I have carefully read this entire thread and would like to offer my opinion. I was a little bit earlier to the non-Tesla EV world when I purchased a 2019 Jaguar I pace in late 2018 ($92k). I have about 35,000 miles on the car now and here are some impressions that might sound reminiscent of those of Lucid.
The software is terrible. Most button presses are followed by at least a two second delay before anything happens. The car does have CarPlay, but it only connects about 50% of the time. The other 50% I have to unplug my phone wait a few minutes and plug it back in. Once connected, it works well. Sometimes it locks up and needs to be reconnected.
Several times, I’ve gotten in the car and no screens have come on. I turn the car off, locked it, waited a few minutes, and re-entered and everything was fine again. That happened to my wife once, and she drove about 20 minutes with absolutely no speedometer, radio, or climate control. It fixed itself. That, the car always fixes itself and has never been back for any necessary service except updating software, which was supposed to be OTA but that didn’t quite happen.
The menus and navigation system are so convoluted and bad that I literally have never use them. I always use CarPlay. I find that works very well unless it decides not to.
Like the Lucid, the Jag has a full glass roof and I live in San Diego where I can get quite hot, but it is tinted very well and although the glass might be pretty warm to the touch, the inside of the car feels good. It does take longer than my other cars to cool down, but once I get going it works well. The car is a huge windshield, and although it doesn’t come over the top like the Lucid, it still has a lot of area for sunlight to enter. I’ve been meaning to get it tinted but haven’t yet had a chance.
The car is stupid fast. And that’s with only 400 hp as stated by the manufacturer. It goes 0 to 60 in 4 1/2 seconds, which I now know is a snail compared to the Lucid. It is very comfortable but kind of small inside. The back door opening is really small and anyone over 5 feet has to bend awkwardly to get in, and is then comfortable. The legroom and cargo is pretty small for an SUV. The frunk can hold only a lunchbox, a child’s one.
The iPhone app is fairly non-functional. It will tell me if it’s charging and I can unlock and lock the doors, but each of those operations takes about 30 seconds and requires a pin number to be entered. That makes it pretty useless to me. In fact, a secondary developer has made an app for the iPhone and another one for android. These are better, but really don’t do a heck of a lot more than give information about the car.
It charges at a rate of about 16 additional miles per charge hour on the 50 amp charger I have at home. That’s very slow compared to the Lucid, but fast enough for me. I plug it in at night and I have a full battery in the morning. I have really charge the car elsewhere other than home, but the few times I did it at Electrify America it was kind of a pain in the ass. One charger wouldn’t work, I’d have to move to a different one, etc. I think this is more of a function of the car, because friends of mine who drive other brands of electrics don’t experience the same problems at EA. It’s frustrating, one time I plugged it in and everything looks good, and my wife and I went and had a long lunch. I came back and no charging had occurred.
The car does air suspension it is convenient to raise it up a little bit when parking near a curb. I kind of wish that Lucid had some sort of front lift system, but I will have to get used to that. The Homelink controls are on the mirror like lesser cars, but they always work. I do find I have to hold the button for about twice as long as any of my other cars to get it to function. The range is super short and I have to have the nose of the car pointed right at the garage and at no greater than 20 feet away for it to work.
There is no wireless charging, the dashboard is configurable but only has a few configurations that are basically rearrangements of the same lack of information. I wish, for example, that I could get a display of how many miles per kilowatt hour I am getting. Instead I get kilowatt hours per mile. I have to do a conversion to compare that to other cars.
AM radio has a terrible buzzing sound that varies with the speed. It goes from a low buzz at low speeds to a high-pitched buzz at about 70 miles an hour. This makes it nearly impossible to listen to it. I use satellite radio all the time, and that works well. I truly hope that Lucid gets their act together on that one.
The cupholders are so small that anything greater in diameter than a 12 ounce can gets completely stuck. I have to pull it out with such great force that I risk splashing everything when it finally releases. Storage in the car is pretty bad except an exceptionally deep (but small opening) center console, which sounds like a good idea, but results in things just simply getting lost in there.
The seats are reasonably comfortable, but have no adjustment for bottom seat length so my thigh support at 5‘10“ is lacking.
The car has about 220 miles of range, although it was advertised as 273. I make numerous trips to Los Angeles and back and that’s why I’ve ordered the Lucid. Currently, I need to charge at my in-law’s house, which involves unplugging their dryer and running a long wire to the car. It’s only 20amp (old house) so the car charges at only 10 miles per charge hour. Needless to say, I am forced to stay overnight every time I want to visit unless I go to Electrify America which is not a sure bet.
But here’s the interesting thing: despite all the complaints and quibbles I have, I absolutely love this car. The driving experience is excellent and I’m thrilled that I have it. When I test drove Lucid, the driving experience was similar. Of course, with a much higher horsepower so acceleration is much faster. But the smoothness and solid feel of the car felt remind me of the Jaguar. That’s why I have a confirmed order for a GT. I’m not in any rush, and I ordered the 20” wheels and will receive it, I hope, by the end of this year. Or not. While I hope they work out all the software bugs, especially the extra couple keypresses to access home link (Tesla functionality is best to this, it is aware of where the car is and opens and closes the door automatically without any key presses) and the absence of CarPlay and sat radio. For me, a car like this is about the driving experience. I want the software to mature and speed up but it is not a dealbreaker.