When I talked to my SA, I was told that DD is equivalent of Tesla AP. DDPro is equivalent of Tesla FSD. That being said, it will be quite disappointing if SA sells you on the wrong information. Like others have mentioned even the most basic cars now day have some sort of Active Lane correction. I really hope that DD has active lane centering. LiDAR is not needed for lane centering, I totally understand if people are paying extra 9K to “future proof“ their car but again it’s a future promise. Not something Lucid can deliver on today. And not to bash on Lucid, Tesla who has been collecting data and promising these things for years, even they haven’t been able to offer true Full self driving. They still have phantom braking issues… I own a Tesla but not a huge fan, hence making my move over to Lucid. I don’t see how Lucid can deliver on this promise even in the next couple years considering that Tesla is years ahead of most MFR and can’t deliver on this to date.
All being said, no matter what the MFR can program in a software update and is capable of doing. Level 3 autonomy is only offered on 1 car MFR at this point - Mercedes Benz S class. You have to get approval from the government and the MFR needs to demonstrate several millions miles of data to get that approval. BMW was also promising level 3 autonomy and have failed to demonstrate this and fell short on this promise. BMW ix was supposed to release level 3 autonomy in January of 2022. So if legacy automakers who have been in the works for years can’t demonstrate this and can‘t get government approval, I see no hope of Lucid reaching this point even in next 3 years. You have to realize there are two parts to this problem - software evolving and approval from the government which won’t happen unless you have millions of miles of data of full self driving. So honestly, DDPro is not even worth it because by the time it will be official, something better would be in the market. FSD is considered ‘level 5 autonomy’, but to my point earlier only Mercedes has received official approval on Level 3 autonomy to date.
Every automaker can advertise what they want, but due to legal reasons, we are still several years behind on this feature. Sure LiDAR is considered the future, but how fast tech obsoletes, it wouldn’t surprise me if LiDAR is a dead end and few years from now something else will be on the market. And unlike Tesla, Lucid has not advertised upgrade of the hardware in the future if you pay for DDpro package today. Tesla will actually upgrade your hardware in the future if you paid for it today. Just my 2 cents, but DDPro is not the future. Software will have to keep up with hardware and you may be paying for outdated hardware if things become “official“ 3 years from now. We already are at the 1-year mark with some of the early Dream Owners, so what’s another couple years?
arstechnica.com
