Interesting design choice

[Fargoboy]

There is a dangerous design flaw in the operation of putting the car in park with my 2023 AGT. I have been driving a Porsche Cayenne for several years. In order to use the windshield washers in the Cayenne, you push in on the right side stalk. This has become “muscle memory “ for me. So twice now, when driving the Lucid I have pushed in on the right side stalk to wash the windshield. The result was not good. Once at low speed (maybe 10 mph), the car skidded to an abrupt stop. Yesterday I made the same mistake at 40 mph. The car shuddered and made a terrible noise. Car works fine, but I’m afraid that there could be some damage not yet apparent. Should there not be a mechanism to prevent this from happening? Like have your foot firmly on the brake before park will engage? Has this happened to anyone else? I believe this should be on the list of important improvements.

 

[fadooly]

I was wondering the same thing couple of days ago and I thought to myself the car will not shift as it make no sense to be able to put it in park or reverse while driving. hhhh i am glad i did not test it.

 

[elusive7]

Someone can chime in if I'm wrong but i recall that being the emergency brake that you triggered. It's mentioned in the owners manual IIRC

 

[Ughwhy]

Pressing park on the stalk is the emergency brake. It doesn't harm anything like it might in an ICE with an automatic transmission where putting it in park is using the transmission to stop turning the output shaft. In the Lucid, its no different than slamming on the brakes. Of course that's not something you want to do when you aren't expecting it. But, at least its not mechanically damaging.

Both my wife and I have accidentally done this before when trying to get the windshield wipers to spray.

 

[Neurio]

There is a dangerous design flaw in the operation of putting the car in park with my 2023 AGT. I have been driving a Porsche Cayenne for several years. In order to use the windshield washers in the Cayenne, you push in on the right side stalk. This has become “muscle memory “ for me. So twice now, when driving the Lucid I have pushed in on the right side stalk to wash the windshield. The result was not good. Once at low speed (maybe 10 mph), the car skidded to an abrupt stop. Yesterday I made the same mistake at 40 mph. The car shuddered and made a terrible noise. Car works fine, but I’m afraid that there could be some damage not yet apparent. Should there not be a mechanism to prevent this from happening? Like have your foot firmly on the brake before park will engage? Has this happened to anyone else? I believe this should be on the list of important improvements.

Actually, it's working as designed. This has also been discussed multiple times already. From the manual:

 

[scal_air]

I have not made that mistake but I haven't owned a Cayenne either. My wife has actived the wipers about 30% of the time she uses the turn signal. Do other cars require you to have the brake engaged before you can put it in park? I can think of problems that might occur with that...

 

[BS8899]

There is a dangerous design flaw in the operation of putting the car in park with my 2023 AGT. I have been driving a Porsche Cayenne for several years. In order to use the windshield washers in the Cayenne, you push in on the right side stalk. This has become “muscle memory “ for me. So twice now, when driving the Lucid I have pushed in on the right side stalk to wash the windshield. The result was not good. Once at low speed (maybe 10 mph), the car skidded to an abrupt stop. Yesterday I made the same mistake at 40 mph. The car shuddered and made a terrible noise. Car works fine, but I’m afraid that there could be some damage not yet apparent. Should there not be a mechanism to prevent this from happening? Like have your foot firmly on the brake before park will engage? Has this happened to anyone else? I believe this should be on the list of important improvements.

Yup, the same thing happened to me!

 

[sri]

There is a dangerous design flaw in the operation of putting the car in park with my 2023 AGT. I have been driving a Porsche Cayenne for several years. In order to use the windshield washers in the Cayenne, you push in on the right side stalk. This has become “muscle memory “ for me. So twice now, when driving the Lucid I have pushed in on the right side stalk to wash the windshield. The result was not good. Once at low speed (maybe 10 mph), the car skidded to an abrupt stop. Yesterday I made the same mistake at 40 mph. The car shuddered and made a terrible noise. Car works fine, but I’m afraid that there could be some damage not yet apparent. Should there not be a mechanism to prevent this from happening? Like have your foot firmly on the brake before park will engage? Has this happened to anyone else? I believe this should be on the list of important improvements.

Is it Porsche Cayenne’s or Lucid Air’s. Both sides can argue, not all Cars use same buttons.

 

[Fargoboy]

Well good to know about the emergency brake! I was wondering about that the other day and meant to look it up. Thanks! Maybe a notice on the screen that the emergency brake has been activated would be nice?

 

[Halodde]

It's not a design flaw. You may not like it or be used to it. But that doesn't make it a design flaw.

 

[jbawden]

Clearly they are out there, but I can't think of a car I have driven with the wiper controls on the right. I think the wiper control flaw is that other than the wash and mist wipe, all other settings are on the touchscreen with zero tactile reference requiring eyeballs for the right setting.

 

[hmp10]

Clearly they are out there, but I can't think of a car I have driven with the wiper controls on the right.

Hondas have the wiper controls on the right stalk, as do some other Japanese makers. In fact, almost all Japanese control devices, from building light switches to water faucets to car controls, are the inverse of what you find on products from most other regions.

 

[AZLucidGuy]

Porsche puts the ignition key on the left side. Is that a "design flaw"? No. I have had several Porsches. It's tradition from manual transmission racing days to have your right hand on the gear shift and your left hand on the ignition key. Muscle memory from virtually every other ICE car puts it on the right. Not flaws in my opinion, just design choices.

 

[WhistleKing30]

Coming from several years of owning a Tesla, I was super happy with the placement of the stalks and functions. Because they are almost identical to the entire Tesla lineup. Instead of calling it a design flaw I'd rather argue that it's the result of a lack of regulation (or industrial standards) on this point.

Not trying to downplay your concerns. Because they are indeed valid. Just adding context that it depends on what you're used to. For me the location is an added safety since my muscle memory was already trained for this setup.

 

[HC_79]

Can we change the topic from "dangerous design flaw" to something less dramatic. It's someone's opinion on where something should be not that Lucid made a significant error in design. #clickbait

 

[Blue Lectroid]

The vast majority of EV’s on the planet share this positioning and use of the right stalk, as another post mentions above. The right stalk’s functionality is very similar to Tesla’s (when they still used stalks).

 

[joec]

There has never been, in the entire history of automobiles, any attempt to standardize driver controls. Drive enough cars, and you will see it all.

It's up to the driver to learn their car and not press the wrong buttons.

Having said that— yeah, been there, done that. Scary as heck the first time you do it. But it won't damage the car.

Up until they did away with stalks altogether, Teslas all used the exact same method as Lucid for gear selection. Lucid copying Tesla was likely a bet that customers coming over from Tesla would be more familiar with this style. But there's no "right" answer to how they should have designed their controls. Because there are almost as many different methods as there are manufacturers.

Recently I rented a Jeep on a trip up in the mountains. For the life of me, I could not get used to the stupid dial they had for gear changes in the center console. Made zero sense to me to turn left or right to go into reverse or drive. Let alone which direction was park. Maddening.