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- Nov 14, 2021
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I'm no journalist or claim to be an expert at anything regarding cars, but rather want to share my experience as an owner including all the faults I've experienced driving and owning the Lucid Air.
I took delivery of my Dream Edition on Nov 14, have driven it almost every day since. I've put a little over 450 miles on it, doing only local driving i.e. streets and freeways but nothing long distance (over 50 miles one way).
Interior and drive - we all know this already, but the materials and feel of everything inside makes it a very unique driving experience compared to previous drivers and vehicles I've owned. I've never been much for styling in a car, I've always considered them to be machines to get me from point A to point B, but the Air makes me appreciate the little intricacies and details quite a bit more compared to previous vehicles. We've never owned quite as expensive a car as this, but we have had and driven our fair share of "nice" vehicles which include the following: Mercedes S55 AMG, Mercedes S500, BMW 740 iL, Porsche Cayenne S, Tesla Model S (older version), Tesla Model 3, Mercedes CLK Convertible, a good number of Lexus, Hondas, Toyotas... The Lucid is just different, the interior design is exactly what Derek or Peter talked about in their interview. It's a calming driving experience even in the hustle and bustle of driving in Los Angeles. The cabin, is not the quietest out there, but it's definitely been the quietest I've been in for an extended period of time, and it's great. Putting on your latest podcast or playlist you just lose yourself to the drive. The screens are not intrusive and once you get everything set up how you like you just drive.
The drive itself - When journalists talk about feeling the road and getting feedback, the Lucid excels in this regard. The suspension is planted and firm, but also soft and forgiving at the same time. You can feel the road, but you don't feel every bump, it's stiff but not jarring and in smooth mode is comfortable why not feeling like you are floating or disconnected. In Swift mode, the suspension tightens up a little, you get more feeling from the road, the steering tightens up but is still incredibly easy to maneuver. The turning radius is good, bordering on great for a car this size. The car doesn't ever feel like it is a full size sedan even though it is. The feel is like a smaller more nimble vehicle that never feels it's size or weight.
With all that out of the way, how is it to actually drive and live with daily? What issues do I have...not everything is rainbows and unicorns.
I knew being in the first iteration of a vehicle, there would be problems. It's inevitable and there is no such thing as a perfect car, perfect software, or a perfect experience. I don't understand why or how anyone would expect Lucid to get everything right, right away, but the amount of hatred and scrutiny I've seen is unbelievable. I have faith that Lucid will fix the issues, especially any issues with software as that is a fix that is doable OTA. I'll breakdown issues I've experienced and have tried to replicate below:
The most common error I have is with the parking camera and sensor system. As of right now, when entering the car, the bootup sequence takes around 30 seconds to fully load the UI and all accompanying systems. I believe this is due to the car being put into a sleep state to reduce battery drain while sitting parked or idle. When entering the car and before the car is able to fully load, engaging drive or reverse MAY cause the cameras to not load properly. I've had about a 60/40 split on it loading properly prior to full bootup sequence being complete. This is fixed by locking and unlocking the car, which I assume is a system reset.
I've had issues with my Frunk opening from the key fob. It almost always gets stuck on the passenger side latch. A second opening sequence on the fob (which involves just holding down the button) will unlatch the frunk and open normally. Funnily enough, this does not happen when opening the Frunk from inside the car via the pilot panel. This issue has already been reported to Lucid.
Issues with my trunk. I've been able to replicate an issue where, IF the car is not unlocked and you try to open the trunk AFTER you unlock the vehicle, the power trunk will not operate and the trunk close button will not operate. A simple fix is to manually close the trunk, lock the car, unlock the car and it functions as normal again. The trunk close button also has come loose. A technician looked at it and the clip inside broke so that will be replaced the next service visit. There is a seal that has come loose, looks like there was some glue missing in that section and will need to be re-glued. I also took delivery with a blemish in the spoiler section of the trunk lid. The service center, prior to taking delivery, noted this in their file and have ordered a replacement lid because they felt the error could not be corrected via a paint job i.e. it was blemish in the underlying metal.
UI Issues or personal preferences that I feel should be changed. I'm not entirely sure if these issues are by design or some bug in the software, but these things I brought up with the Lucid team as things I would like to see changed:
You cannot have a separate panel loaded in the driver panel and the pilot panel at this time. If you choose maps, it will load maps on both, same goes with Music, or phone, or home. My preference is to be able to keep a map up in the driver panel and have the music or phone loaded on the pilot panel or any combination there of. Currently, because of the ability to "swipe down" the different options, it will only allow you to load one item as a time on both panels.
Currently, Homelink is tied to driver profiles. This could be a design choice due to future security implementations with driver profiles, but upon initial setup it surprised me. I only set up my driver profile with Homelink and have not bothered with the other drivers in the family because I did not want to have to go through the same steps 15 more times. I do like how Homelink is geo triggered, so when I pull into my driveway, it brings up the Homelink to select which gate to open.
The NAV audio volume is not adjustable or able to be turned off.
The turn signal audio is quite loud.
I've had some issues with bluetooth audio playback and the Spotify app loaded in the UI. There has been 2 occasions where the car got stuck in a loop trying to play Spotify via bluetooth off my phone or Spotify from the UI. It was corrected by just selecting am/fm radio and going back to the Spotify app. I'm not sure if it's adjustable or not, but the Spotify app in the car does not have an option to have "random" skipping during play from a playlist. It will just play in order of the playlist. The search function in the Spotify app is wonky. You can search but once the search returns results and you select something, it will just play that song or first song from the artist instead of letting you go into a sub menu for the artist.
When receiving a text message and using the car's AI to read it back, this will trigger the Spotify app to stop playing. In order to start playback again, I have to go back and select the app and hit play again.
The skip forward and skip back buttons on the steering wheel will skip to the next radio substation. Even after I have setup my favorite stations, my preference would be to skip to the next station on my list, however, as currently setup, it moves forward or back to the next substation.
Because ADAS is not currently enabled on the car, I can't properly review it yet, except I feel Lucid has missed an opportunity to map the left scroll wheel and left button for other functions besides ADAS functions.
The main pilot panel I feel can be improved. Initially, it's great to see the car and background change when you change drive modes, but I would LOVE for that screen real estate to be replaced with something else. My top 2 choices now are the ability to access NAV, music or phone from the pilot panel. A redundancy of being able to access menus would be great.
Overall though, this is really minor nit picky stuff. I've never felt these small issues have affected the quality of the drive or my experience. These can also all be corrected via software and are also personal preference. I understand my desires may not align with Lucid's design view, so in its current iteration, I would be happy with it, even if nothing changed.
I've shown many people the car, talked to many people about it when they come up asking and sitting inside and the comments are all the same. Every single commenter has said how much nicer the car is compared to Tesla, the details, the build quality, the interior. The highest praise I've gotten is when I took the car down to get a quote from a very well known and respected detail and wrap shop. I arrived to get a quote to wrap the car and get it tinted. They had just finished wrapping 2 Ferraris and had a Pagani on the floor. The owner came out and just said "WOW" that is a nice looking car. The sales associate with him got inside to look and said "This is amazing, so much nicer than any Tesla." Given this shop's track record and cars they've worked on, it's good to hear. 3 detailers who've seen the car up close have commented how the build quality and finish blew Tesla out of the water. One even said that this is the first EV he would consider buying because of the design aspect. I don't include these anecdotes to hate on Tesla, because I still like the cars, but this truly is the next iteration of the luxury EV.
Let me end by saying that the car is appropriately named. It really is the culmination of vision and hard work that have turned the dream into reality. The car is not perfect and I'm sure there will many iterations of software to come, but so far it has been a Dream.
I took delivery of my Dream Edition on Nov 14, have driven it almost every day since. I've put a little over 450 miles on it, doing only local driving i.e. streets and freeways but nothing long distance (over 50 miles one way).
Interior and drive - we all know this already, but the materials and feel of everything inside makes it a very unique driving experience compared to previous drivers and vehicles I've owned. I've never been much for styling in a car, I've always considered them to be machines to get me from point A to point B, but the Air makes me appreciate the little intricacies and details quite a bit more compared to previous vehicles. We've never owned quite as expensive a car as this, but we have had and driven our fair share of "nice" vehicles which include the following: Mercedes S55 AMG, Mercedes S500, BMW 740 iL, Porsche Cayenne S, Tesla Model S (older version), Tesla Model 3, Mercedes CLK Convertible, a good number of Lexus, Hondas, Toyotas... The Lucid is just different, the interior design is exactly what Derek or Peter talked about in their interview. It's a calming driving experience even in the hustle and bustle of driving in Los Angeles. The cabin, is not the quietest out there, but it's definitely been the quietest I've been in for an extended period of time, and it's great. Putting on your latest podcast or playlist you just lose yourself to the drive. The screens are not intrusive and once you get everything set up how you like you just drive.
The drive itself - When journalists talk about feeling the road and getting feedback, the Lucid excels in this regard. The suspension is planted and firm, but also soft and forgiving at the same time. You can feel the road, but you don't feel every bump, it's stiff but not jarring and in smooth mode is comfortable why not feeling like you are floating or disconnected. In Swift mode, the suspension tightens up a little, you get more feeling from the road, the steering tightens up but is still incredibly easy to maneuver. The turning radius is good, bordering on great for a car this size. The car doesn't ever feel like it is a full size sedan even though it is. The feel is like a smaller more nimble vehicle that never feels it's size or weight.
With all that out of the way, how is it to actually drive and live with daily? What issues do I have...not everything is rainbows and unicorns.
I knew being in the first iteration of a vehicle, there would be problems. It's inevitable and there is no such thing as a perfect car, perfect software, or a perfect experience. I don't understand why or how anyone would expect Lucid to get everything right, right away, but the amount of hatred and scrutiny I've seen is unbelievable. I have faith that Lucid will fix the issues, especially any issues with software as that is a fix that is doable OTA. I'll breakdown issues I've experienced and have tried to replicate below:
The most common error I have is with the parking camera and sensor system. As of right now, when entering the car, the bootup sequence takes around 30 seconds to fully load the UI and all accompanying systems. I believe this is due to the car being put into a sleep state to reduce battery drain while sitting parked or idle. When entering the car and before the car is able to fully load, engaging drive or reverse MAY cause the cameras to not load properly. I've had about a 60/40 split on it loading properly prior to full bootup sequence being complete. This is fixed by locking and unlocking the car, which I assume is a system reset.
I've had issues with my Frunk opening from the key fob. It almost always gets stuck on the passenger side latch. A second opening sequence on the fob (which involves just holding down the button) will unlatch the frunk and open normally. Funnily enough, this does not happen when opening the Frunk from inside the car via the pilot panel. This issue has already been reported to Lucid.
Issues with my trunk. I've been able to replicate an issue where, IF the car is not unlocked and you try to open the trunk AFTER you unlock the vehicle, the power trunk will not operate and the trunk close button will not operate. A simple fix is to manually close the trunk, lock the car, unlock the car and it functions as normal again. The trunk close button also has come loose. A technician looked at it and the clip inside broke so that will be replaced the next service visit. There is a seal that has come loose, looks like there was some glue missing in that section and will need to be re-glued. I also took delivery with a blemish in the spoiler section of the trunk lid. The service center, prior to taking delivery, noted this in their file and have ordered a replacement lid because they felt the error could not be corrected via a paint job i.e. it was blemish in the underlying metal.
UI Issues or personal preferences that I feel should be changed. I'm not entirely sure if these issues are by design or some bug in the software, but these things I brought up with the Lucid team as things I would like to see changed:
You cannot have a separate panel loaded in the driver panel and the pilot panel at this time. If you choose maps, it will load maps on both, same goes with Music, or phone, or home. My preference is to be able to keep a map up in the driver panel and have the music or phone loaded on the pilot panel or any combination there of. Currently, because of the ability to "swipe down" the different options, it will only allow you to load one item as a time on both panels.
Currently, Homelink is tied to driver profiles. This could be a design choice due to future security implementations with driver profiles, but upon initial setup it surprised me. I only set up my driver profile with Homelink and have not bothered with the other drivers in the family because I did not want to have to go through the same steps 15 more times. I do like how Homelink is geo triggered, so when I pull into my driveway, it brings up the Homelink to select which gate to open.
The NAV audio volume is not adjustable or able to be turned off.
The turn signal audio is quite loud.
I've had some issues with bluetooth audio playback and the Spotify app loaded in the UI. There has been 2 occasions where the car got stuck in a loop trying to play Spotify via bluetooth off my phone or Spotify from the UI. It was corrected by just selecting am/fm radio and going back to the Spotify app. I'm not sure if it's adjustable or not, but the Spotify app in the car does not have an option to have "random" skipping during play from a playlist. It will just play in order of the playlist. The search function in the Spotify app is wonky. You can search but once the search returns results and you select something, it will just play that song or first song from the artist instead of letting you go into a sub menu for the artist.
When receiving a text message and using the car's AI to read it back, this will trigger the Spotify app to stop playing. In order to start playback again, I have to go back and select the app and hit play again.
The skip forward and skip back buttons on the steering wheel will skip to the next radio substation. Even after I have setup my favorite stations, my preference would be to skip to the next station on my list, however, as currently setup, it moves forward or back to the next substation.
Because ADAS is not currently enabled on the car, I can't properly review it yet, except I feel Lucid has missed an opportunity to map the left scroll wheel and left button for other functions besides ADAS functions.
The main pilot panel I feel can be improved. Initially, it's great to see the car and background change when you change drive modes, but I would LOVE for that screen real estate to be replaced with something else. My top 2 choices now are the ability to access NAV, music or phone from the pilot panel. A redundancy of being able to access menus would be great.
Overall though, this is really minor nit picky stuff. I've never felt these small issues have affected the quality of the drive or my experience. These can also all be corrected via software and are also personal preference. I understand my desires may not align with Lucid's design view, so in its current iteration, I would be happy with it, even if nothing changed.
I've shown many people the car, talked to many people about it when they come up asking and sitting inside and the comments are all the same. Every single commenter has said how much nicer the car is compared to Tesla, the details, the build quality, the interior. The highest praise I've gotten is when I took the car down to get a quote from a very well known and respected detail and wrap shop. I arrived to get a quote to wrap the car and get it tinted. They had just finished wrapping 2 Ferraris and had a Pagani on the floor. The owner came out and just said "WOW" that is a nice looking car. The sales associate with him got inside to look and said "This is amazing, so much nicer than any Tesla." Given this shop's track record and cars they've worked on, it's good to hear. 3 detailers who've seen the car up close have commented how the build quality and finish blew Tesla out of the water. One even said that this is the first EV he would consider buying because of the design aspect. I don't include these anecdotes to hate on Tesla, because I still like the cars, but this truly is the next iteration of the luxury EV.
Let me end by saying that the car is appropriately named. It really is the culmination of vision and hard work that have turned the dream into reality. The car is not perfect and I'm sure there will many iterations of software to come, but so far it has been a Dream.
