The Long Goodbye

[prgarg]

Okay, folks.

I just got a call from Emad Dlala (he was in the office on Mother's Day) that lasted well over an hour. He said he is fine with my posting about the call, so here goes . . . .

Between the 3.4 series of updates and 3.5.1 Lucid switched to a different architectural platform. This was necessary because of technical problems with the old platform (as a Luddite I couldn't quite follow all the ins and outs of this), but that is the root cause of the increase in software issues many owners are seeing. They knew this platform change might tip the tea cart over and it would take a while to put it back upright, but they're working 7 days a week on it. Dlala said these issues include locking/unlocking issues, screen freezes and blackouts, and several other issues Lucid knows owners are experiencing. There is an update coming out later this month and another around July that will address many of the issues. Although these updates will add some new features, they will apparently focus more than many of us thought on reducing existing problems.

He said one of the reasons I am seeming more problems than many other owners is that we have two fully-optioned Dream Editions, and running all those systems taxes the software sometimes beyond its limits. Lucid is working on a change that will take about 30% of the load off the system and give it more headroom to handle things without issue (again, the technical aspects of this were lost on me).

We got into an interesting tangent on the HUD, which Dlala said has been problematic on several fronts. He said that he, like many owners on the forum, has actually turned his off in his car. I told him that one of the most universal complaints on the forum is that the display is too high in the field of vision. He is investigating whether that can be at least partially addressed via software.

Although I'm not particularly exercised about promised features that haven't yet arrived, Dlala knows that many owners are, and he's really trying to pick up the pace of bringing them online. He's particularly interested in getting PAAK in place. However, he said that when he took the job he told Lucid that it was going to take six months for him to take stock of the software work to be done and how best to approach it, and he thinks things are now ready to move forward more quickly.

He assured me Lucid is fully aware of what is hanging in the balance with the software performance of the Cosmos at launch and that the work they're doing now on the Gravity with platform changes, more efficient processing, etc., is setting the stage for that.

I was extremely appreciative of his call and have a bit of restored confidence that we may yet see some light at the end of this tunnel.

That's good to hear some acknowledgement from the company. Their usual silence sparks all the speculation we generate here.
In my case, I cannot get them to even talk to me, even if it is to tell me to go away and go plan a Viking funeral for the car. Beyond frustrating...

 

[hmp10]

Sorry, I think we read the original post differently; all the fobs are on the same firmware, which means there is now way to distinguish a 'bad fob' from a 'good fob' aside from checking a serial number against a list Lucid presumably has.

That's what I meant.

I asked Dlala about whether we might have one or more defective fobs among our four, especially as the car is responding to one of the four properly -- at least today. He didn't think that was the source of the problems we've been experiencing. I asked if the Service Center would be able to tell me if we had a bad fob, and he wasn't sure. I'm going to call Miami tomorrow to ask.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Okay, folks.

I just got a call from Emad Dlala (he was in the office on Mother's Day) that lasted well over an hour. He said he is fine with my posting about the call, so here goes . . . .

Between the 3.4 series of updates and 3.5.1 Lucid switched to a different architectural platform. This was necessary because of technical problems with the old platform (as a Luddite I couldn't quite follow all the ins and outs of this), but that is the root cause of the increase in software issues many owners are seeing. They knew this platform change might tip the tea cart over and it would take a while to put it back upright, but they're working 7 days a week on it. Dlala said these issues include locking/unlocking issues, screen freezes and blackouts, and several other issues Lucid knows owners are experiencing. There is an update coming out later this month and another around July that will address many of the issues. Although these updates will add some new features, they will apparently focus more than many of us thought on reducing existing problems.

He said one of the reasons I am seeming more problems than many other owners is that we have two fully-optioned Dream Editions, and running all those systems taxes the software sometimes beyond its limits. Lucid is working on a change that will take about 30% of the load off the system and give it more headroom to handle things without issue (again, the technical aspects of this were lost on me).

We got into an interesting tangent on the HUD, which Dlala said has been problematic on several fronts. He said that he, like many owners on the forum, has actually turned his off in his car. I told him that one of the most universal complaints on the forum is that the display is too high in the field of vision. He is investigating whether that can be at least partially addressed via software.

Although I'm not particularly exercised about promised features that haven't yet arrived, Dlala knows that many owners are, and he's really trying to pick up the pace of bringing them online. He's particularly interested in getting PAAK in place. However, he said that when he took the job he told Lucid that it was going to take six months for him to take stock of the software work to be done and how best to approach it, and he thinks things are now ready to move forward more quickly.

He assured me Lucid is fully aware of what is hanging in the balance with the software performance of the Cosmos at launch and that the work they're doing now on the Gravity with platform changes, more efficient processing, etc., is setting the stage for that.

I was extremely appreciative of his call and have a bit of restored confidence that we may yet see some light at the end of this tunnel.

That's great and shows that executive management is watching this forum closely. Glad to hear that they are taking action and working to improve process moving forward.

For those that don't know, Emad is Senior Vice President, Engineering and Digital ... https://lucidmotors.com/company/leadership/emad-dlala

 

[tarator]

That conversation is great news. But it shouldn't have come to a post like this for Lucid's customers to learn a bit more about the reasons they see these issues and what is being done to address them.

Lucid needs to be more open, frankly their reputation is so low, that any information would make it better.

 

[Leftlane]

It really shouldn’t take a multiple Lucid owner who has posted continuously about his issues (or that YouTube personality dude) to actually finally be told what is going on by someone at the company. Why is everyone else completely in the dark about these efforts? Radio silence is a terrible strategy.

Lucid has a ton of engineering talent - they really, really need to get some people in place who know how to run a business.

 

[DBV]

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 )

I would never, ever buy a Chinese car and does not matter how good it is. There is no history on longevity on these cheap Chinese cars and once you buy one they will know absolutely everything you do. Why do you think they are selling and dumping them so cheap? They are selling them so cheap to get all that data on people.

Very sad that Canada is even letting Chinese cars into their Country. What a mammoth mistake on their part. Just a really dumb move.

 

[deemz]

Okay, folks.

I just got a call from Emad Dlala (he was in the office on Mother's Day) that lasted well over an hour. He said he is fine with my posting about the call, so here goes . . . .

Between the 3.4 series of updates and 3.5.1 Lucid switched to a different architectural platform. This was necessary because of technical problems with the old platform (as a Luddite I couldn't quite follow all the ins and outs of this), but that is the root cause of the increase in software issues many owners are seeing. They knew this platform change might tip the tea cart over and it would take a while to put it back upright, but they're working 7 days a week on it. Dlala said these issues include locking/unlocking issues, screen freezes and blackouts, and several other issues Lucid knows owners are experiencing. There is an update coming out later this month and another around July that will address many of the issues. Although these updates will add some new features, they will apparently focus more than many of us thought on reducing existing problems.

He said one of the reasons I am seeming more problems than many other owners is that we have two fully-optioned Dream Editions, and running all those systems taxes the software sometimes beyond its limits. Lucid is working on a change that will take about 30% of the load off the system and give it more headroom to handle things without issue (again, the technical aspects of this were lost on me).

We got into an interesting tangent on the HUD, which Dlala said has been problematic on several fronts. He said that he, like many owners on the forum, has actually turned his off in his car. I told him that one of the most universal complaints on the forum is that the display is too high in the field of vision. He is investigating whether that can be at least partially addressed via software.

Although I'm not particularly exercised about promised features that haven't yet arrived, Dlala knows that many owners are, and he's really trying to pick up the pace of bringing them online. He's particularly interested in getting PAAK in place. However, he said that when he took the job he told Lucid that it was going to take six months for him to take stock of the software work to be done and how best to approach it, and he thinks things are now ready to move forward more quickly.

He assured me Lucid is fully aware of what is hanging in the balance with the software performance of the Cosmos at launch and that the work they're doing now on the Gravity with platform changes, more efficient processing, etc., is setting the stage for that.

I was extremely appreciative of his call and have a bit of restored confidence that we may yet see some light at the end of this tunnel.

Thanks for sharing this — very interesting insights, especially the part about fully specced Gravitys potentially not having enough compute headroom to handle all systems seamlessly under load. That’s a completely new angle when looking at many of the issues Gravity owners have been reporting.

That said, it does raise an interesting question: during validation and pre-release testing, was this level of “software taxing” on fully optioned vehicles fully understood and reproducible under real-world conditions? If the system was already operating close to its limits, it seems like edge-case stability issues under real-world conditions would have been somewhat predictable.

Still, it’s genuinely encouraging to see Emad — and apparently other Lucid executives as well — actively following owner discussions on this forum. That at least makes it feel like customer feedback is being heard and that there’s real effort going into improving things.

 

[Lucken]

I hate to sound like I’m piling on, but I will be leaving Lucid for somewhat different reasons than hmp10’s reluctance to further invest in Lucid’s offerings. Yes, I too have lost money, but fortunately I never invested huge amounts like some others. I’ll simply use the losses to offset some gains. No biggie.

However as reliable as my Air has been, I’ve grown more and more uncomfortable with the direction in which the company has been headed. Not that long ago many thought the future of the company hinged on the success of the Gravity. Well that ship has sailed. Now attention has shifted to the midsize and again the thinking is the future hinges on Lucid’s success in that segment. With continuing software issues in the Gravity, I have no rational reason to believe there will be significant changes in the software’s solidity in the midsize. If the same issues arise at release, reviews will have the same ‘here we go again’ tone, negatively impacting sales. Further, even if the sales numbers look favorable, I see no evidence of a service network that can begin to deal with those numbers. IMO, at some point, even those entities with the deepest pockets will say enough.

So as wonderful as my Air has been, and it really has been wonderful, my perception (or my own insecurity) of Lucid’s future has brought about the need for me to move on.

I’ll still peek in here from time to time, and if my fears are proven to be groundless down the road, I don’t rule out being an owner once again. Best of luck to everyone.

 

[DBV]

The post i parodied was about key fobs... nothing else. In that post, he was talking about the 5%. I chose to remind everyone that this means that 95% are good. I have had a few glitches on mine, but not with the key fob. As an early adopter, I am ok with that. Will everyone be? Probably not. But I suggest that the majority of us, perhaps even the vast majority, love their cars in spite of this.

You reference mainstream, long established manufacturers. For them, I agree. But none of them are cutting edge.

I would say they are getting cutting edge. BMW definitely is with their new iX3 SUV and Sedan coming out and then can’t wait to see their iX5 SUV/Sedan. Love BMW’s. Porsche is too with their Cayenne, although their range still is disappointing and Mercedes is also getting more competitve. Plus, those all Key’s, digital keys and software that work. That is the cutting edge competition that Lucid will be facing, so they can’t keep having key fob, software, etc mistakes against proven brands.

 

[LucidfanAZ]

That’s awesome he took an hour out of his day on a Sunday to call you. It shows Lucid is making strides to prioritize software development and push out better products for customers. His comments may be in large part why they haven’t debuted the Cosmos yet. Reviewers want to be able to sit in a production ready car, test the software and functionality to give their honest feedback to the company and consumers. If the software isn’t yet ready for prime time, I think it’s better they wait to release the cosmos to the public. We likely still will see it debut this summer but had they done so any sooner and reviewers commented on poor software functionality, it would be over before it started.

 

[RajD]

Amazing that Emad called @hmp10 to explain these many details and challenges. He seems so dialed in (obviously a Sunday holiday call is incredible in its own right).

There’s a lot of Lucid death knell claims on this thread and I really don’t think it’s warranted. Tesla lost money consistently until q3 2018 with the Model 3 hitting sufficient production and sales. Rivian will also consistently be profitable (and not just gross profit) only after R2 hits its stride (R1S sales continue to plummet - imagine if they didn’t have Amazon). As long as Lucid has enough capital to make it into the first 3-4 quarters of Cosmos (and I hope they also release Earth around the same time), this company will turn around. Team focus that I believe Emad is bringing to the table will overcome the software issues, and we already know how good they can and will be in hardware. The efficiencies they are creating with Cosmos translate to profit margin.

Whether you decide to continue to own or not own the cars is totally fair given their struggles, but the viability of the company is another matter. I think they will outsell Rivian in 2028 and challenge Tesla in 2029. But maybe I’m smoking too much!

Proof is in the pudding, but counting them out is a definite mistake.

 

[mfdutra]

I'm glad to see Emad is paying attention to this.

Given the variation of latency of various car functions, it's apparent to me (as a software engineer) that the car's computer is struggling with a large run queue. Even on a non-real-time OS, if you have capacity available, which you should always have some, most functions should respond very quickly.

As I mentioned in another post, I can see the consequences of this in various places, like my car "detecting" the garage door several seconds after I opened it. Half the times I open the trunk, the beep-beep-beep sound that's supposed to alert people the trunk is about open, actually sounds after the trunk is almost fully open. The car taking several seconds to respond to fob commands, etc.

When my car is connected to my Wi-Fi, I sometimes observe its traffic (tcpdump, wireshark, etc). It never stops communicating, which is nuts. There's really no reason for the car to be frantically communicating back home. Serious inefficiency right there.

 

[hmp10]

Thanks for sharing this — very interesting insights, especially the part about fully specced Gravitys potentially not having enough compute headroom to handle all systems seamlessly under load. That’s a completely new angle when looking at many of the issues Gravity owners have been reporting.

Yeah. It helped put to bed my worry that there was something wrong in the CPU or other hardware in the our cars that was not going to be resolved with software updates. Emad did say there had been a few Gravity CPU replacements required, but he was not seeing that in the issues we are having.

 

[socktucker]

Interesting. After seeing your post I decided to try the back-up key fobs we keep stored in a drawer. These are the ones our mobile tech delivered to us a couple of months ago.

The fob for the newer Gravity worked without issues both with auto locking turned on and turned off. The fob for the older Gravity did not work at all.

If our primary fobs were part of defective batches, though, why would they have worked well for a while after the 3.5.1 update but then both have ceased to work reliably? And these fobs were delivered to us months apart. Just how long was Lucid delivering fobs from bad batches?

Tell you when you’re older.

 

[The_Don]

Wow I love Emad

If only he was in this seat two years ago!

 

[martinjlm]

The post i parodied was about key fobs... nothing else. In that post, he was talking about the 5%. I chose to remind everyone that this means that 95% are good. I have had a few glitches on mine, but not with the key fob. As an early adopter, I am ok with that. Will everyone be? Probably not. But I suggest that the majority of us, perhaps even the vast majority, love their cars in spite of this.

You reference mainstream, long established manufacturers. For them, I agree. But none of them are cutting edge.

When I led GM’s powertrain service operations failure rates at 1% or greater initiated internal discussions of voluntary recall. Now keep in mind that I am talking FAILURE rate, not COMPLAINT rate.

 

[BS8899]

Sorry, I think we read the original post differently; all the fobs are on the same firmware, which means there is now way to distinguish a 'bad fob' from a 'good fob' aside from checking a serial number against a list Lucid presumably has.

That's what I meant.

Forgive my ignorance:

> if all the FOBs are on the same firmware
>but we say "5% are defective"

Are we saying 5% of the FABs are defective? If so, how are the FOBs defective? Are these "defective FOBs " unable to properly send the signal/codes to the car? If so, are there QA procures that could/should have detected this problem? 5% is a BIG number!

OR

Are we saying, 5 % of the cars are defective vis-a-vis, the FOBs transmit the correct codes, but the defective cars did not actuate the door unlocking?

I'd think Lucid should know the answer to these questions.

My take is, Lucid has been blaming the FOB manufacturers on both the Air and the Gravity and making non-sensible explanation about contract issues with FOB manufacturers that don't make any sense.

 

[borski]

Forgive my ignorance:

> if all the FOBs are on the same firmware
>but we say "5% are defective"

Are we saying 5% of the FABs are defective? If so, how are the FOBs defective? Are these "defective FOBs " unable to properly send the signal/codes to the car? If so, are there QA procures that could/should have detected this problem? 5% is a BIG number!

OR

Are we saying, 5 % of the cars are defective vis-a-vis, the FOBs transmit the correct codes, but the defective cars did not actuate the door unlocking?

I'd think Lucid should know the answer to these questions.

My take is, Lucid has been blaming the FOB manufacturers on both the Air and the Gravity and making non-sensible explanation about contract issues with FOB manufacturers that don't make any sense.

I never said 5% were defective. That is a number someone made up, above, to provide a supposition.

We do not know at all.

 

[The_Don]

Yeah also sounds like Lucid isn't blaming the fob issues on the manufacturer for the Gravity. They're blaming their own software per Emad's conversation with hmp10.

 

[BS8899]

I never said 5% were defective. That is a number someone made up, above, to provide a supposition.

We do not know at all.

Fair,
With respect to the door unlocking problem, do you think the problem is the FOB or in the car?
I don't like the Lucid FOBs. But I have a hard time seeing the FOB is the issue.