Test Drive today - specific things to try or look for?

[HaltheAerialist]

My wife is 4'11. We didn't have a chance to fully adjust and have her drive around, but within seconds of sitting in Gravity she found the seat and wheel position better than that in our Air. I think it has to do with the wheel shape helping with visibility, and the seat being higher off the ground by default.

Also, since we have a Touring Air, the headrest is not adjustable. Once we pushed the headrest forward on Gravity, that helped a great deal, too. My guess is this reviewer, as she said, just needed more time to play around and make more adjustments.

Having said all that, obviously you should test drive yourself and see if it fits for you. Our lease is up in December, and though I've always planned on just buying my Touring, I'm thinking if my wife can do a test drive between now and then, and she finds Gravity more comfortable, I may just make the switch.

Thank you for the report! It's very encouraging.

 

[JoshG]

How is the Dream Drive Pro 2 doing? Any missing features?

The drive was 20 minutes, a mix of highway and surface streets. Didn't get a chance to enable any Drive Assist on the short drive. I did try the autopark functions in 5 spaces, a mix of parallel and perpendicular spaces and I can tell you it works exactly as well as the Autopark does on my air. And by that it means, it doesn't work almost ever. We put on the scanning, drove slowly past some perfect parallel spots and it just didn't recognize it, even creeping along very slowly, scanning enabled, going well past the perfect spot and it still just said scanning for spots. Only tried one perpendicular spot and it also didn't recognize it. This is with the Lucid person with me, also an Air owner, and he couldn't get it to work either. Oh well... software fixable I'm sure.

 

[JoshG]

Surreal Sound Pro or Surreal Sound on the Gravity, how does the sound work comparing to your current Air?
Wireless charger easy to access? Does phone get hot when charging?

I have SSPro on my Air, with the hardware fix recently released, and while I didn't have time to check tidal or high quality sources, the sound was at least as good as on my Air, which is to be expected. Would have to spend more time and get Tidal or other high quality source to really give a fair report, but it didn't disappoint in casual listening.

 

[98point1]

The drive was 20 minutes, a mix of highway and surface streets. Didn't get a chance to enable any Drive Assist on the short drive. I did try the autopark functions in 5 spaces, a mix of parallel and perpendicular spaces and I can tell you it works exactly as well as the Autopark does on my air. And by that it means, it doesn't work almost ever. We put on the scanning, drove slowly past some perfect parallel spots and it just didn't recognize it, even creeping along very slowly, scanning enabled, going well past the perfect spot and it still just said scanning for spots. Only tried one perpendicular spot and it also didn't recognize it. This is with the Lucid person with me, also an Air owner, and he couldn't get it to work either. Oh well... software fixable I'm sure.

How was the drive itself?

 

[JoshG]

Surreal Sound Pro or Surreal Sound on the Gravity, how does the sound work comparing to your current Air?
Wireless charger easy to access? Does phone get hot when charging?

Wireless charger is very easy to access compared to the Air, but that's not saying much! I prefer ones where the phone is vertical (portrait) rather than landscape, but you just lay it in their and it charges. very easy.

 

[JoshG]

How was the drive itself?

coming... will write up and post in next hour or so. but spoiler - very very impressive.

 

[joec]

Okay. So I just drove Gravity. The easiest thing to say is it was pretty much like driving my Air. Which is actually quite remarkable.

First thing I did when I got in was set up my seats, mirrors, and wheel. Then I set the air suspension to fully slammed down. And then I turned on Sprint and put it in high regen.

Do that, and you basically have an Air that’s a bit higher from the ground.

Other notes:

- The wheel was a non-issue. It’s thinner than Air’s wheel. That took me longer to get used to than the squircle.

- Better visibility all around than air. Yes, it has thick A pillars. So does Air. But the windshield is larger, and there’s more headroom, so the field of view is just bigger. And the squircle gives you a way better view of your cockpit screen.

There are buttons for popping down the headrests of the third row seats when no one is using them. Do that, and rear view visibility is actually better than Air, too.

The HUD was not active, unfortunately. But I learned you can adjust where it displays, and it can even track your eyes and move its display accordingly. Setting for this is part of your profile, so if you share the car with another driver, it’ll put the HUD in the right place.

I pulled a tight U-turn, at the suggestion of my escort, as he wanted to show off the rear-wheel steering. I took it slow, only because I didn’t believe we were going to make it. But we did. Just wow.

What can I say? Get the rear-wheel steering package. You’d be nuts not to.

Config was Aurora Green with Yosemite interior. Didn’t love that look as much as I thought. I’d probably go Tahoe or Ojai with the green.

Inside it felt like a Lucid, through and through. Everything just a teeny bit more refined than Air. Even the turn signal sound was more subtle and nice, while still being familiar.

Software seems to be in good shape. Couldn’t test out everything, but everything I did worked. And if you know Air, it’s mostly familiar while also being slightly better.

Sense a theme here?

All-in-all, it was a very impressive ride. Only had fifteen minutes or so, but it was enough to convince me Lucid has a winner on its hands. It drives like a car, not an SUV. Which is a massive plus in my book.

And say whatever you want about the looks. But it don’t drive like no minivan. That’s for damn sure.

Also, I got a new toy as a parting gift.

Can’t wait for everyone to ge to try it out. They said slots for test drives sold out here in San Jose. And that’s with one day’s notice. I can see why they are slow rolling the test drives now.

 

[joec]

Oh, and my demo Gravity had sun shades. Just the front two. The guy wasn’t sure if they were just the Air ones, or if they were custom sized for gravity. I think it would be cool if the front ones from Air just fit. The back is obviously a different story. But that rear panel seems quite tinted, so I’m not sure how needed they would be.

 

[WeighingGravity]

Yeah, one of my questions was going to be how hot it feels. I've had a glass roof in my Tesla S since day 1 and I've never had a problem even in hot mid-Atlantic summers, but given how everyone else is pretty freaked about it I wonder if there's been something different about Airs. Plus the high windshield is a different proposition from the Model S no matter what. I'm assuming the sun shines bright in San Jose this time of year.

 

[JoshG]

coming... will write up and post in next hour or so. but spoiler - very very impressive.

posted full write-up here

 

[JoshG]

Two minor things:
1- Do you see any reflection of the dashboard on the windshield?
2- Can the charging cable be removed without fully unlocking the car and turning on the headlights?
Thanks.

1) No reflection at all, not an issue.
2) couldn't check this

 

[EVCar]

1) No reflection at all, not an issue.
2) couldn't check this

Thanks do much for the detailed report.
There's no better ambassador than existing customer base, especially the sophisticated and devoted forum crowd.

 

[Tâm]

I have SSPro on my Air, with the hardware fix recently released, and while I didn't have time to check tidal or high quality sources, the sound was at least as good as on my Air, which is to be expected. Would have to spend more time and get Tidal or other high quality source to really give a fair report, but it didn't disappoint in casual listening.

Does Gravity have a traditional subwoofer box (not like the ones hanging on the Air's trunk ceiling)?