- Joined
- Jun 2, 2024
- Messages
- 297
- Reaction score
- 191
- Location
- Colorado
- Cars
- Lucid Air Dream-P
- Air DE Number
- 234
So, I've owned my 2022 Dream Edition Performance Air and have some opinions overall and some notable observations now that the "honeymoon" is over as they say.
Several software updates have changed my opinion over the last year as well.
Software updates that solved issues or improved driving since December 2024 (which is amazing to me hardware can improve as they affected voltage on actuators!):
Things I dislike about the Lucid Air Dream Performance:
Things I love about the Lucid Air Dream Performance:
So.. overall.
Great car for actually driving. Honestly, better than any I've owned. Better than Corvette or current Lotus. Very connected.
Digital Media is deplorable and the whole team should be sacked; the huge weak-point.
(When I say "digital media" I mean anything that does not control the car's manual driving or HVAC such as: cruise control, audio systems, connectivity (all) very poor.)
Digital Media doesn't really matter. I'm certain it's a separate team that did this. The driving parts of the car, the things that matter all work great (aside from the cameras, which I guess falls under Digital Media).
I suspect the Gravity will really be hindered by this when mothers drive their rug-rats places and the Digital Media functions are buggy, lending overall lack of confidence and safety for their kids.
The Gravity (despite Timothée Chalamet) will drive fine, but the small details (like the Van Halen brown-M&M's fiasco) will concern the user for potential bigger problems.
I've overlooked this as I knew this going-in. I researched the car before buying for several years; haunted the forums, etc. The average person is not a "car guy" (or gal) and "just wants a car to work" without loving the car.
They should buy a Honda Civic or Toyota Camary. This is a car you must love; must have a relationship with; accept her flaws and laugh at them.
The car is reliable to do car-things. The goodies work sometimes, but usually not, like the supermodel you married that tried to bake you cookies, followed the recipe, but burned them a bit anyway. You appreciate the effort.
Really, Lucid should publicly execute their non-car-portion software development team. A recent video shows one guy browsing the internet until he noticed cameras were on him and quickly switched-back to some work screen. These people may not love the car as much as Peter Rawlinson and team did. Maybe they're there just for a paycheck? I don't feel love in the development there. It's not in their blood and it shows. I mean, come on, only a 3-band EQ? What is the frequency for those? They brag about the audio system then dumb-it-down. I demand a user-customizable 10 band Parametric EQ!
The car is very good. I'd recommend it to someone who loves cars; to someone who's owned exotics; to someone who's endured other EVs, who drives spiritedly.
Grade: 9/10
Several software updates have changed my opinion over the last year as well.
Software updates that solved issues or improved driving since December 2024 (which is amazing to me hardware can improve as they affected voltage on actuators!):
- FOB access to the door handles now working all the time
- Door soft-close works perfectly
- Android Auto (73% of the world thanks you)
- Throttle-off regen is much smoother
- Charging works always, anywhere, NACS or J1772
- Wiper rain sensitivity has improved
- Heated seats / steering wheel automatic conditioning has slightly improved
- Audio equalization quality and staging has slightly improved
- Hands-free driving has slightly improved
- Adaptive Cruise has unimproved, then improved later
- Car detection blind-spot monitoring has improved
- Lane-assist has unimproved and assumes any perpendicular road color change is a lane marker which bugs-out Hands-Free driving
- Cabin temperature control has slightly unimproved, possibly for range, as if programmers assume drivers are dressed for the indicated season and not actual temp requested
- Failed cameras are very uncommon now
Things I dislike about the Lucid Air Dream Performance:
- Panel gap. Massive.. Panel.. gap. 3/4" panel gap in areas.
- Squeaky trunk and frunk (fixed with WD-40, which is probably wrong but whatever)
- No bass. None. Like a pencil hitting a piece of paper and then the cones distort and rupture. (Fixed with small JBL 12v-socket 8" sub in the trunk well)
- Glass roof is a parlor trick that cooks you in the summer, freezes you in the winter, and reflects bass terribly and adds tons of road-noise (fixed amazingly with Lucid shades)
- Hands-Free Driving is concerningly 7 years behind-the-curve in technology compared to other companies; dangerously untrustworthy. My SuperCruise by Cadillac CT6 was great in 2019.
- New 2.0 "media computer" is not as amazing as I'd hope and offers slight improvements which generally only fixed speed of use slightly.
- Android Auto sometimes does not connect via USB direct-wire.
- Audio if car is plugged-in sets ALL audio into mute-mode until soft-reset is performed.
- Buggy or lag-y cameras, which are low-resolution.
- Backup warning is hit-or-miss
- Curb-rash detector never works.
- Self-parking is unpredictable and dangerous.
- Glovebox access is digital.
- 12v batteries failure results in zero-access to a small charger that you'd store in your trunk or Glovebox to access the rear-passenger-well pigtail jumpers. What, do I just walk around everywhere with one in my pocket?
- Washer fluid dispersal is hit-or-miss.
- 22" rims are delicate, loud, crash-y, and expensive and lower range by about 20%. (19" rims have more meat and improve these issues but don't look as-cool).
- Pirelli (Chinese) LM2 Sumer tires are a joke and fail often (bubbles in sidewall).
- Pirelli (Chinese) Sottozero Winter tires are about half-as-good as Bridgestone Blizzaks and squeal in turns.
- Tires require very high pressure resulting in harsh ride quality for the sake of range that you can't adjust. Interestingly, a 35 PSI setting makes for a very smooth, supple ride with great grip, but you can't have that without low-tire warnings you can't shunt.
- Top speed is governed due to Pirelli tire-choice by Lucid despite your changing brands.
- Customer service is hit-or-miss. I asked to have the vanity mirror issue fixed two months ago and not heard back.
- Rear seatbelts choke passengers.
- All-weather mats seem to pull shoe rubber into it aggressively.
- Massage feature is not great compared to other brands.
- Seats are fairly stiff compared to other brands.
- Steering wheel blocks gauge view and gauge cluster does not move to accommodate.
- Subtle seat changes do not register to be "saved"
- Media software overall is buggy always, and unpredictable.
- Mobile Key via Phone is unrecommended.
- FOB battery somehow needs to be replaced every 6 months?! Yep.
Things I love about the Lucid Air Dream Performance:
- Acceleration is world-class.
- Handling is near supercar quality and world-class.
- Braking is world-class.
- Leather and materials quality is well above average and excellent.
- Fit & Finish is generally very good (A-pillar panel hangs down a bit and won't snap-in though)
- Dash is modern (Cadillac copied it recently with the CT5)
- Onboard apps such as SiriusXM is phone-based which defeats XM's purpose of no cellphone coverage areas, but allows additional several hundred channels.
- Headlights are surprisingly good.
- Interior feel and ambience is good (wish there were more colors to choose)
- Interior noise, vibration, harshness is very good.
- Driving "feel" is surprisingly connected, steering, braking, resistance, and other driving feedback values.
- Range is excellent.
- Charging is excellent.
- Heating and A/C work well (but not accurate, ie. set to 74 deg. F. does not mean cabin is that actual temp. and more a "feels like" value).
- Looks pretty cool but understated.
So.. overall.
Great car for actually driving. Honestly, better than any I've owned. Better than Corvette or current Lotus. Very connected.
Digital Media is deplorable and the whole team should be sacked; the huge weak-point.
(When I say "digital media" I mean anything that does not control the car's manual driving or HVAC such as: cruise control, audio systems, connectivity (all) very poor.)
Digital Media doesn't really matter. I'm certain it's a separate team that did this. The driving parts of the car, the things that matter all work great (aside from the cameras, which I guess falls under Digital Media).
I suspect the Gravity will really be hindered by this when mothers drive their rug-rats places and the Digital Media functions are buggy, lending overall lack of confidence and safety for their kids.
The Gravity (despite Timothée Chalamet) will drive fine, but the small details (like the Van Halen brown-M&M's fiasco) will concern the user for potential bigger problems.
I've overlooked this as I knew this going-in. I researched the car before buying for several years; haunted the forums, etc. The average person is not a "car guy" (or gal) and "just wants a car to work" without loving the car.
They should buy a Honda Civic or Toyota Camary. This is a car you must love; must have a relationship with; accept her flaws and laugh at them.
The car is reliable to do car-things. The goodies work sometimes, but usually not, like the supermodel you married that tried to bake you cookies, followed the recipe, but burned them a bit anyway. You appreciate the effort.
Really, Lucid should publicly execute their non-car-portion software development team. A recent video shows one guy browsing the internet until he noticed cameras were on him and quickly switched-back to some work screen. These people may not love the car as much as Peter Rawlinson and team did. Maybe they're there just for a paycheck? I don't feel love in the development there. It's not in their blood and it shows. I mean, come on, only a 3-band EQ? What is the frequency for those? They brag about the audio system then dumb-it-down. I demand a user-customizable 10 band Parametric EQ!
The car is very good. I'd recommend it to someone who loves cars; to someone who's owned exotics; to someone who's endured other EVs, who drives spiritedly.
Grade: 9/10
