The newest slick Lucid video highlighting the UX

It was a slick video and I understand that the marketing need to keep the Lucid Air in front of their customer's eye's but I did not see any new information here. Did I miss something?
 
Did I miss something?

Not really. I think the only incremental information was in what was missing from the presentation. For instance, I love the Google satellite image that displays on my Tesla and really miss it in my other cars. I asked Zak Edson, the head of Lucid Retail Operations, if the Air would have it, and he was equivocal. It seems now that the answer is "no". I was also hoping against hope that the Air would have a heads-up display, especially for overlaying turns and similar directions. Again, it seems not.

Three of the four people on our dinner outing tonight had seen the presentation. It got shrugs all around.

(P.S. One of the attendees came in the VW ID.4 on which he took delivery this morning. What a cool, cool car. It left me depressed that, after almost three years, I'm still waiting for my Air with no end in sight. When the dual-motor ID.4 comes out later this year, I'm thinking of buying one as a local runabout for errands and dog rides. I've never seen a car make such good use of interior space, and few as comfortable front and rear.)
 
My E-Tron has the Google satellite imagery overlay too and can be had with the heads up display. This is why I feel Lucid has a tough road ahead. I think range will be one of the strongest selling points, but going head to head with some other luxury car features will not.
 
Some Random Thoughts:
  • The right part of the center display seems to not have much use currently. It's a bit disappointing, like they have this large display, but to reduce clutter, they decided to just put the "Air" logo on it.
  • For their partners they don't mention XM Radio. You can get it through Apple Car Play, but that uses internet and when driving in areas where there is no internet reception, satellite is the way to go.
  • The Alexa integration uses internet to recognize voices, but that is problematic, when no internet is present.
  • No mention on how internet is accessed (i.e. through car cell service or through phone, or both)
 
I'm pretty sure the Air will have cellular internet connectivity at least. Most people do over-the-air-updates of their cars overnight when the cars are parked in garages where a satellite signal is unavailable.

Where I live in southwest Florida both cell signals and satellite signals are iffy propositions, the first because the area is semi-rural (even though less than 10 miles from dense development), and the latter because of frequent cloud cover. My Tesla often loses a signal driving around, with dropouts on music streaming and cell phone calls, and my radar/ladar detectors periodically send a voice warning that they've lost the satellite signal.

For people who don't live in urban or dense suburban areas with deep infrastructure, all this hype about fully-connected lives (and cars) is more marketing guff than reality.
 
Paul Barron is a fairly even-handed reviewer (despite being a friend of congenital Tesla fanboy and Lucid hater Warren Redlich). He just posted a video thet has me rethinking the significance of the Lucid UX video from yesterday:

 
The obvious issue with the Pilot Panel is its position. In order to use it the driver will take his eyes totally off the road ahead. Not a safe / practical design.
 
I want to see more of how this all works. I believe everything the driver needs to operate the car while being driven is on the upper display or the steering wheel. The pilot screen is intended more for passenger use or when the driver wants to set the car up prior to driving.

In another video, Rawlinson demonstrated how the pilot screen was located so that it could be reached while stabilizing your arm by resting the elbow on the armrest. This enables easier use of the screen while the car is in motion. One of my main beefs with Tesla is that it is very difficult to adjust anything when the car is moving, as the slightest jostle makes you hit something other than the icon you intended. When riding as a passenger in my Tesla and trying to use the Spotify search screen to select something, I have had to ask the driver to pull off the road as I kept missing alpha icons. Same thing when I've tried to select a menu item when pulling music off my USB stick. There are times I've kept my eyes off the road far too long while I try to rectify hitting the wrong icon. It drives me crazy.

The only way a Tesla screen can be used accurately while the car is in motion is if you can reach an icon while anchoring your hand against the screen edge, and that can be hard to do on its large screens.
 
"The StockCsst" just posted a long video of a test ride they took with Derek Jenkins at the Amelia Concours:


At 39:55 they talk about how supple the suspension was, how it absorbed road irregularities, and how planted it was during hard acceleration. This is pretty much the same observation Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield of "Transport Evolved" made, except that she also went on a faster ride through the twisties outside of San Francisco and found the ride dynamics very taut and controlled. I really wish Lucid wold reveal more about the suspension system in this car now that we know it is not an air suspension.
 
I just watched the "InsideEVs" livestream podcast during which Kyle Conner gave additional thoughts on his test ride in the Lucid Air at the Amelia Concours. The Lucid discussion begins around -1:03:00 (the clock runs backward on the livestream).


A few interesting additions over what was in the video review Conner posted a day or so ago:

- He said the acceleration was really something different from any other EV he's experienced, including the highest performance Teslas and Taycans. He said that the explosive launch was really no different than from the over high-performance EVs, as they're all working at the limit of tire traction. What was different, though, about the Air was that, not only did it continue to accelerate strongly at upper speeds, but the rate of acceleration was actually increasing at those higher speeds. That was something he's never experienced in any other EV.

- He said that while he did not notice any uneven acceleration that other articles have mentioned, the motors are still exhibiting a bit of torque cogging at very low speed. (I'm wondering if we're not talking about the same phenomenon, but that Conner just labeled it correctly for what it was.) At any rate, he said Lucid is still working to address it.

- He said that he has known Peter Hochholdinger for some years and that he has absolute confidence in Lucid's manufacturing ability under Hochholdinger's tutelage.

- He said he took almost no notice of the glass canopy during his ride, which was on a sunny day in Florida. I hope this means heat and light is well controlled without the electrochromic glass. Conner also felt the sun visors were visually intrusive (as do I) and would have been better tucked away in the A-pillar as Tesla does with the Model X -- although he felt a trim-fold visor should be used instead of Tesla's inadequate bi-fold visor.
 
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