New ('23) Pure AWD Fathom Blue proud to join the mission!

[AirPlur]

Hey hey and great to meet ya Lucidfam! About a week and 200 miles into the biggest (rational?) extravagance I've ever treated myself to, and so far am very happy with that decision Started with a reservation/deposit for a RWD Pure in Dec '21, which has been perpetually postponed for delivery into '24, which ultimate upsold me to the nice-but-not-needed-in-norcal AWD drive train inventory they've been trying to blow out. Other than AWD and the color, she's a stripper model with no DDP (prefer to drive the old-fashioned way, for now at least), range 19", no SSP (frankly wasn't impressed; jaded audiophile/musician), and no matching tracksuit/hat to wear while driving (yet).

Overall impressions so far are it's a blast to drive, very comfortable with absurd interior and storage space, very promising range (got it as a GT for west coast touring), and the tech is...evolving. In that sense, your posts have been very helpful and reassuring that I'm in good company with some of the UI gremlins and drawbacks (HERE nav wonkiness, conspicuously absent android auto, sat radio inconsistency), which I was expecting and knowingly signing up for in supporting a new company doing cool sh*t. Will probably have lots of questions, which I will do my best to find on the forum before bothering everyone, but thank you and apologies in advance for pointing me in the right direction when that happens.

Speaking of which, now to see if I can find an answer to whether or not I should leave it on a stage 1 120v charger overnight/when parked for battery general conditioning a la the trickle I leave my less-frequently-driven ICE on. I currently rent so not going the stage 2 charger installation route, and have a reliable EA charger nearby, so the only reason I'd charge is for battery health rather than miles. Sent customer support an email since I wasn't able to find a consensus. Wait, crap, I'm already doing that thing and broaching a question in the wrong thread. Never mind that, and once again great to join the club and see you around the threads soon!

 

[hydbob]

Welcome!

 

[EVTime]

Welcome!

The manual is your friend (p. 144):

Owner_s Manual - Root Map



Battery Information





About the Vehicle Batteries

WARNING: Only a Lucid ServiceCenter should service the high-voltage battery pack. Improperhandling can result in death orserious injury.

There are two types of batteries poweringyour vehicle: a high-voltage lithium ionbattery pack that powers the vehicle's electricpowertrain motors and two 12V AGM batteriesthat power systems, such as the infotainmentdisplays and safety systems.

Environmental: Please recycle in accordancewith local regulations.

High-Voltage Battery Pack Care

Storage Temperature

CAUTION: Avoid exposing yourvehicle to ambient temperaturesabove 113°F (45°C) or below -4°F(-20°C) for more than 24 hours
at a time. Prolonged exposure cangreatly reduce battery pack life andperformance. If it is necessary toexceed these guidelines, wheneverpossible, plug the vehicle into acharging source to provide reliablethermal conditioning of the batterypack.

Extreme temperatures can damage the batterypack. If possible, avoid parking in directsunlight, especially on hot, sunny days. Lucidalso recommends that you keep your vehiclesheltered or parked in a garage wheneverpossible in extremely cold weather.

Preserving High Voltage Battery Pack Health

The most effective way to prolong the battery,(when not driving), is to leave it plugged into
a charging source. Setting the charge level
to "Daily" usage also helps preserve batteryhealth.

CAUTION: When the vehicle is notin use for long periods of time, it isnecessary to plug it into a charging

High-Voltage Battery Pack & Charging



source and set the charge target tothe minimum "Daily" value.

When your vehicle is left idle and unplugged,the battery pack gradually discharges
over time. Allowing the battery pack tocompletely discharge to 0 mi (0 km) couldcause permanent damage. Battery pack

life and performance are greatly improvedby maintaining a healthy state of charge,(generally between 40% and 80%).

When the remaining battery packcharge falls below the 50 mi/80 kmrange, the glass cockpit panel showsa yellow low battery indicator.

Warnings display on the glass cockpit panelwhen the battery pack charge level falls below10 mi (16 km). Proceed to the nearest chargingstation as soon as possible in order to avoid avehicle shutdown.

When poor battery pack health is detected,the glass cockpit panel displays a warningindicator.

As is normal with all lithium-ion batteries,battery pack performance degrades over time.When the battery pack needs service, thepilot panel displays a warning and you shouldcontact Lucid Customer Care to schedule service.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Welcome! It’s interesting as I think with 120v AC charging, unless something has changed recently, I believe the car’s sophisticated battery management system makes it such that you’re not going to add very many electrons by leaving it plugged in on a 110v AC, but the car charges very well on 240v. I’m not sure if it’s worth it to leave it on the L1 plug since you’ll need to find L2 or DCFC options anyway. While not specific to the Lucid, some recent data points have shown that frequent DC fast charging may not degrade the battery very much at all. That is largely from Tesla which doesn’t reach the charging power the Lucid can (although Lucid rarely hits the higher EA speeds unless low SOC and perfectly functioning EA site).

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Oh also, if you want a RWD Pure, just put it in Sprint mode! Pretty sure that makes the car either all or mostly RWD (at the minor expense of ride comfort).

 

[AirPlur]

Thanks for the welcome @hydbob (and all your posts I've been learning from).

And thank you @EVTime for pointing out the obvious that I somehow missed when I was cramming through the manual before taking delivery

And as you said @Bunnylebowski [f'ing social studies, man], Stage 1 is indeed a very slow (though nonetheless real) charge of a few miles gained per hour, with ~13A @120V lost to my utilities bill Fortunately my nearby EA 350kWh charger (~250 kWh in practice) does the job perfectly for proper charging, for free, for the next 3 years. It is really just the matter of it being a "best practice" to leave it plugged in for battery health/maintenance rather than charge, as the owner's manual except @EVTime helpfully posted states.

However, just to make things more complicated, this was my response from a Lucid customer service rep regarding the same questions around Stage 1:

"Since the car would be turning on the fans often during the session (which also can take quite some time depending on what percentage you start at), it would be wise to utilize it only if necessary or as a back up for your charging needs. For example, if you were to travel with the vehicle, it would not be a bad idea to take the charger with you and to keep the car topped up to maintain 100% range and battery. Pretty much in summary as you said - the 110 or 120V outlet would be great for maintaining mileage rather than battery efficiency or performance."

If only I could copy them on this thread, however I'll do the next best thing and triage the info and can post here if anyone is interested in my findings.

Also, for the sake of keeping the information tidy on this forum, let me know if there's a preexisting thread discussing this which I wasn't able to find. Cheers!

P.S. @Bunnylebowski Huh, intersting re: sprint mode/awd! I would have suspected sprint mode (my favorite so far, that throttle response and handling, ooof) would still involve a good amount of front wheel participation for acceleration grip given the name of the mode, however if "sprint" should more be interpreted as "sport" or "track" mode that would make sense. Something tells me this is yet another section of the owner's manual I may have missed

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I don’t think the manual goes into this but in some interviews I’ve seen with their tuning wizard David Lickfold, he does mention the various drive modes biasing the car to either front or rear drive, he just wasn’t super specific. In the video by Savage Geese on the Sapphire one of the screenshots on the Sapphire documentation indicates smooth mode is more front wheel drive also, so I think there’s something to the other drive modes being more rear biased, even beyond the Sapphire.

 

[AirPlur]

@Bunnylebowski interesting indeed. Alas if only my lease terms didn't state something to the effect of no tracking or performance driving, as I'd love to autox it and get a better idea of its handling characteristics in a safe, off-public-road setting. Good info either way, and another rabbit hole I can jump into, which I'm finding is one of the unexpected delights of being both an EV and Lucid noob. There's so much you can geek out about and learn about so many different subjects, much of which I feel gives us a head start into the inevitable future reality everyone will have to embrace and learn as well.

And, to (potentially) provide some closure to the charging discussion at hand, here's what feels like a pretty conclusive reply from Lucid customer service with regard to the excerpt in the owner's manual about charging whenever possible for battery health:

"This topic has certainly been one that we've had a lot of conversations about in office. The general consensus is you can leave it plugged in if desired, that would not cause harm or any battery loss to the car. It's not necessarily a must to keep it constantly charging, especially since the charging option with that 110-120V outlet may not provide you the most efficient use. One of the things to note too is if we are using the car on a daily basis, keeping it set on Daily or 80% would definitely preserve the vehicle's battery health.

I think in terms of what the owner's manual shares, it's kind of under the assumption that someone travels a fair amount. If we were using quite a bit of charge each day, then I would certainly recommend to plug it in every day/night to make sure you have enough charge for the morning. However, if we were driving maybe on average 30-40 miles a day, then charging every night would not be needed.

So really in short, I think for daily use, it is more than okay to not plug it in every day/night. It doesn't harm the battery if you do, it would just keep you at the top of the range given the limit it's set to. If we were travelling fair distances, it would be a good idea to make sure that we keep it plugged in and charging. That way, you won't have to worry about losing charge during your travels.

Let me know if that helps/makes sense!! I pooled a bit of wisdom from some folks in my office as well as some articles and personal experience with EVs. I hope you had a phenomenal weekend and a stellar start to your week ahead!"

Friendly people, right? So what I'm gathering here is that I shouldn't expect any great or minor harm caused to the high-voltage batteries if I don't leave it plugged in whenever possible while parked. Good news since that means 100% of my charging can be done between my office and EA stations, with the stage 1 charger as truly a last-resort backup option.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

That was a thoughtful response from them. I don’t leave the car plugged in unless it’s really cold outside, as it’s not great to cold soak the battery. To give some perspective though my wife’s XC40 recharge has a range of about 240 miles, so if you lost range in that car over time due to degradation from not keeping it in optimum temp ranges, that’s a much bigger deal than the Lucid having some degradation. Like if my Air GT had 50% battery degradation then it would end up just having the range of a new XC40 recharge haha.

 

[Spin Doctor]

Congrats and welcome! I just stopped by to ask for pics of whatever the other key in your hand is for

 

[AirPlur]

@Spin Doctor hah you mean the other half of my real-world-YOLO dream garage? Here she is (in all her Speed Yellow glory)! '02 986 Boxster S manual with ~50k miles and a Fabspeed header back exhaust to amplify that lovely flat six slurping up the dead dino juice. Purchased earlier this year as part of my quest to get my midlife crisis/making-it-this-long-celebration just right. Between this, the Lucid, and my '11 Kia Forte beater, short of winning the lottery I think I'm set for life. If I did win the lottery, which is less likely since I've yet to buy a ticket, I'd probably just upgrade to big daddy versions of the same cars (Dream Edition Performance, 718 Spyder). Except for the Kia. The Kia's perfect as is.

OK now let's see some pics of your dyslexic model designation of my car? I'll probably later find out there's an ICE owner appreciation thread somewhere around here too.

 

[AirPlur]

Screw it, started one myself since 3 min of searching turned up nothing:

Post/share your non-Lucid other car(s)! (ICE-appreciation thread?)

Spinning off an idea from another thread, I think this could be a fun way to show off and discuss the vehicles that help make your Lucids part of a balanced breakfast of enthusiast/practical means of transportation. Not intended to be a detraction in any sense of the versatility and...

lucidowners.com

 

[Spin Doctor]

Nice! The early-00s key fob just jumped out at me - I had a 996 Millennium Edition 6spd a while back, with tweaks to the exhaust, suspension and so on. Fantastic car, I shall have another one day. And even the die-hards are starting to appreciate the 'fried egg' cars

For fear of derailing this one further I shall add my 968 to your other thread. And enjoy the Pure, that Fathom Blue really is gorgeous

 

[joec]

Love, love, love the 986. It’s a piece of automotive history. And a brilliant mid-engined roadster. What’s not to love?

 

[AirPlur]

Thanks @Spin Doctor and @joec ! And yes I'm noticing that the fried egg (lol) are the last to the appreciation party, but I'm slowly starting to see them creep up (including the ultra-rare numbered versions like the ME), making me feel slightly less guilty that I only get to drive mine a weekend or so a month since I keep it in Seattle where I "need" (wanted) a car given my frequent travels to the PNW.

And wow, a Millenium Edition! Chromaflair is my favorite Porsche color option, period (love it or hate it, which are generally the colors I gravitate towards). Trying to convince my friend to order his Spyder RS in that color with the argument of exclusivity and future appreciation, but really I just selfishly love the color. He's not a Lucid owner so I doubt he'll read this.