New member - Charlotte, NC Upgraded from Touring to GT

[SM_NCarolina]

I've been following Lucid for almost 8-9 years since they first reached out to investors with a demo/concept car. I finally reserved a Touring on Nov 3, 2021. Since then Lucid increased the pricing for every model they have to offer. About a week ago sales team reached out and offered me to upgrade at an older price ($139K) and the delivery within 2-5 months (that's the latest at the end of November). The offer was valid for a very short time and was ending on June 30th leaving me with 4 days to decide and had a condition that I should be confirming the order within 24 hrs after upgrading. I did take my time to think about it and confirmed very late in the evening on June 30th but didn't confirm the order. The experience from here to confirming the next day was a bit unpleasant (had emails, and SMS to the assigned SA with barely any help) and then I ended up calling the sales telephone line to speak with someone sitting next to my SA. Finally confirmed the order and asked for a test drive in the VA location.

Test drove on July 5th which unveiled the car I was waiting for and following for almost 8-9 years. GT is an awesome car that unleashes the power while maintaining the LUXury that LUCID promised its stakeholders. Now the waiting starts for my Zenith Red, Tahoe, 19" to arrive.

Super excited!

 

[Photon Empress]

EXCITING! Hope you love your GT when you get it! I almost went with red as well, but getting mine wrapped and it was suggested to do black as apparently it can help the wrap color.

 

[CLTGT]

Welcome. I am in Charlotte as well. Maybe if enough of us become customers, Lucid might open a location here. I am scheduled to take delivery next Wednesday. Order details below.

 

[Sandvinsd]

Welcome. I am in Charlotte as well. Maybe if enough of us become customers, Lucid might open a location here. I am scheduled to take delivery next Wednesday. Order details below.

Might take a while. There are already ~100 Airs delivered in the San Diego area (per the SD studio manager) and no service center here yet - although they supposedly are looking for real estate.

 

[PhotoEye]

EXCITING! Hope you love your GT when you get it! I almost went with red as well, but getting mine wrapped and it was suggested to do black as apparently it can help the wrap color.

What color are you wrapping and what part of the car?

 

[Demosthenes]

Welcome and hope you love your GT!

 

[DaveyBoyGT]

Welcome. I am in Charlotte as well. Maybe if enough of us become customers, Lucid might open a location here. I am scheduled to take delivery next Wednesday. Order details below.

Not a chance for a long while will they have a studio or service center in Charlotte. Atlanta, with a metro population over 6,000,000 ( No. 2 in the Southeast behind Miami), has no studio or service center, although they apparently have a ghost service capability that no one knows about. In fact, there are no Lucid service centers or studios in NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, TN or northern FL. Charlotte is the neglected orphan child of the Lucid community mainly because it costs them so much ($1000+ one way) to ship and service their cars bought in "out in boondocks" Charlotte. With so many cars being sent back to service centers they don't want to increase their shipping costs with cars in Charlotte, which is also the reason it takes so long to get a car from confirmation to delivery. With your personal experience @PAUSED, tell me I am wrong.

 

[CLTGT]

Not sure "Charlotte" is the reason I have waited so long. My experience does not seem too unlike others that ordered a grey car at the same time I did. I do agree, a location in Charlotte is currently a pipe-dream, but my comment was more along the lines of hoping other people in the area might order and make it more likely down the road. It is no way an expectation. Atlanta makes much more sense and I do think we will see one there in the not too distant future.

Not sure what you mean by "ghost service capability", but I did learn from someone at Lucid a few layers of management above the DA's that they have a service capability out of an outfit in Hickory, NC. Yes, Hickory. Evidently, it comes from a personal relationship with the person at Lucid setting these options up. I believe they may even have vans based out of there. I also think they have a similar capacity in Atlanta at this time from my same conversation with the Lucid Exec.

There are plenty of areas similar to Charlotte as far as distance to closest Service Center and I do think Lucid has neglected the Southeast to a large extent, but I have no way to know what they order demographics are. With respect to my order, I will take delivery at around the same time or close to others that confirmed in early/mid November, regardless of being in Charlotte.

 

[DaveyBoyGT]

Not sure "Charlotte" is the reason I have waited so long. My experience does not seem too unlike others that ordered a grey car at the same time I did. I do agree, a location in Charlotte is currently a pipe-dream, but my comment was more along the lines of hoping other people in the area might order and make it more likely down the road. It is no way an expectation. Atlanta makes much more sense and I do think we will see one there in the not too distant future.

Not sure what you mean by "ghost service capability", but I did learn from someone at Lucid a few layers of management above the DA's that they have a service capability out of an outfit in Hickory, NC. Yes, Hickory. Evidently, it comes from a personal relationship with the person at Lucid setting these options up. I believe they may even have vans based out of there. I also think they have a similar capacity in Atlanta at this time from my same conversation with the Lucid Exec.

There are plenty of areas similar to Charlotte as far as distance to closest Service Center and I do think Lucid has neglected the Southeast to a large extent, but I have no way to know what they order demographics are. With respect to my order, I will take delivery at around the same time or close to others that confirmed in early/mid November, regardless of being in Charlotte.

I agree your color was the primary cause of the delay and the PDI fiasco also contributed. Even still you were a long time from confirmation to delivery. I am 18+ weeks since confirmation and still no VIN, and I have a pedestrian RED/Santa Cruz/19" car. I have reviewed the Forum Tracker and surmised the cars not close to the service centers are being delayed, which confirms my DA's reference that location has some influence in delivery but failed to compare and quantify it. If Lucid had followed the "Field of Dreams" philosophy-"If you build it, they will come" and built a studio and service center in Atlanta they would have many more orders from the Southeast. On top of that ATL has more than 20 EA charging stations, compared to Charlotte's one station. Go figure! People like to test drive a car before buying and not many will drive 6-7 hrs to test drive a car, hence fewer orders. I think that ATL will have a studio and service center within a couple of years if not earlier.

I called the ATL service center "ghost" because I had not heard of it despite several inquiries to my SA and DA, and my DA told me that my service would be done in FL. The first I heard of it was when @gmglass had his car shipped there for service. The Hickory service site is also new to me, another ghost service site AFAIAC. I still wonder why they don't tell us who will be performing service locally without pulling teeth.

 

[Sandvinsd]

With so many cars being sent back to service centers they don't want to increase their shipping costs with cars in Charlotte, which is also the reason it takes so long to get a car from confirmation to delivery. With your personal experience @PAUSED, tell me I am wrong.

doubt that is the reason for @PAUSED delay. I’m in San Diego, not exactly an EV desert, and he and I are on th3 same timelines. We have had bad luck with supply chain issues, the Grey delay, the harness recall, followed by ’fit / finish’ issues with a production and delivery halt halt for enhanced PDI, and more supply chain issues for fit/finish parts. The long ordeal should be over tomorrow for me and Wednesday for him.

Hoping that everyone else will benefit in faster delivery times after what they have learned with our cars’ “unique journeys” as the DAs put it.

 

[Sandvinsd]

@DaveyBoyGT - I think your VIN delay is just a consequence of everything I said in the previous post. They confirmed all the pre-reserved GT orders by about February thinking that production is easy. The production backlog is why no Touring orders have been confirmed yet. They need to get the GT production under control. The fact that they are saying 5 months from today, up from the 2-4 month line in November, means the factory is still stressed. When they confirm the first Touring orders, I’ll believe that they have reduced the backlog and have supply chain under control..

 

[SM_NCarolina]

Welcome. I am in Charlotte as well. Maybe if enough of us become customers, Lucid might open a location here. I am scheduled to take delivery next Wednesday. Order details below.

Congratulations to you and all the best for this fantastic car. We should form a group/club and start showing this car in shows or rally's that we have in and around Charlotte. Share your thoughts on this.

 

[SM_NCarolina]

Not a chance for a long while will they have a studio or service center in Charlotte. Atlanta, with a metro population over 6,000,000 ( No. 2 in the Southeast behind Miami), has no studio or service center, although they apparently have a ghost service capability that no one knows about. In fact, there are no Lucid service centers or studios in NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, TN or northern FL. Charlotte is the neglected orphan child of the Lucid community mainly because it costs them so much ($1000+ one way) to ship and service their cars bought in "out in boondocks" Charlotte. With so many cars being sent back to service centers they don't want to increase their shipping costs with cars in Charlotte, which is also the reason it takes so long to get a car from confirmation to delivery. With your personal experience @PAUSED, tell me I am wrong.

I might agree in part for cost reduction but as far as timing is concerned @PAUSED is getting the car in time from the date of issuing the VIN. I just got of a call with my DA and when asked about the process of manufacturing to delivery here is the explanation on timing:
1. VIN is issued when the car gets into the manufacturing process - Assume Day 0
2. It takes about 6 weeks to manufacture the car as of now - 6 weeks
3. Then it is shipped to the nearest service center 5-7 days - 1 week
4. Pre-delivery inspection and detailing are done - 2 weeks
5. Delivery - Exciting day for buyer (6+1+2 = 9 weeks) after VIN is issued

Additional delays could be e.g. recalls, supply chain issues (if not managed well), pre-delivery inspection failures that require repair of parts, etc.

 

[Sandvinsd]

I might agree in part for cost reduction but as far as timing is concerned @PAUSED is getting the car in time from the date of issuing the VIN. I just got of a call with my DA and when asked about the process of manufacturing to delivery here is the explanation on timing:
1. VIN is issued when the car gets into the manufacturing process - Assume Day 0
2. It takes about 6 weeks to manufacture the car as of now - 6 weeks
3. Then it is shipped to the nearest service center 5-7 days - 1 week
4. Pre-delivery inspection and detailing are done - 2 weeks
5. Delivery - Exciting day for buyer (6+1+2 = 9 weeks) after VIN is issued

Additional delays could be e.g. recalls, supply chain issues (if not managed well), pre-delivery inspection failures that require repair of parts, etc.

That is what is happening today. Before it was to be 2-6 weeks post VIN. Per my DA, they were doing them in about 4 (before the QC issues that shut things down) VIN is issued late in production. Should only take another week, per my DA, then 1 week for shipping and up to 2 weeks for PDI at the service center before delivery. That was the 4 weeks. I’m sure they will get back to that timeline eventually.

Now the PDI happens at the factory before shipping and the time at the service center is only for inspection and final detailing, less than a day.

 

[Ames8910]

Congratulations to you and all the best for this fantastic car. We should form a group/club and start showing this car in shows or rally's that we have in and around Charlotte. Share your thoughts on this.

Hi, I just picked my AT on Sat, home now, would love to join an owners club in Charlotte if ya'll start one!

 

[SM_NCarolina]

Hi, I just picked my AT on Sat, home now, would love to join an owners club in Charlotte if ya'll start one!

Welcome to the owners club. Enjoy the ride. I'm in for a CLT-LUCID Club