Gravity Bugs / Issues

[borski]

I’m only posting this because this is an issue I haven’t seen on this thread, and it’s a pretty big one.

I took delivery of a GDE (#19) a couple weeks ago and immediately had many of the same ‘minor’ issues many others have had with saving profiles, fobs intermittently working, etc. These things, while unacceptable for a premium vehicle, didn’t really bother me because the car is such a joy to drive.

About a week ago, I felt a slight bump/disengagement in the drivetrain after moving from a stop light. Electronic Stability Control (ESC) orange warning popped up and driving speed was immediately limited to 50 mph. ESC apparently impacts a host of other things so ‘brake hold unavailable’ and ‘Dreamdrive unavailable’ and some other orange warnings also popped up.

I called customer care and did a level 2 reset but that did not fix the issue. The car is now in the local service center and the shop foreman basically told me it would likely ‘take some time’ to be fixed due to parts shortages.

The car still has temp tags on it and I’ve put more miles on the loaner (Air Pure, great car by the way, 5 miles/kWh) than I have on my GDE.

Like everyone else who has had issues, I am disappointed in Lucid because I expected them to have learned something from problems with the Air, which I had leased from 2023-2025.

But, despite all these issues, I am actually more hopeful than angry because the driving dynamics on my GDE are still magnitudes better than anything else, even with the ESC failure. Also helps that the loaner is no slouch. Being an early adopter is always an adventure which I guess is the whole motivation for being an early adopter.

I hope Lucid can navigate the tough times and I can’t wait to get the car back.

That sucks. As you’re sick and tired of hearing me say, but it bears mentioning - we haven’t seen this issue either.

I’m very hopeful it is a one-off.

 

[borski]

None of this works. After closing last night - it’s now just stuck half open and unresponsive. Boo. On a road trip, so someone gets wind and now have to have front window open to avoid annoying sound. Once we park, it will get a nice bag over it to protect from rain. Could be worse, but bummer for a six figure car in first road trip…

Okay, then that’s definitely a different issue than the one the GT had.

 

[Bus Driver]

I guess I’m ok if they don’t achieve Tesla or GM volume. It’s not that kind of thing. Weird but seductive works for me more than popular even if it’s not the best financial strategy. As long as they can stay in business that’s good enough for me.

I’m not at all looking forward to the day that Lucid achieves Tesla or GM volume. Model Ys are now so ubiquitous they’ve become the 2020s version of Rodney Dangerfield’s “Can’t Get No Respect.”

It was when Tesla hit the mass market with the Model 3 and the Model Y that they lost their exclusivity and along many other things, their “white glove customer service”. It just wasn’t feasible to provide that level of service for millions more auto buyers.

I liken the mass market, down market direction of Tesla (and probably Lucid, if they hope to survive longterm), to the airline industry after deregulation in 1978 - these days air travel is not that expensive anymore, and is within reach of just about anybody with a pulse and a debit card. But these days, air travel also really kinda sucks.

 

[hmp10]

I am hopeful that they will resolve this key fob and other issues in the next 12 months or so. These are far from unsolvable issues. If they can do so, launch the $50K+ mid-tier SUV by late 2026 and also sign some tech licensing deal with a legacy automaker (to pay for their investments), then they will have made it!

I am convinced most of these issues will be resolved in the next 12 months or so -- with both new Gravities being delivered without these issues and earlier-production cars being satisfactorily fixed. It's the same trajectory Lucid and early owners traveled with the Air. The first 10 months with our Air Dream Performance was the same Jekyll/Hyde experience of an intoxicatingly superb driving machine that just hammered us with an almost daily parade of ever-changing issues and a calendar that always had an upcoming service visit on it. We now have an early-production Air that almost never gives us any trouble, whose design and engineering still haven't been surpassed by any other manufacturer, whose interior still looks brand new, and whose structure remains a rock-solid vault.

It's the reason we're sticking for now with our plans to take delivery of a second Gravity Dream, probably in a couple of months.

But I'm worried and frustrated that four years after putting its first car on the market, this entire trajectory -- almost every detail of it right down to key fob issues (which haven't yet been entirely eradicated with the Air) -- is repeating. There is one worrisome difference this time around, though. I am seeing signs of a service network under stress that I did not see in the early months with our Air. It's something that has come to other automakers with their move to higher-volume models (I'm looking at you, Tesla), but it's particularly dicey for an expensive luxury brand that has as many different issues as are surfacing with the Gravity.

And it does not augur well for a further move downward into the mass market where the Earth will land. I think it's getting clearer that a late 2026 introduction is not in the cards, except possibly for another staged "start of delivery" event of a handful of cars to a few insiders followed by a months-long hiatus before deliveries restart . . . and, God forbid, perhaps of cars with key fob issues.

 

[hmp10]

I guess I’m ok if they don’t achieve Tesla or GM volume. It’s not that kind of thing. Weird but seductive works for me more than popular even if it’s not the best financial strategy. As long as they can stay in business that’s good enough for me.

I'd be a happy camper if Lucid tried to follow the Porsche model of being a mid-volume manufacturer of premium, superbly-engineered vehicles with a sport-inspired heritage. But the business plan -- and the capital they've already spent to build manufacturing capacity -- indicates an intent to go further downmarket into a broader customer base.

I still think of the Eric Bach interview a while back in which he said that the Gravity had to avoid the warranty costs they incurred with the Air, an issue I've worried about as an investor as I went through months of early warranty work on our Air. Unfortunately, I'm seeing signs that warranty costs might be just as heavy with the Gravity. In the first seven weeks our Gravity already has had two mobile service visits and had to be transported across the state at Lucid's expense. It's in the shop right now for a new HUD, and probably a new TCU and a new front console. There are reports that front consoles might have to be replaced in numerous cars that are already in the field. This first report of a drive unit failure has come in (we had to replace a battery pack and a drive unit in our Air).

A lot of people are complaining that the Gravity is too expensive. I think its price is remarkably low for the amount of engineering and content in the car, and I think they're producing it at fairly thin margins even if you take amortization costs out of the equation. If the warranty costs of the Air repeat with the Gravity, it will not have done anything to improve the financial picture of the company and might, in fact, worsen it.

 

[Elfin]

No matter how great a vehicle otherwise is, there's a large cohort of buyers who wouldn't touch a car if they knew about this beforehand. And if they find about it only after the purchase, it's a phenomenally efficient way to destroy customer goodwill.

I get slightly enraged when my Model 3 doesn't open when I pull the door handle. Tesla at least has some excuse, they are using bluetooth in a way it was never intended (the standard for phone as key didn't exist when they developed the car.) Proximity keys with dedicated hardware have been flawless on many brands for decades...
No way I'm buying a Gravity until this issue is resolved.

 

[prgarg]

You're right... If you look at their financials, it's costing them $4 to generate $1 in revenue

 

[Batteryman]

You're right... If you look at their financials, it's costing them $4 to generate $1 in revenue

Original cost per car was -450k, its now down to -165k....that is progress.