I initially commented on a post comparing the Air to the EQS and noticed the distaste for the EQS' interior over the Lucid's simple interior. I would like to just repost that comment in this post since this aspect of the Air has been bugging me quite a bit. Essentially, I find that for how much the Lucid Air costs and the segment it is competing in the interior just does not cut it. Sure most of the materials are good but the visual aspect and experience isn't exactly there. Doug DeMuro did briefly comment on this stating that the Air definitely isn't as luxurious on the inside as its german competitors and I absolutely agree. I have personally sat in one for a good amount as well wondering if they just took the base model's interior and copied it to every trim. It felt like I was in a $70-80,000 car rather than a six figure car and this was the same price that my friends had in mind until I told them it was above $100,000. At that point, they were shocked since it didn't seem exciting to them from a visual standpoint. To put it best I am a fan of interiors in Bentleys, Mercedes S class, and the EQS. The Air is just overly simplistic for the money and I can't forgive how many promised features have been stripped without a drop in price especially standard luxury features such as powered doors and air suspension. Anyway, I will leave my comment from the other thread below and would like to know if I am alone on this or what you all think.
I'm very surprised that the Lucid's simplistic interior is being accepted over the EQS' interior. I'm personally finding it very hard to confirm my Grand Touring reservation due to the interior as I do not see how it is worth it for the money. The EQS offers much more for less in terms of interior technology and quality/looks. I believe it could be due to the target audience? The Lucid seems to appeal to an older audience hence why I think the EQS' hyper-screen and modern fashion sense is not appreciated by the Lucid audience. The quilted leather for instance is something I really like and many of my leather jackets from Boda Skins that I wear for example are quilted giving a modern twist to the classic leather biker jacket. I receive immense compliments for this quilted style of jackets with many people telling me how much they love the quilted design so this hate for quilted leather in a vehicle seemed strange to me. I have always found this beautiful and the seats of the Air appear overly bland to me especially for the money and many others I've shown them to have been unimpressed. Also, I appreciate the ambient lighting in the EQS and if one does find it distasteful why not disable them? Again, I truly am amazed by the reaction to the EQS' interior. I've noticed that the younger reviewers <40 tend to appreciate it. In fact, Kyle from Out of Spec Reviews really loves it despite the hideous exterior of the EQS. Doug DeMuro really likes the EQS' interior as well while stating that the Air definitely doesn't meet German rivals' level of luxury. I am personally a fan of the EQS' interior being a buyer at 21. I'm likely going to skip the Air and I may wait for the next EV that can offer great performance, a nice exterior, and a "gaudy" interior
. In my eyes the Air's interior just took many bits from Tesla and the Porsche Taycan and combined them for something very underwhelming. The "cockpit display" is obviously copied from the Taycan while the overall simplicity mimics a Tesla which is what I wished to avoid with Teslas in the first place (alongside their quality issues of course). With all of this being said Lucid will continue to grow and change. I am sure this company's future is going to be great despite some hurdles. Despite this, I don't see myself being in one with the overly simplistic design choices and promised features that never made it and am probably canceling my order soon. I don't think range and performance is enough to justify the money although I really do want impressive performance in a car. I also don't really like the alcantara. Give me the option of leather and a full white or light colored interior instead of forcing black front seats and a black steering wheel. For me personally, if the Lucid Air Grand Touring had the EQS' interior that'd be the perfect car (alongside better paint options because the current ones definitely aren't that great). I think what they did was they played it safe by making the interior simple, probably did it to cut on costs, or it just made their job easier. Perhaps they truly think a six figure luxury sedan should look like an $70-80k from the inside. I don't like it and it does look like the base interior was just copied to all the trims. The best thing they could do is give buyers the ability to choose what they want like many of the established brands. Also, a side note but what's up with the cheap pedals especially in the $170k dream edition? Not only that but the cheap plastic door trigger that you'll be using for the lifetime of the car. So much for attention to detail.
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I am so glad that you posted your comments praising the EQS for interior detail.
my thought is that the MB interior is slightly more elegant As far as the s3ats are concerned. But that is the end of my praise. The dash is too busy and gaudy, I think it is a distraction to driving especially at night. The vehicle also is quite dark inside even on a day with no clods! The ability to see what’s around you is hampered by the lack of glass, I felt like I was in a Russian tank with no windows.
Your comment about your wardrobe seems to suggest that you walk around you house in a smoking jacket and smoke a pipe. However I will try to keep my comments focused on the car and the company. To give you some background I have run dealer service departments for over 35 years, 16 of those years was at one of the last guest Mercedes-Benz dealers in the US.
So let me comment on the German- Mercedes-Benz vehicles. I have owned 13 MB’s in the last 20 years, I do appreciate some aspects of their design, but mostly I enjoy the performance aspect, the safety aspect and the handling. What I do not like about them is that they are engineered like no other car in the World. This does not mean they are better cars.In Fact it means they are extremely problamatic.
you see over The years they were first to market with the air bag, the dual zone HVAC, the sunroof, the electric windows, crumple zone energy absorption, Automatic transmissions, air conditioning, heated seats, fuel injection (both mechanical and electronic), keyless go and the list goes on and on. Sounds great right cud’s to the Germans! Well hold on not yet, in my years my service people have had to deal with the repair of All of these things. Let’s just talk about disasters that have taken place just over the last 20 years. The first three years of the ML was a disaster. They had fuel pumps that were made out of alloys that corroded when exposed to what? Gasoline! It took MB years to fix the problem. ML also has body panel insulation that melted in the heat. So when you rolled the windows down or used your sunroof you would find that the glass was covered with black adhesive, the ML was also the first MB to use the new technology of the balance shaft where the gears were not strong enough to not wear out prematurely causing a secret warranty extension, but if you had 80k miles on the vehicle you had to pay $6000 for the repair. The. There was the 2003 new E class model introduction. It was the first to have keyless Go, except that it did not work all the time. It also was the introduction of the sensatronic brake system or brake by wire, no master cylinder. The brakes worked great I owned one but at 550-80k miles you would drive down the road and your dash board would turn red with a message to stop the car that you were having a brake failure. So if you stood on the brake pedal for awhile it would eventually stop in 2-3 tenths of a mile. So what came along another secret 8-10 year warranty. then there was the E class spring perch issue. A spring perch was what held the front suspension in place, except they rotted out and the wheel and strut would separate from the car while driving. Recently MB has another rust issue and that is that the rear subframes (this holds the rear suspension in place) they are now rotting Out until the frame breaks and you can pay the dealer 5 grand for the repair.
My favorites disaster is suspension system that you mentioned, but you called it an air suspension, in fact it is hydraulic. This Engineering feat consisted of a pump, a reservoir, a pump, a few proportioning valves and 2 shocks and two struts. This allowed the computer to raise, lower, stiffen or relax each corner of the suspension during cornering to,give you the best ride MB has ever provided to its customers. Personally I found it to be fantastic. However compared to the ride and handling that I enjoy in my dream edition truly the MB system is a lot of expensive junk for a lesser quality ride. But to add insult to injury, when shock or strut fails, it costs over 3500 to replace. Bu that is just the start because once one goes, then another fails and another fails and last one fails and you have spent over 10 k to repair. Bu that is not the end, as these shocks leak slowly the amount of oil in the pump is going down (without any dash warning I might add)and the pump grinds it’s gears spewing metal debris into the system until proportioning valves clog and stick with the vehicle either unable to move up or down. To fix this and flush the system (really no way to get all the metal out of the lines) will cost another 4K. So there were many customers that simply gave up on their pride S class that they drive around in while wearing there favorite leather jackets with the nice pattern.
I once met the head engineer for the SL, a nice fella and I took him to lunch and asked him about many of the issues noted above. He smiled at me and his heavy German accent he said to me “David, you know we are Germans”. And I nodded my understanding, and he said “You know David we Germans are not always right, but (he paused) we are never wrong.
MB has been using its customers as Guinea Pigs for over 100 years, they continue to release their technology before it has been refined and tested suf
Now I could go on and on, but here is the bottom line. MB put