Taking a look at Lucid

[Adnillien]

Mu guess is that resistance heating will heat the cabin as quickly as a heat pump. The real difference is that resistance heating draws much more power from the batteries than a heat pump, thereby reducing range more.

The advantage of resistance heating is that it can provide more heat in very low temperatures than a heat pump. When Tesla first introduced heat pumps there were complaints that the cabins could not be heated sufficiently in really cold weather. There were reports that Tesla addressed this by adding backup resistance heating to augment the heat pump when required. However, I never found out whether that was rumor or fact.

This problem is not unique to Tesla. Heat pumps and air conditioners are very efficient when temperature differential between inside and outside is small. Their efficiency decreases as temperature differential increases. In AC mode, it is rare to have a differential of more than 40 degrees. In heat mode, during very cold weather, the temperature differential can be 70 to 80 degrees. When the outside temperature is cold enough, resistive heating is more efficient than running the heat pump. Depending on the efficiency of the heat pump, the efficiency crossover between resistive heat and heat pump is likely in the 20 to 30 degree range. This does not even account for icing or frost on the outside coils of the heat pump that further degrades efficiency. Cars equipped with heat pumps should also have resistive heating as a backup.

 

[hmp10]

This problem is not unique to Tesla. Heat pumps and air conditioners are very efficient when temperature differential between inside and outside is small. Their efficiency decreases as temperature differential increases. In AC mode, it is rare to have a differential of more than 40 degrees. In heat mode, during very cold weather, the temperature differential can be 70 to 80 degrees. When the outside temperature is cold enough, resistive heating is more efficient than running the heat pump. Depending on the efficiency of the heat pump, the efficiency crossover between resistive heat and heat pump is likely in the 20 to 30 degree range. This does not even account for icing or frost on the outside coils of the heat pump that further degrades efficiency. Cars equipped with heat pumps should also have resistive heating as a backup.

Thanks for that explanation. I didn't realize that there was a point at which resistive heating becomes more efficient than a heat pump. I just thought a heat pump ceased to be effective at certain gradients.

 

[menodude]

Morning all,

For starters (do not shoot me) I own a Model 3 and with the let down that is the CyberTruck (please do not hate me) I find myself looking for a more "comfortable" ride and that has lead me to Lucid. I had a few questions if you would humour me (I have done my research to the maximum extent possible but some questions remain and seeing as individuals here have Lucid it made sense to ask):

-Charging, I have currently have my level 2 charger installed in my garage, is there a NACS->J1772 adapter, primarily would like to stick with Tesla's charging network?
-Is there a plan to retrofit the J1772 ports on existing cars to NACS or will this be a hard switch over to NACS with a cut off date for production?
-How frequent (best guess) are updates to the User Interface (UI) on the Lucid cars? I have watched quite a few videos and like it for the most part, but as we all know continued software support is as important as mx minders
-Preconditioning / Heating, I observed somewhere (for the life of me I cannot recall) that preconditioning / heating the car shuts off after 30 minutes, fact or fiction?
- What are your biggest complaints using Lucid as a daily driver?
-How is mx support in NOVA (Northern Virginia, I know there is a service center at Tysons Corner), for example when I was working in Key West and my 12v died, Tesla sent a tech from Miami (4 hours there / 4 hours back) to swap out the 12v?
-The 500 mile range is extremely attractive to me, are there any downsides to this particular model?
-I have looked at the financials for this company and find them a bit concerning, mainly the fact that they seem to be struggling to find their place in the market (hint low cost EV that is not luxury based, but I digress), does anyone else share this concern referencing long term support for their car?

These questions are being asked in good faith and I am not trying to say one company is better than the other or anything of that sort, just trying to find a more comfortable ride with decent range.

Can’t answer all your questions but can provide some insight since I have had multiple teslas and a lucid. To compare :
Lucid drives way better
Suspension is excellent
Comfort is great
Range is superior
Service is superior. Atleast you can talk to a human being and they have some manners and know how to interact with other human beings.

Cons:
AI is way behind
Bluetooth integration is dismal with cell phone , you always need a key or get locked out.
Highway assist - long way to go if you are used to autopilot. Cannot manage curves and majority of the roads not mapped.
Forget charging at stations. Takes forever if they even work. I only use it when I can charge at home. The range provides me some comfort.
The air and heating is not uniformly distributed.
I’m holding off on my gravity until they can fix my current lucid.
Overall great car but needs lots of tweaks to compete with Tesla.
Others may have a better experience which is good !!

 

[Lucken]

How are you feeling about the ride/handling/comfort/noise? Pending my test drive this weekend I am really interested in your input since you understand the issues I experienced. The software I have realistic expectations of, nothing is problem free obviously, but how does it compare to the intuitiveness of Tesla? The control suite of Lucid definitely attracts me because of the manual controls and ones that my girlfriend (Pax 1 as I call her) to change the temp on her side of the car. If you would not mind elaborating I would appreciate it.

I think he addressed that when he said, "In terms of ride, handling, noise levels, room, comfort, and structural rigidity, the Lucid simply trounces the Tesla."

I had a 2017 MS and to me there's no comparison. I agree the Lucid is far superior in terms of ride & handling, noise & overall comfort.

 

[Haggy]

I learned from @LucidDropkick the other day that if you edit a contact to have an address, you can pull up the contacts in the Lucid and hit the navigate button to send navigation there. So while you can't save an address as Bob directly in the Lucid, if Bob's contact on your phone has his address you can totally navigate to it.

But if it's on my phone, I already have a way of looking it up. I first encountered this problem on a car in 2007. My wife dropped the kids off somewhere and later asked me to pick them up. The problem was that the navigation history had addresses but no names. I knew that I needed to go to an address. That part was obvious. And I knew that it was in the history. I just didn't know which one and it might not have been the same day. If I knew what the address was, I wouldn't have needed to look in the history. I knew the name of the person whose house I was supposed to go to, but the navigator did not. I might have called my wife at the time, who knew that it was in the history but didn't know the address.

The bottom line is that the big point of the history should be to be able to go back to a place I've been to before without having to remember or look up the address. In the Lucid, the history serves that purpose only if I already know what the address is.

It was frustrating 17 years ago that I was able to point it out to the car company, they agreed that it was an issue, but software updates weren't a possibility. It's frustrating that it's the first car I've had since then that overlooked the ability to save something in the history with the name of the place.

I don't expect Lucid to have every feature that Tesla has, and an address book on par with other cars would be a compromise as opposed to Tesla, where I can have an appointment on my calendar with an address and I don't even have to tell the car anything. Years ago, I could pull up the calendar and tap on it when it wasn't automatic. I could pull my address book up on the car from my phone and select it. Or if I didn't select it at all and didn't tell the car to navigate to it, the car still knew that I was going there, and even with no route on the navigator, it could give traffic warnings about roads that I would likely take.

So if a person wants to know how it compares to Tesla, it's behind in a lot of areas. But when comparing it to many other cars, the lack of ability to save something in an address book by name is a shortcoming. If this weren't a Lucid vs features I have in Tesla thread, I wouldn't complain that Lucid lacks most of these but the more basic parts should be on any car in that range.

It's also not clear to me if voice is supposed to be able to let me navigate to one of my contacts. I've had bad luck trying to get it to go to places that are easy to find by name in general. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.

 

[Lucken]

It's also not clear to me if voice is supposed to be able to let me navigate to one of my contacts. I've had bad luck trying to get it to go to places that are easy to find by name in general. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.

That ability to navigate by name has worked for me almost 100% of the time. I'm not sure why it doesn't for some.

 

[Haggy]

You made me curious, so I just switched the heat on via the app and timed it. About 8:30 to get from 30F to 62F, then it slowed down significantly. With the seat/wheel heaters the car is comfortable to me with ambient temperature anywhere above about 40. I just switch it on as I'm packing up to leave wherever I am, and it's always perfectly fine by the time I get to it. Takes maybe 2% off my battery (Touring, smaller battery than the GT) to do that.

No you made me curious. I haven't had the car in the summer, but with the Tesla, the maximum it goes up to is around 105⁰F with cabin protection on. (40⁰C or so) and if I forget to use the app to cool the car down until I'm walking back to my car, 2-3 minutes is all it takes to get down to 70⁰F. Most cars take a lot longer, and I don't know where Lucid stands.

Cons:
Cannot manage curves and majority of the roads not mapped.

I haven't found problems handling curves, and it's nowhere near as bad as Teslas was early on. What it has in common with Tesla's early lane centering is that it doesn't automatically slow down on curves. But Lucid didn't release it prematurely when it didn't work and when ACC was likely to run into an already stopped car the way Tesla did. The bottom line is that while Lucid does not yet do a number of things, the ones that have been released were released when they were working substantially well if not perfect. I did have a bit of lane pinging with a prior software release, caused by it reacting sensitively to pressure from my hand on the wheel and not from an inability to center, but Tesla used to have that sort of problem entirely on its own.

As far as whether it works on enough streets, I'd personally rather have "it's the driver's fault for using it on a road type that we said wasn't supported" than a car that disables a feature for you, but Lucid went the other way. I had cars with ACC decades ago that told me not to use it on local streets even though it worked so the idea of features potentially working where a driver isn't supposed to use them isn't a foreign one.

 

[segbrk]

No you made me curious. I haven't had the car in the summer, but with the Tesla, the maximum it goes up to is around 105⁰F with cabin protection on. (40⁰C or so) and if I forget to use the app to cool the car down until I'm walking back to my car, 2-3 minutes is all it takes to get down to 70⁰F. Most cars take a lot longer, and I don't know where Lucid stands.

Lucid doesn't have the cabin protection feature currently. I never timed it, but my usage in summer was the same. Switch on HVAC as I'm packing up, get to the car and it's still warm, but not miserable. I was using a heatshield shade in the front all summer, but nothing up top. Curious to see how much better it'll be this summer with Lucid's new shades for the top as well.

 

[menodude]

Get that checked out. There should be no pingponging, but some people have had to get their sensors recalibrated to fix that.

Good to know, will need mine checked out too!

 

[JoshG]

I don't trust it enough to risk being left stranded. So I carry the fob and the phone. It would be nice not to have the fob in my pocket but it is not a big deal to carry it.

Not sure i understand your logic. If you don't trust the phone to always work as a key, why not just keep the keycard in your wallet as the backup? Then you can do as you said you wished... leave the fob at home.

 

[xponents]

Not sure i understand your logic. If you don't trust the phone to always work as a key, why not just keep the keycard in your wallet as the backup? Then you can do as you said you wished... leave the fob at home.

He doesnt have a Lucid.

 

[Steveinarizona]

He doesnt have a Lucid.

But I do have a keycard also. But I believe my keycard is more limited in use than the fob. I will have to check that out. It might be a good alternative but one of the functions on the fob I know won't work on the key card: pulling in or out of a space. If someone parks too close to me I can use the fob to back the car out of the space.

After roughly 62 years of carrying a key or fob, I need to consider other alternatives.

 

[borski]

But if it's on my phone, I already have a way of looking it up. I first encountered this problem on a car in 2007. My wife dropped the kids off somewhere and later asked me to pick them up. The problem was that the navigation history had addresses but no names. I knew that I needed to go to an address. That part was obvious. And I knew that it was in the history. I just didn't know which one and it might not have been the same day. If I knew what the address was, I wouldn't have needed to look in the history. I knew the name of the person whose house I was supposed to go to, but the navigator did not. I might have called my wife at the time, who knew that it was in the history but didn't know the address.

The bottom line is that the big point of the history should be to be able to go back to a place I've been to before without having to remember or look up the address. In the Lucid, the history serves that purpose only if I already know what the address is.

It was frustrating 17 years ago that I was able to point it out to the car company, they agreed that it was an issue, but software updates weren't a possibility. It's frustrating that it's the first car I've had since then that overlooked the ability to save something in the history with the name of the place.

I don't expect Lucid to have every feature that Tesla has, and an address book on par with other cars would be a compromise as opposed to Tesla, where I can have an appointment on my calendar with an address and I don't even have to tell the car anything. Years ago, I could pull up the calendar and tap on it when it wasn't automatic. I could pull my address book up on the car from my phone and select it. Or if I didn't select it at all and didn't tell the car to navigate to it, the car still knew that I was going there, and even with no route on the navigator, it could give traffic warnings about roads that I would likely take.

So if a person wants to know how it compares to Tesla, it's behind in a lot of areas. But when comparing it to many other cars, the lack of ability to save something in an address book by name is a shortcoming. If this weren't a Lucid vs features I have in Tesla thread, I wouldn't complain that Lucid lacks most of these but the more basic parts should be on any car in that range.

It's also not clear to me if voice is supposed to be able to let me navigate to one of my contacts. I've had bad luck trying to get it to go to places that are easy to find by name in general. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.

Sure, a history would be nice. I'm just saying you sort of *can* save waypoints, in the form of storing them as phone contacts and accessing them through the Lucid in-car UI. It's a workaround, but it works.

 

[MadeInAZ]

One of the jabs people take at the Lucid is its conventional rear trunk instead of Tesla's taller hatchback opening. Lucid did that for a reason: the structural rigidity provided by the large beam across the rear opening. Car bodies actually function as a spring, and the Model S has always had subpar torsional rigidity. The more the body flexes, the firmer the suspension settings required to maintain a given level of control. Lucid leverages the Air's high torsional stiffness to enable softer suspension settings while still providing superb control.

Really interesting regarding the trunk; I did not know that! Coming from a Model S, I thought at first that not having a hatchback would be a problem, but I've found that the trunk with the deep opening is easy to use. Also, the Lucid trunk lid has been engineered so that you can see out the back window when it's open. As a bonus, the powered frunk on my Air is much more usable than the frunk on my Model S was. I should also mention that coming from a Model S, I have enjoyed the considerable improvement in ride and handling. The Air is simply in a different (better) class. Oh, and Lucid's customer service is far superior to Tesla's; they aren't averse to picking up the phone.

 

[MadeInAZ]

I learned from @LucidDropkick the other day that if you edit a contact to have an address, you can pull up the contacts in the Lucid and hit the navigate button to send navigation there. So while you can't save an address as Bob directly in the Lucid, if Bob's contact on your phone has his address you can totally navigate to it.

For those out there with iPhones, I would add that Lucid supports CarPlay, unlike Tesla, and also that you can send an address directly from Apple Maps or Google Maps to the car using the share feature, just as you can to a Tesla.

 

[hmp10]

Really interesting regarding the trunk; I did not know that! Coming from a Model S, I thought at first that not having a hatchback would be a problem, but I've found that the trunk with the deep opening is easy to use.

Peter Rawlinson explained this is some early interviews during the Air design. He said that when he joined Tesla in 2010 and found the Model S design needed to be reworked from the ground up, the only thing he was told he couldn't touch was the body shell which had already been locked in. He said he was always bothered by the lack of torsional stiffness in that shell, driven in part by the hatchback opening. He said he finally had a chance to rectify that with the Air.

In later interviews, either Erich Bach or Derek Jenkins (I forget which) said the trunk design also made it easier to isolate rear noises in the cargo area from the cabin.

P.S. Back when we still had our first Model S (a 2015 P90D) I had read reports of its poor structural rigidity, so I did a little digging. Not all manufacturers report torsional stiffness data, so it was a little difficult to come by. However, some auto journal articles reported Tesla's figure, and I was able to locate the figures for several similarly-sized sedans from Mercedes, Audi, GM, and Ford. Every one had significantly higher torsional stiffness, and a couple of convertibles reported figures almost as good as Tesla's.

I was assuming the structural stiffness had been addressed with the 2021 Model S update, as quite a few of the body components had been redesigned. However, the stiff ride and the creaks and groans our Model S Plaid soon developed suggest not . . . or at least not fully.

 

[CoasterNerd]

I haven't ordered my Lucid Air yet (waiting on orders to open up for 2024 GT's). Two things:

1. Tesla Superchargers may be Version 1, 2, 3 or 4. Staring with Version 3, many superchargers have the "magic dock" enabling them to be connected to a NACS or CCS port. You can find these Supercharger stations on Tesla's website or app by searching for "Superchargers Open to Non-Tesla". HOWEVER, all Teslas (except the Cybertruck) use a 400V architecture. The Cybertruck, Lucid Air, and most other newer non-Tesla EV's use an 800V architecture. The only way you can truly fast charge an 800V architecture EV is to use a 1000V DC fast charger. Tesla only JUST started rolling out 1000V Superchargers with version 4. You can charge at at a pre-V4 Supercharger, but it will be slow (no faster than 50kW in the Lucid Air). So it's best used as an emergency backup when a EA, EVGo, or CP charger is not available (as far as I can tell, pretty much all of the non-Tesla DC fast chargers can output up to 1000V). And it does look like there is now a NACS to CCS adapter for SuperCharger use on the market as well (Lectron Vortex plug). But this still doesn't solve the problem that almost all existing Tesla Superchargers are too low-voltage. Presumably Tesla will upgrade the existing ones (since even Tesla has adopted 800V architecture in the Cybertruck), but that will take time. Until then, you're FAR better off using non-Tesla DC fast chargers.

2. Others have mentioned that you can buy an adapter and continue to use your Tesla home charger with a J1772 car. Tesla also now offers a Universal wall charger where the adapter is elegantly built into the dock.

2. The Lucid Air Sapphire has a heat pump. No one (outside of Lucid) knows, but some are theorizing/hoping that the 2024 GT may be equipped with a heat pump. We won't know until the 2024 GT is officially announced by Lucid. I'm also hoping (but have no evidence to suggest that it's likely or unlikely), that the 2024 GT will have an air suspension (perhaps standard or perhaps as an option). Neither are deal-breakers for me as everyone speaks highly of the ride/handling of the Lucid Air with its conventional suspension, but as a resident of the NE, I'd really like to see a heat pump trickle down from the Sapphire to the GT.

 

[hmp10]

I'm also hoping (but have no evidence to suggest that it's likely or unlikely), that the 2024 GT will have an air suspension (perhaps standard or perhaps as an option).

If they do put an air suspension in the Air, I hope it's an option and that the superb coil over semi-active dampers setup remains available. I'm on my second Tesla with air suspension -- a 2015 Model S P90D (on which air was an option at the time), and a 2021 Model S Plaid on which air is standard. Our Air Dream Performance has both better handling and a more compliant ride than the Teslas. The only reason I would prefer an air suspension is if I needed ride height adjustment, which I don't.

Air suspensions have neither inherent handling nor ride advantages over coil springs. They were originally developed for aircraft because of their ability to handle more weight, which is why they later became common in the trucking industry. But a coil spring suspension avoids the problem of hysteresis lag you get with air suspensions and can be tuned for more precision and to the level of ride stiffness called for by other factors.

The Audi R8s I owned had the same coil suspension setup as the Air at a time when the Audi A8 was using air suspension. Those cars had an amazing combination of handling and ride compliance. The reason Audi chose coils for its flagship performance (and its most expensive) car was the same reason Lucid did: superior control with softer springing allowed by the Air's superior torsional rigidity.

Thus, I have the opposite hope from you. Lucid has announced a "zero gravity" air suspension option for the Gravity. I'm hoping it will be an option to a standard suspension like the Air setup instead of adding additional features to a base air suspension. I would very much like to see the Gravity retain as much of the handling precision of the Air as is possible with its greater mass and height.

 

[hydbob]

I haven't ordered my Lucid Air yet (waiting on orders to open up for 2024 GT's). Two things:

1. Tesla Superchargers may be Version 1, 2, 3 or 4. Staring with Version 3, many superchargers have the "magic dock" enabling them to be connected to a NACS or CCS port. You can find these Supercharger stations on Tesla's website or app by searching for "Superchargers Open to Non-Tesla". HOWEVER, all Teslas (except the Cybertruck) use a 400V architecture. The Cybertruck, Lucid Air, and most other newer non-Tesla EV's use an 800V architecture. The only way you can truly fast charge an 800V architecture EV is to use a 1000V DC fast charger. Tesla only JUST started rolling out 1000V Superchargers with version 4. You can charge at at a pre-V4 Supercharger, but it will be slow (no faster than 50kW in the Lucid Air). So it's best used as an emergency backup when a EA, EVGo, or CP charger is not available (as far as I can tell, pretty much all of the non-Tesla DC fast chargers can output up to 1000V). And it does look like there is now a NACS to CCS adapter for SuperCharger use on the market as well (Lectron Vortex plug). But this still doesn't solve the problem that almost all existing Tesla Superchargers are too low-voltage. Presumably Tesla will upgrade the existing ones (since even Tesla has adopted 800V architecture in the Cybertruck), but that will take time. Until then, you're FAR better off using non-Tesla DC fast chargers.

2. Others have mentioned that you can buy an adapter and continue to use your Tesla home charger with a J1772 car. Tesla also now offers a Universal wall charger where the adapter is elegantly built into the dock.

2. The Lucid Air Sapphire has a heat pump. No one (outside of Lucid) knows, but some are theorizing/hoping that the 2024 GT may be equipped with a heat pump. We won't know until the 2024 GT is officially announced by Lucid. I'm also hoping (but have no evidence to suggest that it's likely or unlikely), that the 2024 GT will have an air suspension (perhaps standard or perhaps as an option). Neither are deal-breakers for me as everyone speaks highly of the ride/handling of the Lucid Air with its conventional suspension, but as a resident of the NE, I'd really like to see a heat pump trickle down from the Sapphire to the GT.

As far as I've been able to tell, there are still 0 Tesla V4 superchargers.

 

[Adnillien]

As far as I've been able to tell, there are still 0 Tesla V4 superchargers.

I believe that there are some V4 superhargers but they all have 500V cabinets behind them so they are limited to 500V.