I am well aware of the general sentiment of the car thus far – the hardware is great, and the software needs work. I went into the one-hour test drive with a bias of excitement and optimism but left feeling cautious. Very cautious. Here are some notes from my experience::
  • I believe this is the only Grand Touring available to demo East of the Mississippi
  • The Lucid staff who accompanied me was super-nice, and she had a notepad where she was capturing the issues because everything was “pre-production” (I heard that term about 15 times during the drive). By the end of the ride, she probably had a page of notes.
  • Once I got into the car, I was told the navigation, radio, and Alexa wasn’t working
  • Whenever the car came to a stop, it regularly made a loud clunking sound when I reengaged the car, which was probably the brake releasing.
  • I had a heart-pounding moment making a left turn on a busy road with the car abruptly stopping on its own in the middle of oncoming traffic with the electronics freezing for a second. This was a VERY serious safety issue and frankly shattered my confidence in the tech. I had a total loss of control of the vehicle for a few seconds and I’m feeling blessed nothing catastrophic happened to either of us. The Lucid staff said it was probably related to the line markings on the road and the camera.
  • When we returned to the showroom after the drive, they were going to demo the Dolby Atmos audio from a car that has the most updated software. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the car to connect to the internet, so that didn’t work.
In summary, it was quite unfortunate that software glitches hampered my enthusiasm for this vehicle. I am really glad I did a test drive but will have to take another one before they receive any money beyond my deposit. It’s early days, I get that, but I don’t want to spend this much money until I see more progress. After the test drive, I drove back to my hotel in a $25,000 Nissan Sentra rental car that was much more enjoyable – it worked well with no uncertainty.

Same here - test drove at the Torrance studio few weeks ago, and several things didn't work correctly: door handle stuck, AC made crazy loud noise, UI lagging in navigation (which was very basic), along with a bunch of other alarm messages (unwarranted). All were told as pre-production problems that would be addressed in production cars.

Given demo cars should make the 10/10 impression, still don't know why Lucid would not want to show the latest car (many of the problems we encountered all seem to be solved in the latest software).
 
Same here - test drove at the Torrance studio few weeks ago, and several things didn't work correctly: door handle stuck, AC made crazy loud noise, UI lagging in navigation (which was very basic), along with a bunch of other alarm messages (unwarranted). All were told as pre-production problems that would be addressed in production cars.

Given demo cars should make the 10/10 impression, still don't know why Lucid would not want to show the latest car (many of the problems we encountered all seem to be solved in the latest software).
Because everyone is demanding test drives...haha, plus the pre-production cars, from what I was told, are also the cars they use to train people on repairs and are constantly being upgraded with parts and testing. Lucid should stop using these as test drive cars and just make people wait but we can already see how impatient people are on this forum with test drives...no win situation
 
Yup, that was exactly the situation and feature I’m talking about. It was never a safety issue, but I turned that feature back off immediately. Now the feature doesn’t even exist, since they realized it was too sensitive, heh.

I’ve never had any issues with abrupt stops while driving other than in my garage while parking, and only on the old software.
Was this the Comfort Braking setting? Now, it's gone?
 
For what it’s worth, the only time my DE had ever come to an abrupt stop was when I had that emergency braking while parking feature on, and it was off by default and I immediately turned it off after it braked abruptly the first time. In the latest version of the software, that feature doesn’t even exist and is removed entirely.

I’ve never lost control of the vehicle.
I’d like them to bring it back and forth stop at say 2-3 inches at low speeds. THAT would be useful, especially in a garage
 
I’d like them to bring it back and forth stop at say 2-3 inches at low speeds. THAT would be useful, especially in a garage
I mean 2-3 inches is a little tight lol maybe 6. I honestly didn't even notice it gone. Should have just set it to off by default and let owners turn it on if they wanted it.
 
Great to hear that you liked the hardware, the nice thing is software is a lot easier to fix than hardware issues.
 
I’d like them to bring it back and forth stop at say 2-3 inches at low speeds. THAT would be useful, especially in a garage
I can see some utility in that feature and I agree with @Paladin732. But how does the car differentiate between trying to fit into a tight parking spot vs taking an unprotected left turn and stopping in the middle of the intersection (like what happened to OP)? That's the scary part and from everything I've read on this forum, my trust in their software is only headed in the downward direction. I really hope I'm proven wrong.
 
I mean 2-3 inches is a little tight lol maybe 6. I honestly didn't even notice it gone. Should have just set it to off by default and let owners turn it on if they wanted it.
I'm ok with 6 also. The reason I suggested 2-3 is a "EMERGENCY DON'T BREAK YOUR CAR!!!!". 6 would also work.

My garage is pretty tight, it is 20x20 and having a taycan and a lucid in there makes it that both cars complain they have no space, and their cameras don't work well in such tight spots.
This is further complicated by the fact I have a 90-degree turn to get into my garage because we are on a shared driveway with 6 houses (That I'm pretty sure is the legal minimum in width apart). It currently requires a 40-pt turn to get the car into the garage.
 
I can see some utility in that feature and I agree with @Paladin732. But how does the car differentiate between trying to fit into a tight parking spot vs taking an unprotected left turn and stopping in the middle of the intersection (like what happened to OP)? That's the scary part and from everything I've read on this forum, my trust in their software is only headed in the downward direction. I really hope I'm proven wrong.
If you have it at a super narrow distance, that realistically shouldn't matter, should it? Could also always geofence it.
 
In the Bay Area, I was able to schedule a test drive without any drama. Test drives are available at both their Milbrae and San Jose locations. The sales advisor who reached out to me after I made my reservation set it up - but it wasn't automatic, I had to ask him.
 
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