Question on build quality.

Rchie

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2023 Lucid Air Touring
I've reserved the Touring trim a few days ago and while reading through this forum, I saw that some people had issues with panel gaps and broken pieces of trim. Reading these makes me quite a bit worried. Are these people just unlucky or Lucid is just going to be Tesla number 2? If quality control really is bad, then are they going to improve it by the time I get my car? I'm also hoping that they improve on the wireless phone charging and cup holder design soon.
 
I would not worry. We needed minor trim adjustments and service replaced one and adjusted the others prompts and perfectly. Impeccable job adjusting things I didn't think possible, that I was resigned to live with.
 
I've only had mine a week but I didn't fine any physical issues with mine. Had trouble with the bluetooth connection on my phone. Read later that iOS 16 and older software could be glitchy. I've since gotten it working.

I showed up with the checklist that's posted on this forum. The DA had seen the checklist and we went through the car together and didn't find any issues. I honestly wasn't that careful about my check because the car overall looked great. He was actually more careful than me as he had done this for 3 other customers.

I'm sure over time I'll find some other things but hopefully they get fixed quickly. I'm also sure there will be some parts that fail and will need to be fixed under warranty.

On my Model X, I needed a bunch of things fixed in the first few years. The door latch mechanism failed. Falcon wing doors. Charger needed to be replaced. On our Model S, the entire screen was recalled and replaced. On our Model 3, several things. I have to give them credit as most things were fixed by mobile service while I was at work. Obviously not the screen and charger. I know Tesla isn't the model for great quality. But I've had similar problems with other 'luxury cars'. Range Rover (insert joke here), MB, BMW, Audi. I've had minor issues with all of them.

If you want best reliability, you probably need to buy a mass produced car like a Camry.
I have definitely found “German reliability” to be a bit of a myth.
 
I have definitely found “German reliability” to be a bit of a myth.

Me too. In my biased mind, German cars aren’t so much bulletproof reliable as they are over-engineered. If there’s a complicated way to build something the Germans will find it (looking at those Porsche/Audi cupholders from the 1990s).

Another thing - Europeans, and generally drivers the world over, don’t drive as we do here in America, though that may be changing as the rest of the world becomes more Americanised. The rest of the world generally doesn’t drive the distances we do on a daily basis. Hundred mile daily commutes are unheard of; also, rarely do European drivers talk in their car, work in their car, eat in their car or drink in their car, shave in their car, apply mascara in their car, or eat a bowl of cereal in their car.

Europeans just DRIVE. It was years of resistance before the German automakers finally relented in the face of pressure from the US market, and started designing “cupholders” into their cars. After all, anywhere but America, who would need such a thing?

All of the above to say, for the way they drive in Europe (short distances, and relatively infrequently), their cars are designed with all the reliability they need. Ship their cars over here to America, with our daily driving, our hours and hours of commuting, and the tens of thousands of miles that we put on our cars in a relatively short period, their so-called bulletproof build quality starts fraying, and their reliability is given a greater opportunity to fall short.
 
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