- Joined
- Mar 7, 2020
- Messages
- 8,704
- Reaction score
- 14,407
- Location
- Naples, FL
- Cars
- Air DE-P, 2 Gravity DEs
- Air DE Number
- 395
- Gravity DE Number
- 067
238
- Referral Code
- 033M4EXG
In deciding to launch a car company into a world where there was no shortage of product, Atieva enlisted a man, Peter Rawlinson, who understood that it was a pointless exercise unless this new car could offer a combination of power, handling, efficiency, and space utilization that no one else did: not the Germans, not the Japanese, not yet the Chinese, and not the Americans in the guise of the budding EV dominance of Tesla.
And Peter Rawlinson was, perhaps uniquely, the man with the background to do it, having held top-tier engineering jobs at Jaguar, Lotus, and Tesla where he was the engineering brains behind the 2012 Car of the Year -- the original Tesla Model S.
And he succeeded. The Lucid Air quickly racked up glowing reviews and an astonishing array of automotive awards, both domestically and internationally. And, although generally less realized, the Air became and remains the best-selling car in the category of luxury EV sedans. (Four years after purchasing an Air Dream Performance it remains the best overall car I've ever owned, still solid as a rock and with an exterior and interior that looks as if it left the factory last week.)
But Rawlinson had one blindspot about today's auto market, a misread he has since acknowledged: USER SOFTWARE MATTERS.
It might not matter as much to the small market of generally older, tech-oriented early adopters who usually own other vehicles to turn to in a pinch, or to the traditional performance-oriented automotive press -- the groups that made the Air a hit -- but user software quickly grows in importance as you try to expand beyond that market.
And it was there that Lucid missed the turn with the Gravity. The Gravity embodies all the understanding Rawlinson had of balancing driving dynamics with efficiency and space engineering, and it once again slays its competitors in hitting on not just one or two, but all three of those factors. (Even the coming Porsche Cayenne, the Gravity's closest technology rival, misses on the space engineering.) But it also still embodies Rawlinson's blindspot when it comes to user software.
Although the Gravity took the design and layout of the user software suite to new heights while keeping an adept mix of conventional manual controls, it utterly flew off the curve and into the ditch with the execution of that software. Time and OTA updates may ultimately get the Gravity back on the pavement as happened with the Air software. But SUV buyers are a different breed from Air buyers: younger, more "digitally-immersed", and with families and routines, often with no back-up vehicle, that demand reliability from Day One.
And here that software blindspot is wreaking its havoc. The Gravity was probably the most-anticipated SUV of 2025/26. This past January Kyle Conner, who was on the voting panel for the Motor Trend SUV of the Year, was all but saying it would be a shoe-in for SUV of the year. Jason Cammisa, one of the best automotive reviewers around, was saying it could make other vehicle categories -- including even sports cars -- obsolete. But those voices have fallen largely silent. The Gravity didn't even make it to the finalist list for SUV of the Year. Software glitches have dominated the reviews by major automotive journals.
So, we are where we are with the Gravity. But what of the coming Earth, Lucid's final big step into the true mass market? Will this blindspot finally be eliminated? Or will Lucid once again put a top-tier driving machine and superb passenger conveyance on the market with a software suite that tortures driver and occupants from the moment of trying to open the doors and get the car started and then with intermittent, random failures of everything from the audio system to climate controls to window operation?
Everything about Lucid's future now rides on eliminating this blindspot. I pray they come to terms with that before the Earth launch.
P.S. I write this as an old-school driving enthusiast myself, someone who also seriously misunderstood where the auto market, for better or worse, is going in terms of software importance until my experience with the Gravity woke me up. When an automaker decides to turn a car's control suite almost entirely over to a computer, it absolutely has to be done right . . . and done from the start.
And Peter Rawlinson was, perhaps uniquely, the man with the background to do it, having held top-tier engineering jobs at Jaguar, Lotus, and Tesla where he was the engineering brains behind the 2012 Car of the Year -- the original Tesla Model S.
And he succeeded. The Lucid Air quickly racked up glowing reviews and an astonishing array of automotive awards, both domestically and internationally. And, although generally less realized, the Air became and remains the best-selling car in the category of luxury EV sedans. (Four years after purchasing an Air Dream Performance it remains the best overall car I've ever owned, still solid as a rock and with an exterior and interior that looks as if it left the factory last week.)
But Rawlinson had one blindspot about today's auto market, a misread he has since acknowledged: USER SOFTWARE MATTERS.
It might not matter as much to the small market of generally older, tech-oriented early adopters who usually own other vehicles to turn to in a pinch, or to the traditional performance-oriented automotive press -- the groups that made the Air a hit -- but user software quickly grows in importance as you try to expand beyond that market.
And it was there that Lucid missed the turn with the Gravity. The Gravity embodies all the understanding Rawlinson had of balancing driving dynamics with efficiency and space engineering, and it once again slays its competitors in hitting on not just one or two, but all three of those factors. (Even the coming Porsche Cayenne, the Gravity's closest technology rival, misses on the space engineering.) But it also still embodies Rawlinson's blindspot when it comes to user software.
Although the Gravity took the design and layout of the user software suite to new heights while keeping an adept mix of conventional manual controls, it utterly flew off the curve and into the ditch with the execution of that software. Time and OTA updates may ultimately get the Gravity back on the pavement as happened with the Air software. But SUV buyers are a different breed from Air buyers: younger, more "digitally-immersed", and with families and routines, often with no back-up vehicle, that demand reliability from Day One.
And here that software blindspot is wreaking its havoc. The Gravity was probably the most-anticipated SUV of 2025/26. This past January Kyle Conner, who was on the voting panel for the Motor Trend SUV of the Year, was all but saying it would be a shoe-in for SUV of the year. Jason Cammisa, one of the best automotive reviewers around, was saying it could make other vehicle categories -- including even sports cars -- obsolete. But those voices have fallen largely silent. The Gravity didn't even make it to the finalist list for SUV of the Year. Software glitches have dominated the reviews by major automotive journals.
So, we are where we are with the Gravity. But what of the coming Earth, Lucid's final big step into the true mass market? Will this blindspot finally be eliminated? Or will Lucid once again put a top-tier driving machine and superb passenger conveyance on the market with a software suite that tortures driver and occupants from the moment of trying to open the doors and get the car started and then with intermittent, random failures of everything from the audio system to climate controls to window operation?
Everything about Lucid's future now rides on eliminating this blindspot. I pray they come to terms with that before the Earth launch.
P.S. I write this as an old-school driving enthusiast myself, someone who also seriously misunderstood where the auto market, for better or worse, is going in terms of software importance until my experience with the Gravity woke me up. When an automaker decides to turn a car's control suite almost entirely over to a computer, it absolutely has to be done right . . . and done from the start.
But make no mistake, Lucid can be better than this, and for its future, it must be.
