The Long Goodbye

[The_Don]

I've always been shocked by your patience given the vast array of issues you've had across your Gravitys. Hope you're able to get some stress relief by no longer being mentally/emotionally attached to the cars and brand.

 

[dbsb3233]

I'm not there yet, but I'm about at the point where I feel like it was a mistake to buy my Gravity. And obviously it was a mistake to but LCID stock. I'm not nearly as far underwater as some, as I only started buying last year. I've been accumulating on the way down (I'm averaged in at $13.50). But it's adding up (500 shares at a time). I knew it was a swing at a home run though. Money I could afford to lose.

But my $108k car is a different matter. It was supposed to be my ultimate car. My last car purchase (I'm 67yo). Most luxury, most capable, best equipped. I know there's always some growing pains with a 1st year model from a new startup automaker. I still hold out some hope they'll get their act together. But I'm getting seriously concerned about their ability to (1) stay in business, and (2) properly support 2026 Gravitys. To survive, they have to get Cosmos and Earth right. I could see nearly all their focus and resources going to those now, leaving existing Gravity owners in the lurch. We'll get some crumbs along the way but I'm not expecting a serious effort to fix our many ongoing problems and annoyances. Just gonna be stuck with a lot of compromises, I'm afraid. I've lowered my expectations for improvements and fixes.

 

[hmp10]

To survive, they have to get Cosmos and Earth right. I could see nearly all their focus and resources going to those now, leaving existing Gravity owners in the lurch. We'll get some crumbs along the way but I'm not expecting a serious effort to fix our many ongoing problems and annoyances.

I've developed the same suspicion, and it's why I'm throwing in the towel on Lucid and waiting to see how things go with the Porsche Cayenne and the new generation of BMW's. I've pretty much written Mercedes and Audi EVs off for several, as they really seem lost in the wilderness.

I've had a discussion with my partner about whether we could live without a third row in at least one of our cars, and we've decided we would just rent a minivan when we need the third row instead of moving to a Rivian or something like the Kia 7-seater. When we are carrying six older adults we really need the minivan room and ingress/egress ease that Lucid alone was bringing to the EV space.

 

[Gravitas]

From the moment I was told about Lucid in 2016 I became intrigued. The Air prototype broke so many automotive molds at once, and the credentials of the engineering team were so impressive, that I began following everything I could find about the company. When reservations opened, I was near the head of the line for a Dream Edition. When the first pre-production Air hit the new Lucid showroom in Miami I was there for opening day, and seeing and sitting in that display car simply blew me away.

As soon as the Lucid stock moved out of the SPAC phase, I invested enthusiastically and continued to do so for some time – not because I didn’t know it was risky but because I wanted to support Lucid’s stated mission and the technology behind it.

In the decade since the first prototype was revealed I have followed the company assiduously and supported it by buying its products . . . a total of five Lucids, three of which are currently sitting in our garage: an Air Dream Edition Performance and two Gravity Dream Editions.

So where is my head today about this company?

Well, I have written off my stock investment. I’m not angry about that, as I’m a big boy and understood the risk.

And I have reveled in the fun and comfort of driving Lucids on those days when they are mostly functioning as intended.

But the Gravities have finally broken me. They have the power, handling, style, room, comfort, and structural solidity that is – or should be – the hallmark of the brand. But they also have the more regrettable hallmark of woefully troublesome software.

The software improvements that eventually came to the Air and brought it up to acceptable standards of everyday reliability have sadly eluded the Gravity, and they don’t appear to be anywhere on the horizon.

We’re going to keep the three Lucids we have for a while yet, mostly because I have put close to $20,000 into each car for radar detection systems and PPF protection. And I will keep posting of our experiences with driving and servicing them as they unfold.

Beyond that, though, the exhaustion of dealing with unrelenting Gravity software glitches – even reaching to opening up the cars and starting a drive – has finally worn me down.

We will not be buying another Lucid product in our household as the Gravities have proved to be too erratic and unreliable for everyday transportation needs, and I'm not one for collecting Garage Queens.

It may soon be a moot point. If Lucid rolls out the Cosmos to the mass market with anything like the software problems of the Gravity, the company won’t be around to sell anything, anyway.

Wishing you the best, and hopefully everything works out perfect with your next EV.

As for me, perhaps my Gravity is blessed. I haven't had any hardware issues. My software experience has also been relatively solid. My Gravity is currently at the Service Center to replace cracked Rear Windshield from my parking mistake. And I miss it more everyday.

I still own a lot of $LCID stock; it's lost ~78% of its value.
Frankly, I am still buying more because when I drive my Gravity, I am convinced that I should continue being invested in Lucid. I'd be stupid not to given how much I love my car. But that's just me.

 

[hmp10]

As for me, perhaps my Gravity is blessed. I haven't had any hardware issues.

We've had hardware issues, too. One of the Gravities has had to have a new front drive unit (it failed on an out-of-state road trip), a new HUD unit, and a new steering wheel. The other has had to have a rear hatch latch replaced, although that was just an attempt to determine whether the problem was in the hardware or software. It turned out to be the software, and the problem is still with us. And last week someone got into the third row of our newer Gravity (the first time anyone's been back there in this car) and found a long plastic zip tie poking up from the floor. (This is a $140K car, mind you. He drives a problem-free $30K Chevy Bolt EUV and has had more than one good laugh at our foolishness.)

I haven't gone on as much about these hardware issues, though, as Lucid has been able to address them (although the rattle/speak in the second row of our older Gravity has returned).

It's the continuing and now expanding software issues that are beyond the reach of the Service Centers and that Lucid seems either stymied or uninterested in addressing that are driving me first to distraction and now to despair.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

This thread should be the primary topic during Lucid’s Monday morning C-level staff meeting. Losing their most dedicated supporters is a serious concern. I love my Air and don’t put a lot of miles on it, but I’ve experienced strange issues and the embarrassment of “showing it off” to a friend only to have the frunk jam and not open followed by, “How much did this cost?”

I too put money into the stock only to see the investment evaporate, thankfully I didn’t go all in (I’ve also suffered with Rivian tanking). Fortunately, I’m very diversified and my portfolio overall continues to do exceptionally well. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll probably use them for a future tax-loss harvesting event.

I want to keep my Air past its 4-year warranty (ending in December) and plan on getting an XCare plan for 4-5 years. I’m hopeful that Gravity SW issues will be sorted out, and Cosmos will benefit from the improvements. But for the love of god, Lucid needs to get fob issues resolved! I’ve NEVER had a fob issue on previous vehicles, and didn’t have to keep them in a faraday pouch to prevent the battery from dying in a month.

 

[hmp10]

. . . I’ll probably use them [Lucid shares] for a future tax-loss harvesting event.

Yeah, that's my (somewhat tarnished) silver lining, too.

 

[RajD]

It's just as terrible. I wouldn't be surprised if the new model comes just as bad as well.

You can buy a $20k Hyundai Venue (cheapest car in the US) and the doors will work just fine.

‘Just as terrible’ -I’m a bit torn here because entry to both our Lucid cars works flawlessly for me so yes, I guess they currently are equally great or equally ‘terrible’- which isn’t that terrible at all.

I have never had a problem with my PAAK for the Air. I have never carried the Air fob.

My Gravity had mixed fob issues from the start, which I’ve posted about on this forum. It got notably worse after 3.5.1 and I had the SC inspect the fobs. They found my fob was in a batch selected for ‘replacement’. Since I got the car back nearly 14 days ago, the new fob works perfectly to unlock and lock. It’s frunk and trunk opening and closing and its car start are all flawless. It works just like my wife’s fob now. The remote start has always been working for me since its release. It’s on par with my BMW M50 fob, and on par with any other fob I’ve owned in my life.

I agree that the fob and access issues have been maddening, but I also think Lucid will not only ‘figure it out’ well ahead of Cosmos, I think they already have. If you haven’t had your Gravity fob replaced yet, it may be worth asking for SC for this.

 

[RajD]

@hmp10 I can certainly understand your decision. It’s sad that it got to this point but you’ve been incredibly loyal and patient with Lucid, and despite that investment of time and money, it’s let you down repeatedly.

I do want to thank you for this forum, for the regular updates to all of us. I’m sure you know this but we have all benefited from your efforts to make Lucid accountable and aware of their shortcomings. Really appreciate your presence here and please continue to share how the rest of your Lucid experience evolves.

 

[ac.bill]

I too have been a fan from the earliest days. My early '22 has had a very modest service history of just a couple recalls and a loose piece of trim that were handled seamlessly and a couple minor damage incidents that were 100% on me. I had no hesitation keeping the car past the end of the warranty this year. Unfortunately from the very early Gravity promotional videos I was concerned. Lucid's philosophy of understated elegance clashed instantly with the electronic meditation videos and focus on feeling over function. Combined with the shifting corporate leadership it seemed to me that Lucid had lost it's direction.

My AGT is a wonderful car and I will keep it until it isn't. I do not think I will be upgrading to the CCCv2 hardware. I suspect that doing so would only take me back to the early days of software hardship. Count me among those with growing skepticism about Lucid's path. I've even stopped bugging Derek Jenkins and SAY about building me a ragtop Lucid roadster.

 

[borski]

‘Just as terrible’ -I’m a bit torn here because entry to both our Lucid cars works flawlessly for me so yes, I guess they currently are equally great or equally ‘terrible’- which isn’t that terrible at all.

I have never had a problem with my PAAK for the Air. I have never carried the Air fob.

My Gravity had mixed fob issues from the start, which I’ve posted about on this forum. It got notably worse after 3.5.1 and I had the SC inspect the fobs. They found my fob was in a batch selected for ‘replacement’. Since I got the car back nearly 14 days ago, the new fob works perfectly to unlock and lock. It’s frunk and trunk opening and closing and its car start are all flawless. It works just like my wife’s fob now. The remote start has always been working for me since its release. It’s on par with my BMW M50 fob, and on par with any other fob I’ve owned in my life.

I agree that the fob and access issues have been maddening, but I also think Lucid will not only ‘figure it out’ well ahead of Cosmos, I think they already have. If you haven’t had your Gravity fob replaced yet, it may be worth asking for SC for this.

This is precisely my experience as well. I believe more people need replacement fobs.

And my Air mobile key has been flawless.



(Not to diminish the problems @hmp10 has had. I assume he’s had his fobs replaced?)

 

[borski]

I too have been a fan from the earliest days. My early '22 has had a very modest service history of just a couple recalls and a loose piece of trim that were handled seamlessly and a couple minor damage incidents that were 100% on me. I had no hesitation keeping the car past the end of the warranty this year. Unfortunately from the very early Gravity promotional videos I was concerned. Lucid's philosophy of understated elegance clashed instantly with the electronic meditation videos and focus on feeling over function. Combined with the shifting corporate leadership it seemed to me that Lucid had lost it's direction.

My AGT is a wonderful car and I will keep it until it isn't. I do not think I will be upgrading to the CCCv2 hardware. I suspect that doing so would only take me back to the early days of software hardship. Count me among those with growing skepticism about Lucid's path. I've even stopped bugging Derek Jenkins and SAY about building me a ragtop Lucid roadster.

The CCCv2 is a strict upgrade.

 

[Pragmatic]

I'm assuming ac.bill is not getting CCCv2 in order to not move to UI 3.0. I'm of a similar mind. My Air currently works fine. Why would I want to move to very different software as a consequence of installing a faster chipset?

 

[Britishlion]

From the moment I was told about Lucid in 2016 I became intrigued. The Air prototype broke so many automotive molds at once, and the credentials of the engineering team were so impressive, that I began following everything I could find about the company. When reservations opened, I was near the head of the line for a Dream Edition. When the first pre-production Air hit the new Lucid showroom in Miami I was there for opening day, and seeing and sitting in that display car simply blew me away.

As soon as the Lucid stock moved out of the SPAC phase, I invested enthusiastically and continued to do so for some time – not because I didn’t know it was risky but because I wanted to support Lucid’s stated mission and the technology behind it.

In the decade since the first prototype was revealed I have followed the company assiduously and supported it by buying its products . . . a total of five Lucids, three of which are currently sitting in our garage: an Air Dream Edition Performance and two Gravity Dream Editions.

So where is my head today about this company?

Well, I have written off my stock investment. I’m not angry about that, as I’m a big boy and understood the risk.

And I have reveled in the fun and comfort of driving Lucids on those days when they are mostly functioning as intended.

But the Gravities have finally broken me. They have the power, handling, style, room, comfort, and structural solidity that is – or should be – the hallmark of the brand. But they also have the more regrettable hallmark of woefully troublesome software.

The software improvements that eventually came to the Air and brought it up to acceptable standards of everyday reliability have sadly eluded the Gravity, and they don’t appear to be anywhere on the horizon.

We’re going to keep the three Lucids we have for a while yet, mostly because I have put close to $20,000 into each car for radar detection systems and PPF protection. And I will keep posting of our experiences with driving and servicing them as they unfold.

Beyond that, though, the exhaustion of dealing with unrelenting Gravity software glitches – even reaching to opening up the cars and starting a drive – has finally worn me down.

We will not be buying another Lucid product in our household as the Gravities have proved to be too erratic and unreliable for everyday transportation needs, and I'm not one for collecting Garage Queens.

It may soon be a moot point. If Lucid rolls out the Cosmos to the mass market with anything like the software problems of the Gravity, the company won’t be around to sell anything, anyway.

Given his vision of customer satisfaction I hope that your post finds its way to the new CEO of Lucid ( perhaps consider writing directly) ! You have invested heavily in the Lucid brand, in every aspect and been patient during its evolution even highly trusting as an early adopter; you have also posted valuable information on this forum. to then feel “ broken “ is such a terrible disappointment and such an awful shame! Better luck moving forward!

 

[hmp10]

(Not to diminish the problems @hmp10 has had. I assume he’s had his fobs replaced?)

On one of his visits our mobile tech delivered us the second key fob for each of our Gravity DEs that had been missing at delivery, and he also gave us a third fob to replace one of the older ones (I don't remember for which car). He said the Service Center had told him to do it because of some unspecified problem. I used the mobile app to be sure the fob software was up to date and have done so for all four fobs twice since. (The two subsequent times indicated the fobs were already up to date.)

For a while after this neither Gravity had any serious issues with entry, and we had never seen the issue of failing to lock. But a few weeks after 3.5.1 rolled out, the software situation started to deteriorate, and both cars are now giving us fits with everything to do with entry/exit and starting. They either won't respond to the fob at all or there is a long delay (sometimes more than 30 seconds). They fail to lock and power down long after we're gone. The easy/entry feature sometimes doesn't return the seat and steering wheel to the programmed positions. We get a "key fob not detected" warning even though the car had finally recognized the fob to unlock. The screens are blacked out. The car won't go into gear. The mix of which of these things happen varies with every attempt to get underway. It's as if the cars are determined to confound us with as many curve balls as they can devise.

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

Yesterday a man asked the standard question: "What is that car?"

the first thing most people ask me: "Who makes Lucid?"

I rarely see a Lucid ... as far as I know, I have the only Lucid in the Philadelphia area. I see them at the KoP service center, but never on the road.

Seems like a marketing issue is more problematic than the software.


The new solid-state batteries will surge the switch from ICE to EVs. One can scoot up to Canada and pick up an state-of-the-art Chinese EV
for a fistfull of Loonies and a six-pack of Labatt Blue. Have to guess the Chinese have stolen the best software too, so there's that.

I thought my Air GT would be the last car I ever bought, but the future is bright for EVs.

Like hmp 10 I have been following the EV industry for decades and took an early interest in Lucid so bought some shares to support their efforts. I ended up with average about $20/share but after just a few months it went above $50 so I sold. This is how it's done. To make a small fortune investing in stocks, start with a large fortune. This is how I paid for my GT. The secret is to be very lucky, and not greedy.

(thanks for all your posts hmp 10 )

 

[new owner]

I too have been a fan from the earliest days. My early '22 has had a very modest service history of just a couple recalls and a loose piece of trim that were handled seamlessly and a couple minor damage incidents that were 100% on me. I had no hesitation keeping the car past the end of the warranty this year. Unfortunately from the very early Gravity promotional videos I was concerned. Lucid's philosophy of understated elegance clashed instantly with the electronic meditation videos and focus on feeling over function. Combined with the shifting corporate leadership it seemed to me that Lucid had lost it's direction.

My AGT is a wonderful car and I will keep it until it isn't. I do not think I will be upgrading to the CCCv2 hardware. I suspect that doing so would only take me back to the early days of software hardship. Count me among those with growing skepticism about Lucid's path. I've even stopped bugging Derek Jenkins and SAY about building me a ragtop Lucid roadster.

Totally agree
My late 22 Air GT with 30K miles has been good to me as well and plan to keep forever. I mostly use PAAK to open doors but always carry FOB and never have trouble except for an occasional pause to open with the PAAK

 

[hmp10]

Seems like a marketing issue is more problematic than the software.

Marketing can be a two-edged sword for Lucid because of their software problems. If people see an ad that triggers their interest, many of them will turn to online reviews and YouTube videos to explore the car further. They will find a deluge of reviews, including some from very prominent auto journalists, discussing an array of software issues, with many focusing harshly on entry issues.

 

[hmp10]

My AGT is a wonderful car and I will keep it until it isn't. I do not think I will be upgrading to the CCCv2 hardware. I suspect that doing so would only take me back to the early days of software hardship. Count me among those with growing skepticism about Lucid's path. I've even stopped bugging Derek Jenkins and SAY about building me a ragtop Lucid roadster.

We have a lot in common. I once approached Zak Edson about building us a Sapphire with the Santa Monica interior of a Dream Edition (my all-time favorite interior palette).

We plan to keep our Air, too, as long as the battery/powertrain warranty lasts. (I was hoping Lucid would offer an extended warranty for the rest of the car, but their internal discussions of that seem to have died on the vine.)

We lived through 10 months of software hell with our Air until UX 2.0 came out in October 2022 and put the software on the path to quick improvement. Today it's as reliable as our Teslas ever were . . . and a much more fun and comfortable car to drive and ride in.

What so frustrates me is that our Gravities have traveled the opposite trajectory. The older one had a slew of software (and hardware) issues early on, but they never quite reached the pitch of what we saw early on with the Air. And our newer Gravity was relatively problem free at the start. But where the Air showed steady improvement -- slow at first but picking up quickly with UX 2.0 -- the Gravities are deteriorating on the software front.

We have now owned the older Gravity longer than the woeful stretch of the Air's UX 1.0, but there are no signs on the horizon that the software issues are being taken in hand. Quite the opposite, in fact. And we're now just out of steam from grappling with them.

 

[BS8899]

Marketing can be a two-edged sword for Lucid because of their software problems. If people see an ad that triggers their interest, many of them will turn to online reviews and YouTube videos to explore the car further. They will find a deluge of reviews, including some from very prominent auto journalists, discussing an array of software issues, with many focusing harshly on entry issues.

Having been in the business of developing, manufacturing, and selling hardware products embedded with software and interacting with 3rd party SW, I've learned through the "School-of-Hard-Knocks" how important it is to manage the development and validation of these products.

First, it is not easy. In a hardware/firmware/software system, there are almost limitless number of ways things can go wrong. A disciplined architecture, development, integration and validation culture and practices are necessary to minimize the exposures. This is especially true when the HW and SW are developed separately and there is no (or loose) oversight of the integration and validation processes. I am no expert per se. But Lucid's track record suggests that there is little oversight in integration and validation. The resultant buggy products, blaming suppliers, patches-upon-patches, etc. is a clown show!

Does that mean no one can do these integration and validation right? I don't think any car manufacture is perfect. But some do better than others, e.g., Rivian. Why do you think VW pumped $6+B into Rivian and is now Rivian's largest shareholder!?

My view is, SW/HW validation is a bit of a brute force approach. But it is necessary. Often, your customer is the best feedback system.

Someday, perhaps AI will be able to proactively flush out all these HW/SW integration issues during the development cycle and we live happily thereafter. But I don't think I will live long enough to see that day!