I thought the press release spelled it out pretty clearly, though some here seem to be misinterpreting it.
The Air is feature complete, as far as ADAS goes. It’ll get improvements, I’m sure. But none of what was announced today will apply to today’s Air. Perhaps some future refreshed Air will add some of this new stuff, but Lucid is not promising that. And they never did. All of the ADAS features they announced at the Air’s launch have already been delivered.
I still expect the current Air to get other features that are now being worked on for Gravity. And bug fixes, of course. Just not any major new ADAS stuff.
Gravity will get Level 2++ sometime late next year. They don’t spell out exactly what this means, but think what FSD has today. City streets. Hands free. Maybe pulling in and out of tight parking spaces with you not in the car?
They could obviously miss that deadline and ship it a bit later. But late next year is the intention. They are closer to that already than most here think.
Midsize will ship with whatever Gravity has at the time Midsize ships. Because Midsize will be on the same stack as Gravity. Sometime LATER (think a few years or more down the line) Midsize (and only midsize) will get full L4 capability. Meaning not only hands-free, but eyes free, sit in the back of the car if you want, full autonomy. No one has yet delivered this. Mercedes has come closest, but even that is limited in speeds. Waymo and other robotaxis don’t really offer this either, as they have people monitoring all their cars 24/7, ready to take over in a pinch.
I’ve always been skeptical of any timelines for L4. Tesla, obviously, has been promising it for over a decade and has not come close. But sooner or later, someone is going to make this work. I always said ten years when others were saying five. Maybe we’re finally down to less than five?
The reason Midsize is the only model that will get L4 is because it will have a new chip that the current Gravity doesn’t have. It’s a hardware limitation. NVIDIA has clearly set this chip as a requirement for L4, at least in their minds.
Like Air, I’m sure Gravity could in theory get a refresh that includes this new chip eventually. But I wouldn’t bank on it for at least a few years after Midsize ships.