The Long Goodbye

[hmp10]

I think few people who had very bad experiences are extrapolating the same to a wider customer base, when that is not the case.

Perhaps you are the one who's extrapolating.

By the end of 2025, over half a year after Gravity began full-scale deliveries, it had still not reached monthly sales parity with the Air, yet the Gravity was supposed to address a market six times that of the Air, with many industry observers predicting it would bury Air sales almost immediately.

The Gravity was predicted by some, including Kyle Conner who was on the judging panel for the SUV or the Year Award, to walk away with the award. Instead, it went to the Cadillac Escalade with the Gravity not even making the final round. Reviewers, such as Throttle House that test drove early prototypes, raved about the car. But when the production version was launched, they were nowhere to be seen or heard. Could that be because almost every reviewer who got his hands on a Gravity found it beleaguered by software problems?

The fact that many members of this forum haven't posted about problems doesn't necessarily prove anything. The majority of members seem not to post much at all, either positive or negative.

 

[BS8899]

Perhaps you are the one who's extrapolating.

By the end of 2025, over half a year after Gravity began full-scale deliveries, it had still not reached monthly sales parity with the Air, yet the Gravity was supposed to address a market six times that of the Air, with many industry observers predicting it would bury Air sales almost immediately.

The Gravity was predicted by some, including Kyle Conner who was on the judging panel for the SUV or the Year Award, to walk away with the award. Instead, it went to the Cadillac Escalade with the Gravity not even making the final round. Reviewers, such as Throttle House that test drove early prototypes, raved about the car. But when the production version was launched, they were nowhere to be seen or heard. Could that be because almost every reviewer who got his hands on a Gravity found it beleaguered by software problems?

The fact that many members of this forum haven't posted about problems doesn't necessarily prove anything. The majority of members seem not to post much at all, either positive or negative.

Since I don't own a Gravity, I can't offer an opinion.

But you owned both the Air and Gravity. The Air had/has its share of SW problems. Is the Gravity better or worse than the Air (SW issues)?

 

[borski]

Since I don't own a Gravity, I can't offer an opinion.

But you owned both the Air and Gravity. The Air had/has its share of SW problems. Is the Gravity better or worse than the Air (SW issues)?

My opinion: the Gravity is much better than the Air when I received it. I was going to sell the Air if they hadn’t fixed it in a year. It took them about 9 months.

The Gravity software was delivered as more stable than the Air, but unlike the Air, was missing a few features (PaaK, for example).

CarPlay came way faster to Gravity, as another example.

@hmp10 will say the software fixes haven’t come as quickly on Gravity; I’m not sure that’s true, but it’s a valid opinion, of course.

 

[FirstLucidFL]

Since I don't own a Gravity, I can't offer an opinion.

But you owned both the Air and Gravity. The Air had/has its share of SW problems. Is the Gravity better or worse than the Air (SW issues)?

@hmp10 can speak to that more in depth than I can but here is my experience.

When my neighbor is out of town in the summer he would request I drive his Air around to keep things moving. He was one of the first deliveries from West Palm Beach SC in 2022. So I’ve had quite a bit of time in that, and in an Air every time for the six times my Gravity was in service.

A quick sentence to sum up would be even though the Gravity is more advanced in its hardware and has more headroom for future capability, the Air is more developed, to me.
I never had a key fob issue with any of the seven Airs I’ve been in. Apple car play was pretty spot on in them. I never had a Bluetooth phone issue. Things seemed relatively snappy in the software (my neighbor never did an CCCV upgrade). I never had to reset any of the Airs.
My Gravity experience is somewhat opposite, even though it’s supposed to have the superior operating system. I can never take a phone call in the car, no one can hear me. I’ve reset my car countless times and countless key fob issues. New bugs pop up regularly. The newness of the Gravity software has put the SC’s in the crosshairs because I had numerous dream drive issues, the SC ended up replacing my steering wheel three times. When I came back to them the fourth time they said they now figured out its software. Again, I don’t own both, but for all my times in different Air’s and comparing to my Gravity, I would say the Air has been a better software experience.

 

[borski]

@hmp10 can speak to that more in depth than I can but here is my experience.

When my neighbor is out of town in the summer he would request I drive his Air around to keep things moving. He was one of the first deliveries from West Palm Beach SC in 2022. So I’ve had quite a bit of time in that, and in an Air every time for the six times my Gravity was in service.

A quick sentence to sum up would be even though the Gravity is more advanced in its hardware and has more headroom for future capability, the Air is more developed, to me.
I never had a key fob issue with any of the seven Airs I’ve been in. Apple car play was pretty spot on in them. I never had a Bluetooth phone issue. Things seemed relatively snappy in the software (my neighbor never did an CCCV upgrade). I never had to reset any of the Airs.
My Gravity experience is somewhat opposite, even though it’s supposed to have the superior operating system. I can never take a phone call in the car, no one can hear me. I’ve reset my car countless times and countless key fob issues. New bugs pop up regularly. The newness of the Gravity software has put the SC’s in the crosshairs because I had numerous dream drive issues, the SC ended up replacing my steering wheel three times. When I came back to them the fourth time they said they now figured out its software. Again, I don’t own both, but for all my times in different Air’s and comparing to my Gravity, I would say the Air has been a better software experience.

That is true today. To be clear, I was referring to them at delivery, not today.

Today the Air is more stable than Gravity, though it will catch up.

 

[BS8899]

That is true today. To be clear, I was referring to them at delivery, not today.

Today the Air is more stable than Gravity, though it will catch up.

I don't know what to make of this:

> Someone who currently works for Lucid, told me "they (as in Lucid) fired the entire SW team".
> any truth to this "rumor"?
> perhaps it was the right thing to do. That said, does Lucid have a plan to re-staff their SW team with the appropriate resources?
> even more important, is Lucid management (Emad) laying down the gauntlet regarding a disciplined SW development and validation methodology?

 

[Need4Sleep]

I don't know what to make of this:

> Someone who currently works for Lucid, told me "they (as in Lucid) fired the entire SW team".
> any truth to this "rumor"?
> perhaps it was the right thing to do. That said, does Lucid have a plan to re-staff their SW team with the appropriate resources?
> even more important, is Lucid management (Emad) laying down the gauntlet regarding a disciplined SW development and validation methodology?

they fired the software leadership team, if I recall correctly

 

[borski]

they fired the software leadership team, if I recall correctly

This. Not the entire software team.

 

[BS8899]

they fired the software leadership team, if I recall correctly

Firing the SW leadership team might be the right thing to do. But now, Emad needs to sure that a rigorous methodology-based development/integration/validation be in place. in the past 3-1/2 years I owned my AGT, Lucid's SW development and deployment come across as a bunch of high school kids doing projects and rolling out updates that fix one problem but creates others.

 

[tmichael]

I don't know what to make of this:

> Someone who currently works for Lucid, told me "they (as in Lucid) fired the entire SW team".

The word "entire", "all" and "none" are rarely descriptive of actual occurrences. Unless they had already outsourced a replacement team, it's simply not possible.

 

[borski]

Lucid's SW development and deployment come across as a bunch of high school kids doing projects

There's no reason to say things like this. You can say you're unhappy with the software without personally insulting the entirety of the team that built it by calling them 'high school kids.'

But your choice; it's your opinion. Just a thought for the future, in that you can get the same thing across without insults that add nothing to your argument.

 

[BS8899]

The word "entire", "all" and "none" are rarely descriptive of actual occurrences. Unless they had already outsourced a replacement team, it's simply not possible.

I agree with your perspective. That's why I posed the question.

 

[BS8899]

There's no reason to say things like this. You can say you're unhappy with the software without personally insulting the entirety of the team that built it by calling them 'high school kids.'

But your choice; it's your opinion. Just a thought for the future, in that you can get the same thing across without insults that add nothing to your argument.

The lack of a culture/methodology to plan, risk-assess, validate, and integrate is the crux of the issue. I apologize to the high school kids.

Some years ago, when my son was in high school, he was with the robotics team for several years. On his senior year, he was the Vice Chair of the team, and they go to regional/national competitions. I used to go to their meetings and competitions. They (this high school robotics team) did meet regularly. They do both their HW and SW development. They did refine their work and learn from it. In that respect, they learned from the process. That said, I still wouldn't ride in an autonomous car they design on an interstate highway!

 

[hmp10]

Since I don't own a Gravity, I can't offer an opinion.

But you owned both the Air and Gravity. The Air had/has its share of SW problems. Is the Gravity better or worse than the Air (SW issues)?

That's a complicated question, and in my answer I'll stick with software issues, as the answer with hardware issues would be different.

Between December 2021 (when we took delivery of our Air) and October 2022 (when Lucid switched the architecture to UX 2.0), the Air was plagued with more software problems than our Gravities. A couple of these problems made the car literally undriveable.

However, UX 2.0 was followed up with a series of software updates in rapid succession that began to slay the dragons. Today our Air still has an occasional software burp, but nothing that makes it risky to put on the road, and it is actually pretty much as reliable as our 2021 Model S Plaid was on the software front (and vastly superior in other aspects).

Our Gravities have followed a different trajectory. The one delivered in June 2025 had many issues. There weren't quite as many as with the Air, and none made the car undriveable, but some were serious: a non-functioning GPS and navigation system, blind spot cameras that displayed false images from earlier in the drive, mid-drive screen freezes, etc.

Our second Gravity, delivered in December 2025, had significantly fewer software issues to the point of being negligible.

But then 3.5.1 hit, and a tsunami of issues hit. The key fob issues that had largely disappeared returned in both cars, and with added twists such as the cars also failing to lock automatically. Issues plaguing the first Gravity spread to the second Gravity for the first time, such as ambient lighting malfunctions. I won't rehearse the full list here, as they are reported in the "New Bugs Since 3.5.1" thread.

The key difference, though, in our software experiences with the Air and the Gravities is the trajectory. The Air steadily improved, slowly at first, and then rapidly after UX 2.0. The first Gravity has pretty much stalled over the past ten months, trading some earlier software issues for others that came later. And the second Gravity has taken a giant step backwards, currently with significantly more software issues than it had in the first couple of months after delivery.

This is what has been so unsettling to me. First, I thought the lessons Lucid learned from the early Air software problems would be carried over to the Gravity. They were not. And second, I hoped the Gravity would at least see the steady forward movement toward resolution that the Air saw. It has not thus far.

After the call yesterday from Emad Dlala, I have a better understanding of why not and, almost for the first time, a sense that all this might finally be gotten in hand before too much longer.

There's a postscript to all this. I feel the design of the Gravity total control suite (UX interfaces and manual controls) is the best I have ever seen in any car -- easily superior to Tesla's over-hyped approach and better even than in the Air, which I thought was a big leap beyond Tesla. It's the execution that has disappointed . . . and that is easier to fix than a design failing as long as Lucid remains determined to do it.

 

[drb3333]

I wanted to say thanks to hmp10 for relating in such detail that important call yesterday.
It very much changes the dynamic on the forum to have that information.

 

[gaskiller]

Perhaps you are the one who's extrapolating.

By the end of 2025, over half a year after Gravity began full-scale deliveries, it had still not reached monthly sales parity with the Air, yet the Gravity was supposed to address a market six times that of the Air, with many industry observers predicting it would bury Air sales almost immediately.

The Gravity was predicted by some, including Kyle Conner who was on the judging panel for the SUV or the Year Award, to walk away with the award. Instead, it went to the Cadillac Escalade with the Gravity not even making the final round. Reviewers, such as Throttle House that test drove early prototypes, raved about the car. But when the production version was launched, they were nowhere to be seen or heard. Could that be because almost every reviewer who got his hands on a Gravity found it beleaguered by software problems?

The fact that many members of this forum haven't posted about problems doesn't necessarily prove anything. The majority of members seem not to post much at all, either positive or negative.

I disagree with your assessment.

Yes, they had issues last year, but they made a lot of progress in fixing software. Unfortunate that you still have issues.

You are still living in the past. Perhaps understandable with the issues that you had. I would think the same way too.

Regarding addressable market, doesn’t mean you sell that many. Extraneous factors such as inflation, EV hate from Republicans, loss of EV credit are out of Lucid control.

But agree, Lucid did score an own goal by releasing Gravity with unfinished software.

 

[BS8899]

That's a complicated question, and in my answer I'll stick with software issues, as the answer with hardware issues would be different.

Between December 2021 (when we took delivery of our Air) and October 2022 (when Lucid switched the architecture to UX 2.0), the Air was plagued with more software problems than our Gravities. A couple of these problems made the car literally undriveable.

However, UX 2.0 was followed up with a series of software updates in rapid succession that began to slay the dragons. Today our Air still has an occasional software burp, but nothing that makes it risky to put on the road, and it is actually pretty much as reliable as our 2021 Model S Plaid was on the software front (and vastly superior in other aspects).

Our Gravities have followed a different trajectory. The one delivered in June 2025 had many issues. There weren't quite as many as with the Air, and none made the car undriveable, but some were serious: a non-functioning GPS and navigation system, blind spot cameras that displayed false images from earlier in the drive, mid-drive screen freezes, etc.

Our second Gravity, delivered in December 2025, had significantly fewer software issues to the point of being negligible.

But then 3.5.1 hit, and a tsunami of issues hit. The key fob issues that had largely disappeared returned in both cars, and with added twists such as the cars also failing to lock automatically. Issues plaguing the first Gravity spread to the second Gravity for the first time, such as ambient lighting malfunctions. I won't rehearse the full list here, as they are reported in the "New Bugs Since 3.5.1" thread.

The key difference, though, in our software experiences with the Air and the Gravities is the trajectory. The Air steadily improved, slowly at first, and then rapidly after UX 2.0. The first Gravity has pretty much stalled over the past ten months, trading some earlier software issues for others that came later. And the second Gravity has taken a giant step backwards, currently with significantly more software issues than it had in the first couple of months after delivery.

This is what has been so unsettling to me. First, I thought the lessons Lucid learned from the early Air software problems would be carried over to the Gravity. They were not. And second, I hoped the Gravity would at least see the steady forward movement toward resolution that the Air saw. It has not thus far.

After the call yesterday from Emad Dlala, I have a better understanding of why not and, almost for the first time, a sense that all this might finally be gotten in hand before too much longer.

There's a postscript to all this. I feel the design of the Gravity total control suite (UX interfaces and manual controls) is the best I have ever seen in any car -- easily superior to Tesla's over-hyped approach and better even than in the Air, which I thought was a big leap beyond Tesla. It's the execution that has disappointed . . . and that is easier to fix than a design failing as long as Lucid remains determined to do it.

Thank you for the history lesson and the detailed accounts, very educational!

Glad you think Gravity's SW might see better days ahead. Lucid needs it!

Your history lesson reminded me of my early Air ownership. I got my Air GT in Oct 2022. It had UX2.0 on it. I never experienced UX1.0.

A few weeks into my ownership, I started to encounter what I thought were SW problems (and they were indeed SW problems). So, I start posting on this forum asking for insights and help. To my surprise, I received a bunch of sharply critical replies (slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect), accusing me of ungratefulness since UX2.0 was such a quantum step improvement from UX 1.0 (which I never experienced). Lacking the history/experience with UX 1.0 (which you detailed above), I suppose I came across like a whiner.

Still there were many issues even with UX2.0. But it has gotten better with time.

Gravity's UX 3 is something I have no direct knowledge of. As such, I would refrain from conjectures.

Much appreciate your history lesson.

 

[hmp10]

I disagree with your assessment.

Yes, they had issues last year, but they made a lot of progress in fixing software.

You are still living in the past. Perhaps understandable with the issues that you had. I would think the same way too.

Regarding addressable market, doesn’t mean you sell that many. Extraneous factors such as inflation, EV hate from Republicans, loss of EV credit are out of Lucid control.

You are speaking from personal experience just as much as I am.

You have put forward not one whit of evidence that Gravity software issues have largely disappeared other than your own experience and a supposed absence of complaints from most posters.

Emad Dlala never asserted in yesterday's call that the issues are largely resolved except for a few outlying owners. He spent most of the call laying out the steps Lucid was taking to deal with the volume of software issues they're seeing. This includes personnel changes, working 7 days a week, installing new quality assurance protocols. While he expects these efforts soon to bear fruit, he was clear that they have not yet done so. In fact, he said that when he accepted the role as head of Digital, he made it clear that he would need six months to assess the situation and lay out an approach to fixing it and that they are just now entering the fix-it stage.

Counter to your claim that 3.5.1 fixed pretty much everything, Dlala said they knew the switch to a new platform architecture that preceded the update would spawn new issues, and they won't start being resolved until the next two updates, one to come later this month and the other in July.

You may get irritated by people such as I posting a lot about issues. I get just as frustrated by people claiming that everything is hunky-dory with a false picture being painted by a few malcontents.

I see a lot more actual evidence for my position than yours right now. I hope that soon changes, but there is much work still to be done.

 

[Leftlane]

I disagree with your assessment.

Yes, they had issues last year, but they made a lot of progress in fixing software. Unfortunate that you still have issues.

You are still living in the past. Perhaps understandable with the issues that you had. I would think the same way too.

Regarding addressable market, doesn’t mean you sell that many. Extraneous factors such as inflation, EV hate from Republicans, loss of EV credit are out of Lucid control.

But agree, Lucid did score an own goal by releasing Gravity with unfinished software.

He’s not living in the past if he is dealing with these issues TODAY.

 

[Halodde]

Reading through all of this back and forth serves as a reminder that very few of us (if any) will ever have the opportunity to walk in another's shoes. And even if 2 people had the exact same issues with their vehicles, they might feel drastically different about the car and the company due to different backgrounds or different required/intended usage of the vehicle etc.

A while back, I did a little survey to get a sense of how forum members use and drive their Airs. It was evident that many of us have more than one vehicle so those people are not 100% reliant on the car while some of us are. Many people don't drive as much as others. Many people live far away from service centers while others live around the corner from one.

All of these things and many other factors contribute to an individual's satisfaction with the car. I wish more people would understand that A) Your experience is your own and may be very different from someone else's. And B) just because someone has had a different experience than you, that doesn't make you right and them wrong or vice versa.

Objectivity is often elusive but important when discussing matters like this.