Gravity Orders Discussion

[Blue Lectroid]

Nicely done! Preconditioning, running no HVAC, cruise control at 73 feels a little hypermile-y, but kudos to having the patience to do all that!

Kind of unrelated...but since you seem to be very efficiency minded...what kind of lifetime efficiency were you seeing on your Model 3? I understand it is a smaller and lighter car, so I'm not trying to discredit your Lucid numbers.

Funny, it was decidedly NOT a hypermile-y drive as on the way back home I had a friend with me who had never been in an EV (amazing to me in 2025, but there it is). He got the obligatory occasional hard accelerations at a couple of stoplights, going from 45mph coming off an on-ramp to 100mph...stupid stuff like that. That said, on long drives I have fun trying to be reasonably efficient...why electricity unnecessarily as long as you're having fun and it's not feeling like your sacrificing anything? Since my passenger knew nothing about EV's I asked him several times if the climate was ok in the car and he answered "perfect." He is NOT the suffer silent type!

With regard to my 2018 M3P? My lifetime average over just shy of 69,000 miles was 260 Wh/mi. I believe the car's EPA rating was based on assuming 250 Wh/mi. Of note, the first roughly 35,000 miles were on the stock 20" wheels that came on the Performance but with Michelin all season rubber. All mileage after that was on a set of forged 18" wheels and Continental all season rubber. Prior to making the switch I was average more like 268 Wh/mi. With the 18" wheels it was 252 Wh/mi.

 

[hmp10]

When I bought my 2022 Model X Plaid, charging performance improved significantly, shaving about 12 minutes off what had previously been a reliable 45 minute window. As a result, I've de-coupled meals from my charging window, and now just eat wherever I want (for as long as I want -- and am happier), then push off. Charging stops are now just for restroom breaks -- the quicker the better. Since this is now my 'normal', I'm looking forward to the even better charging performance in the Gravity.

I get that. As I said, I'm probably an outlier in my view on this.

Frankly, though, I have lost far more time on road trips dealing with charging stalls being out of service, shutting off charging prematurely, dispensing power at a snail's pace than I have ever lost due to Lucid's charging curve.

While the opening of Superchargers to Lucid is welcome news, we have also watched waits for an opening get longer and longer at some Superchargers even before they were opened to other brands. One of the reasons we no longer take our Tesla to Miami is the constant overcrowding of Superchargers there and, unlike our Air, it won't make it there and back on a single charge.

It's great that the Gravity promises a more robust charging curve but, for me at least, it's like handing me a bottle of aspirin for a rattlesnake bite. There is still so much that needs to be done with the charging infrastructure itself.

 

[momo3605]

I get that. As I said, I'm probably an outlier in my view on this.

Frankly, though, I have lost far more time on road trips dealing with charging stalls being out of service, shutting off charging prematurely, dispensing power at a snail's pace than I have ever lost due to Lucid's charging curve.

While the opening of Superchargers to Lucid is welcome news, we have also watched waits for an opening get longer and longer at some Superchargers even before they were opened to other brands. One of the reasons we no longer take our Tesla to Miami is the constant overcrowding of Superchargers there and, unlike our Air, it won't make it there and back on a single charge.

It's great that the Gravity promises a more robust charging curve but, for me at least, it's like handing me a bottle of aspirin for a rattlesnake bite. There is still so much that needs to be done with the charging infrastructure itself.

Isn’t overcrowding of EA like a million times worse than Superchargers? I don’t know…at least in CA, I dread having to go to an EA stall. Superchargers are all empty around here. EA every stall is full with a waitlist all day and broken stalls.

I feel like 2 years ago, EA wasn’t so bad. I used to tell prospective buyers that EA wasn’t as bad as they had heard. But now…the number of non-Teslas keeps increasing and they’ve basically stopped building new stations or adding stalls. It’s always aggravating to see EA with 4 stalls and a line next to a Supercharger with 12 stalls and half of them are empty lol

 

[Elfin]

Isn’t overcrowding of EA like a million times worse than Superchargers? I don’t know…at least in CA, I dread having to go to an EA stall. Superchargers are all empty around here. EA every stall is full with a waitlist all day and broken stalls.

I feel like 2 years ago, EA wasn’t so bad. I used to tell prospective buyers that EA wasn’t as bad as they had heard. But now…the number of non-Teslas keeps increasing and they’ve basically stopped building new stations or adding stalls. It’s always aggravating to see EA with 4 stalls and a line next to a Supercharger with 12 stalls and half of them are empty lol

Yeah, I've only had to wait for a Supercharger once in 6 years of ownership (I do about 30% of my charging at Superchargers). I only use Superchargers on road trips though, in town the popular ones can fill up.

 

[BS8899]

Isn’t overcrowding of EA like a million times worse than Superchargers? I don’t know…at least in CA, I dread having to go to an EA stall. Superchargers are all empty around here. EA every stall is full with a waitlist all day and broken stalls.

I feel like 2 years ago, EA wasn’t so bad. I used to tell prospective buyers that EA wasn’t as bad as they had heard. But now…the number of non-Teslas keeps increasing and they’ve basically stopped building new stations or adding stalls. It’s always aggravating to see EA with 4 stalls and a line next to a Supercharger with 12 stalls and half of them are empty lol

I think part of EA's crowding came from "free charging". On several occasions when I was at the SF Harrison St. EA "Flagship Charging Station", I walked around and looked at who is actually paying for their charging. The Flagship station has twenty 350kW DCFC. On the occasions I surveyed (3X), 85+ percent of the EVs charging were on "Free Charge".

 

[BS8899]

I think part of EA's crowding came from "free charging". On several occasions when I was at the SF Harrison St. EA "Flagship Charging Station", I walked around and looked at who is actually paying for their charging. The Flagship station has twenty 350kW DCFC. On the occasions I surveyed (3X), 85+ percent of the EVs charging were on "Free Charge".

I am not throwing stones. I was also on "Free Charge" at EA with my AGT. I have Lucid free charge till Oct (or is it Nov?).

I have to pay for my Rivian charging. I don't go to EA. I try to go to Rivian's RAN charger. Significantly cheaper (for Rivians), not as crowded, and great chargers!

 

[hmp10]

Isn’t overcrowding of EA like a million times worse than Superchargers? I don’t know…at least in CA, I dread having to go to an EA stall. Superchargers are all empty around here. EA every stall is full with a waitlist all day and broken stalls.

EA is definitely worse, partly because their locations seldom have more than four charging posts (8 stalls) and at least one or two are almost always out of service. We don't usually take our Tesla beyond the greater Miami area, and the Superchargers there often have waiting lines, sometimes quite long ones. There are two relatively new Supercharger installations near us. One is a very large charging plaza at a huge outlet mall in Estero (near Ft. Myers) with over twenty Supercharger stalls and about a dozen Level 2 charging posts. It's often very busy but never quite full. The other is at a Target store in Naples with about eight charging stations. It's near our home, so we don't use it. But we often see cars waiting for a space when we drive by.

I feel like 2 years ago, EA wasn’t so bad. I used to tell prospective buyers that EA wasn’t as bad as they had heard. But now…the number of non-Teslas keeps increasing and they’ve basically stopped building new stations or adding stalls. It’s always aggravating to see EA with 4 stalls and a line next to a Supercharger with 12 stalls and half of them are empty lol

On the East Coast we have found the EA situation went from atrocious to merely dodgy over the past year or so but has recently seemed to revert to atrocious in some locations. Orlando, for instance, is an EA nightmare. Even when we were still in our 3-year free charging window, we sometimes sought out CargePoint to avoid EA issues. To me, EA is the Comcast of charging providers, and that's not a good thing.

 

[momo3605]

I think part of EA's crowding came from "free charging". On several occasions when I was at the SF Harrison St. EA "Flagship Charging Station", I walked around and looked at who is actually paying for their charging. The Flagship station has twenty 350kW DCFC. On the occasions I surveyed (3X), 85+ percent of the EVs charging were on "Free Charge".

Seems like free charging benefits have been ending. Most OEMs if any are doing like a fixed number of kw free. Like 2025 Lucid is 1000kwh free, which would just be a few months at an average 12k/month. Same with BMW, and others. The free 3 year deals for sure are all done I think.

I think the free charging people are slowly decreasing but it’s being offset by continuous EV growth and EA not keeping up

 

[flarbear]

I have 2 favorite charge+eat stops between Northern and Souther California.

The Harris Ranch is on I5 where I can grab a steak meal while I charge to 100% on slow 150kw chargers. There is a new very large bank of 250kw chargers installed across the street now that grabs the attention of all of the road trippers so the slower chargers in the parking lot of the Harris Ranch complex are very uncongested and rarely subject to idle charges.

The other stop is the Madonna Inn on the way north along the coast at San Luis Obispo. The restaurant there is really a trip, and according to my friends who've stayed there, the rooms are even more fun with many different themes. These chargers are 250kw.

Checking the NACS map it looks like the slow chargers at Harris Ranch are not open to NACS partners (probably too old), but the new bank of faster chargers about 50 yards away is. The Madonna Inn superchargers are also not open to NACS. Though there are NACS chargers near the Madonna Inn, it kind of defeats the efficiency of dining there while you charge.

 

[DeaneG]

I have 2 favorite charge+eat stops between Northern and Souther California.

The Harris Ranch is on I5 where I can grab a steak meal while I charge to 100% on slow 150kw chargers. There is a new very large bank of 250kw chargers installed across the street now that grabs the attention of all of the road trippers so the slower chargers in the parking lot of the Harris Ranch complex are very uncongested and rarely subject to idle charges.

This one location tells the story between Tesla and EA: 98 Tesla stalls with 98-99% uptime vs. 6 EA stalls with about 75% uptime.

 

[HariK]

I just saw this thread and it is an EA thread now. In CA, when I looked a couple of days ago the ratio of CCS cars per port is 4 times that of Tesla cars per Tesla port. If all the CCS cars in CA go to Tesla, then that ratio will get worse for Tesla folks and improve for CCS folks. If I remember correctly, there are about 2k Tesla cars on the road in CA per NACS port vs 8k CCS cars on the road per 1 CCS port. Yes, once the "free" charging ends, I do expect to see all the chargers in the metro areas to be less congested but it will be a problem on the highways. I think for EVs to reach the level of availability of gas stations it may take at least 5 more years in CA.

 

[HC_79]

This one location tells the story between Tesla and EA: 98 Tesla stalls with 98-99% uptime vs. 6 EA stalls with about 75% uptime.

The EA chargers at that location are horrendous.

 

[Bobby]

Let’s please keep this thread on topic of Gravity orders. There are plenty of other threads about Electrify America.