We were driving the 150 miles from home near Champaign to Chicago for a radio appearance last night (12/30), on WFMT with a 10-mile detour to drop off the dog with my partner's sister while we proceeded into the city for dinner with friends and the broadcast. We had hoped to do a little shopping on the way. Since the radio station has a slow, L2 charger in its parking lot, we decided to boost 20 percent at the new Electrify America charging station in the Meijer's parking lot in Bradley-Kankakee, IL about a half mile off I-57.
The six gleaming new 350kw "hyper" charging stations were unoccupied, so there was no problem plugging in. We chose #4 about in the middle.
After about 90 seconds of hand-shaking the car started charging. For one minute. Then everything went haywire and the dash started flashing "critical fault" or whatever and the entire car went complete dead. We were on a tight schedule.
I called the Lucid customer care number and immediately reached a very nice person, Yama, in California who offered to assist. He said we had to vacate the car and walk away 30 feet (with Circe) so the car would go to sleep. Then after sleeping he would reawaken it. Didn't the Brothers Grimm write a fairytale about this? Although apparently I walked back too close to the car during its nap, it came back to life. Then we moved to a different charger and attempted to charge with my free charging. Unfortunately, once you start charging at EA and then stop, you are locked out for some period of time. So Yama called EA for us, waited on hold for ten minutes and asked them to reactivate my car on the new charger. The EA woman tried multiple times without success. Further, I had to keep plugging and unplugging the charging cable (thank goodness the weather was good). These new chargers had the stiffest, heaviest cables and it required a great deal of strength and finesse to keep plugging it in. Finally, after 10 minutes of authorization attempts, the Yama just told us to use a credit card and Lucid would reimburse us. That worked and we charged for 20 minutes. I just noticed that EA has not charged me for the charge, thus far.
Incidentally, we planned to charge for 60 to 80 percent. We preconditioned. Yet finally, when the electrons started flowing our charging speed was 75kw/h at this new, probably, state-of-the-art EA charger. So we sat there another 20 minutes.
We were able to drop off our dog and make it to dinner only five minutes late. During dinner near the radio station and the radio appearance, the WFMT charger managed to bring us up to 90 percent, which was more than enough to get us home, where we finally arrived at 12:45 am after picking up the dog. The car functioned normally the rest of the day.
Yama was not sure whether the EA unit generated the fault, he said he'd seen that before. I suspect there may have been too much tension from the cable shorting out the port. Yama stuck with us until the car finally was successfully charging. He showed real concern. He also was relieved that the weather was good.
In any event, I'd rate Lucid's customer service an 11 on a scale of 10.
At the same time, and this is not a knock on Lucid, I think I'm done with EVs. I've owned eight ICE/hybrid cars over 50 years and never faced a complete failure that immobilized the car, or even anything close. I'm glad I was dealing with Lucid, not one of the "Big Guys," who probably would have been far less concerned and helpful. I understand that if I had popped an extra $35K for the Grand Touring I'd have the real range I desire. Sorry, I didn't have the extra coin. As it was, I stretched for the Touring, since my original plan was to buy the $85K Pure with AWD. My Lucid SA and DA said I might wait a long time for the Pure. (Which I actually would have receive 90 days later.)
I chose Lucid not only because of its superior technology, but because I wanted a car that would go round-trip between my home downstate and Chicago, about 300 miles, without recharging. Even on a 70 degree day with no wind, my Touring is incapable of that without draining the battery to five percent.
I realized yesterday that I'm just not ready for an EV. Until they extend the range to a guaranteed absolute 400 miles (even in 32 degree weather) for under $75K (ha, ha) and place charging stations every 30 miles or so along the Interstate, I'm going back to a hybrid. Before y'all jump all over me, I still believe that the Lucid is the best EV on the market. I just think the overall market is not truly ready for prime time.
The six gleaming new 350kw "hyper" charging stations were unoccupied, so there was no problem plugging in. We chose #4 about in the middle.
After about 90 seconds of hand-shaking the car started charging. For one minute. Then everything went haywire and the dash started flashing "critical fault" or whatever and the entire car went complete dead. We were on a tight schedule.
I called the Lucid customer care number and immediately reached a very nice person, Yama, in California who offered to assist. He said we had to vacate the car and walk away 30 feet (with Circe) so the car would go to sleep. Then after sleeping he would reawaken it. Didn't the Brothers Grimm write a fairytale about this? Although apparently I walked back too close to the car during its nap, it came back to life. Then we moved to a different charger and attempted to charge with my free charging. Unfortunately, once you start charging at EA and then stop, you are locked out for some period of time. So Yama called EA for us, waited on hold for ten minutes and asked them to reactivate my car on the new charger. The EA woman tried multiple times without success. Further, I had to keep plugging and unplugging the charging cable (thank goodness the weather was good). These new chargers had the stiffest, heaviest cables and it required a great deal of strength and finesse to keep plugging it in. Finally, after 10 minutes of authorization attempts, the Yama just told us to use a credit card and Lucid would reimburse us. That worked and we charged for 20 minutes. I just noticed that EA has not charged me for the charge, thus far.
Incidentally, we planned to charge for 60 to 80 percent. We preconditioned. Yet finally, when the electrons started flowing our charging speed was 75kw/h at this new, probably, state-of-the-art EA charger. So we sat there another 20 minutes.
We were able to drop off our dog and make it to dinner only five minutes late. During dinner near the radio station and the radio appearance, the WFMT charger managed to bring us up to 90 percent, which was more than enough to get us home, where we finally arrived at 12:45 am after picking up the dog. The car functioned normally the rest of the day.
Yama was not sure whether the EA unit generated the fault, he said he'd seen that before. I suspect there may have been too much tension from the cable shorting out the port. Yama stuck with us until the car finally was successfully charging. He showed real concern. He also was relieved that the weather was good.
In any event, I'd rate Lucid's customer service an 11 on a scale of 10.
At the same time, and this is not a knock on Lucid, I think I'm done with EVs. I've owned eight ICE/hybrid cars over 50 years and never faced a complete failure that immobilized the car, or even anything close. I'm glad I was dealing with Lucid, not one of the "Big Guys," who probably would have been far less concerned and helpful. I understand that if I had popped an extra $35K for the Grand Touring I'd have the real range I desire. Sorry, I didn't have the extra coin. As it was, I stretched for the Touring, since my original plan was to buy the $85K Pure with AWD. My Lucid SA and DA said I might wait a long time for the Pure. (Which I actually would have receive 90 days later.)
I chose Lucid not only because of its superior technology, but because I wanted a car that would go round-trip between my home downstate and Chicago, about 300 miles, without recharging. Even on a 70 degree day with no wind, my Touring is incapable of that without draining the battery to five percent.
I realized yesterday that I'm just not ready for an EV. Until they extend the range to a guaranteed absolute 400 miles (even in 32 degree weather) for under $75K (ha, ha) and place charging stations every 30 miles or so along the Interstate, I'm going back to a hybrid. Before y'all jump all over me, I still believe that the Lucid is the best EV on the market. I just think the overall market is not truly ready for prime time.
