Hands free Drive Assist! Jul 30. Air first!

[coma24]

Lucid Motors 2025 : Lucid Adds Hands-Free Drive Assist and Hands-Free Lane Change Assist as Next Step in ADAS / AD Roadmap

Lucid Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID), maker of the world’s most advanced electric vehicles, today announced a major update to its DreamDrive® Pro suite of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) to deliver Hands-Free Drive Assist and Hands-Free Lane Change Assist1 to its award-winning lineup of...

media.lucidmotors.com

Can't believe it's being released for the Air first. How exciting!

 

[FathomBlueStealt]

WOW!!!

Lucid is on a roll!!!! I love the focus and momentum on the software front!! Drive Assist lane change, Android Auto, processor hardware upgrade option, and now Handsfree Drive Assist! I love it!! Hopefully dashcam/sentry mode is right around the corner!

Keep up the great work!

 

[Yenaphe]

Ohhhh sweet !!!

 

[ViperSSD]

Wow, somewhat unexpected

 

[illopp00]

I have to say the eye tracking for Traffic stop/start worked really well for me in DD Pro so it seems logical to extend it to Drive Assist on the highway. Unfortunately, July 30th means I will be on the last leg of my 2200-mile road trip this summer, and although my car has been getting updates faster it probably won't be available for a thorough test...

 

[David R.]

Lucid Motors 2025 : Lucid Adds Hands-Free Drive Assist and Hands-Free Lane Change Assist as Next Step in ADAS / AD Roadmap

Lucid Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID), maker of the world’s most advanced electric vehicles, today announced a major update to its DreamDrive® Pro suite of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) to deliver Hands-Free Drive Assist and Hands-Free Lane Change Assist1 to its award-winning lineup of...

media.lucidmotors.com

Can't believe it's being released for the Air first. How exciting!

Good news, thanks Lucid! I am glad that I got Dream Drive Pro.

 

[fadooly]

Christmas came early

 

[newlucidguy]

this is awesome, looking forward to it!! safe to assume it'll need the eye detection to ensure you're focused on the road? (asking as mine struggles sometimes with my sunglasses that are gradient but not polarized). regardless, this is an amazing accomplishment.

 

[coma24]

WOW!!!

Lucid is on a roll!!!! I love the focus and momentum on the software front!! Drive Assist lane change, Android Auto, processor hardware upgrade option, and now Handsfree Drive Assist! I love it!! Hopefully dashcam/sentry mode is right around the corner!

Keep up the great work!

I share your enthusiasm. However, while there was a plethora of evidence that hands free Drive Assist was being actively developed across two separate owner events that I attended, I don't get the sense that dashcam/sentry is right around the corner.

As much as we've all been waiting for hands free, it's less of a 'capability' than it is 'being unlocked,' as a result of regulatory compliance hurdles being overcome, afaik. It's not actually doing that it wasn't capable of before. It's allowed hands free driving for short stints, but has required you to torque the wheel every now to show that you're actively participating. The actual driving capability isn't changing, afaik (unless they're adding net new features to the drive assist capability).

Sentry mode is a different animal. It requires multiple new interface options, configuration options, actively eats up storage, needs to provide a way for you to extract footage. It might also require a new vehicle state to be built where everything is off (not consuming power), except Sentry mode actively reading from the cameras and writing to storage. To that end, that will use SOME power, which means 'phantom drain', which means the UI will likely need to support geo-fencing where it's disabled if the car is at home, parked in the garage. Many users might only want it enabled while they're out and about and parked somewhere other than their house. Others might park outside at their house and want it enabled 24/7. Many uses cases to support.

All of that to say, hands free really feels like a step up for us (and it is, in terms of practical functionality),but from a feature development standpoint, it was little more than taking the shackles off the existing system, which was already doing the underlying thing we wanted....driving on its own on freeways, whereas Dashcam/Sentry is another animal (particularly Sentry).

@borski do you have any takes on any of the above, or do you have any awareness of where they are in terms of developing that functionality?

 

[coma24]

this is awesome, looking forward to it!! safe to assume it'll need the eye detection to ensure you're focused on the road? (asking as mine struggles sometimes with my sunglasses that are gradient but not polarized). regardless, this is an amazing accomplishment.

Yes, the eye tracking is likely a requirement for regulatory compliance. Hands-free is not meant to imply that you don't need to monitor the system at all. My guess is they wouldn't be allowed to release the feature without the eye tracking capability. This was also referenced at the owner event on Long Island last year when I was asking informally about hands free development (they were pretty excited to speak about it at the time). As it got closer to release, they got a lot more cagey (2nd owners event) because of the earnings call was coming up soon. They all but said, "we'd love to tell you, but we can't tell you," which, between that and the body language, was enough to know it was getting close. And...here we are, a couple of months later.

 

[MGRMLN]

As much as I like to actively pilot my AGT, I'm looking forward to hands free for the upper to bumper slog that makes up most of Atlanta's driving.

 

[coma24]

Wow, somewhat unexpected

It's great news, but all the signs were there that it was coming relatively soon. The tough part was knowing HOW soon. So, I guess in that regard it was unexpected that they have put out a release with a firm date. Very exciting and a huge, huge step forward. I've put on 17k miles in just over a year and find the current Drive Assist to fall short in terms of convenience simply because you always have to keep a hand there, or remember to periodically put your hand there. Lately, I end up using Adaptive Cruise instead...but that will absolutely change if I can truly go hands free. I am 100% happy to watch the road and pay attention....it would just be nice to have hands comfortably on my lap and chill out, ready to take over if there's an issue.

The thing that's going to require some discipline is not getting on the phone to start answering emails on long stretches of open road. We shall see. The number of distracted driver alerts would be fascinating to see on the back end! They're about to sky rocket.

 

[coma24]

I feel bad for Customer Care. Phone boards are going to light up on Jul 30 on 12:01am...."well!!?!?! Where is it?!!"

I've not been in a rush for the last few updates, especially 2.7.1, but it's going to be TOUGH to sit tight for what I assume will be 2.8.0. Mercifully, while I used to typically wait 10-14 days for my car to get pushed a release, my sense is some of the releases are getting pushed out in bigger batches. Anyone else notice a change in when they're being offered the patch? 2.7.1 was within 48hrs for me.

 

[segbrk]

Anyone else notice a change in when they're being offered the patch? 2.7.1 was within 48hrs for me.

Smaller updates have often gone out faster. Makes sense, less risk of breaking things when all that was added (if you believe the release notes) was diagnostics.

 

[McGriddle]

This is great news! Thanks for sharing. It's great to see Lucid executing on promised features.

 

[idiot900]

However, while there was a plethora of evidence that hands free Drive Assist was being actively developed across two separate owner events that I attended, I don't get the sense that dashcam/sentry is right around the corner.

At the owner event I attended, they were indeed pretty cagey about hands free Drive Assist. I'm surprised to see it so soon based on how they answered these questions.

 

[MorganB]

I feel bad for Customer Care. Phone boards are going to light up on Jul 30 on 12:01am...."well!!?!?! Where is it?!!"

I've not been in a rush for the last few updates, especially 2.7.1, but it's going to be TOUGH to sit tight for what I assume will be 2.8.0. Mercifully, while I used to typically wait 10-14 days for my car to get pushed a release, my sense is some of the releases are getting pushed out in bigger batches. Anyone else notice a change in when they're being offered the patch? 2.7.1 was within 48hrs for me.

Exactly this. I would be shocked if they blanket rolled out the update to the entire Lucid Air fleet on July 30th. The press release should have said the roll out is scheduled to begin on the 30th with a gradual roll out to existing owners over x amount of time. RIP customer service.

 

[coma24]

At the owner event I attended, they were indeed pretty cagey about hands free Drive Assist. I'm surprised to see it so soon based on how they answered these questions.

I took the cagey-ness to imply that it was definitely coming, and not too far away, lol.

 

[Chrome]

Sentry mode is a different animal. It requires multiple new interface options, configuration options, actively eats up storage, needs to provide a way for you to extract footage. It might also require a new vehicle state to be built where everything is off (not consuming power), except Sentry mode actively reading from the cameras and writing to storage. To that end, that will use SOME power, which means 'phantom drain', which means the UI will likely need to support geo-fencing where it's disabled if the car is at home, parked in the garage. Many users might only want it enabled while they're out and about and parked somewhere other than their house. Others might park outside at their house and want it enabled 24/7. Many uses cases to support.

Thank you for acknowledging this and letting others know about the massive undertaking that is "implementing Sentry Mode". Yes, the Air has cameras, and effectively none of the other elements that are required to provide a customer with a fully-functional, park-and-forget, sensitivity-adjustable, remotely-viewable, BMS-compatible, geo-fenced, 24/7, 360° surveillance system.

As for Hands-Free Drive Assist, I only hope that the Air's ADAS has seen a massive improvement over the arguably dangerous Out of Spec showcase from six months ago. After seeing that video and reading several posts concerning "phantom braking", I haven't touched Drive Assist. Thankfully, I'd rather be the one driving the Air 99% of the time anyway.

 

[lucidtouringman]

this is awesome, looking forward to it!! safe to assume it'll need the eye detection to ensure you're focused on the road? (asking as mine struggles sometimes with my sunglasses that are gradient but not polarized). regardless, this is an amazing accomplishment.

I have the same concern/question as well! Hopefully my Ray Bans prove to be a surmountable challenge! For me the eye tracking/detection has been hit or miss with sunglasses on...which stands to reason because its not sunglasses tracking..but eye tracking....hopefully Lucid has already thought of this...