- Joined
- Aug 23, 2020
- Messages
- 2,948
- Location
- Paradise Valley, AZ
- Cars
- Lucid GT
- Referral Code
- K9WIJHB0
Since I have had my stellar white Air GT with 21”wheels for just over three months it is a good time to post my impressions. This is my first EV. I may have some advantages as an electrical engineer in the semiconductor industry and having designed and installed a couple of off-grid solar installations. Battery care and charging are not new to me.
I am not a car expert but I love a car that is fun to drive. My grandfather taught me to drive in a 1948 Willys CJ when I was 12. The Lucid Air GT is about as opposite as one can get. It won’t go off road but it will do just about anything else.
Nothing compares to the Air design, both interior and exterior. I see and think about this every time I get in it. The materials are of high quality. It looks good and feels good. The design is reserved with a good balance between modern minimalism and functionality. It gets a lot of attention. On the freeway today, the passenger in another car rolled down his window and stuck his head out to get a better look at my Lucid, it was 107 degrees out.
The Air is the best driving car that I have owned. I love flying around corners, looking in the rearview mirror when first at a stoplight no matter what is next to you (yea, the Plaid and Dream Edition are faster but I never see those). Passing a Mclaren on steep winding hill because acceleration is great and it just keeps going no matter how fast you are already going. The Air GT is extremely quick, a whole lot of fun and at the same time very easy and relaxing to drive. As @bunnylobowski said, this car will do any style of driving that you desire and it will do it well.
High regenerative braking is easy to learn and once learned hard to live without. Besides improving efficiency, single peal driving provides a better modulation of acceleration deceleration than you can get with friction brakes and a gas pedal. People who have owned other EVs know this but I needed to experience it for myself to truly appreciate it.
For anyone out there that looks for an excuse to drive their Lucid Air, this feeling does not go away. However, I no longer feel the need to have an excuse. I just go for a drive without pretending there is any reason.
The controls are well laid out with a few exceptions. The steering wheel should extend a little bit further. The steering wheel buttons (not the rotating wheels) have a poor haptic feel. The turn-signal stalk leads to accidentally activating windshield wipers. The lag between pressing the turn-signal and the blind spot camera coming on makes this feature useless for most lane changes. The four screens are intuitive with the most needed controls readily available. Night lighting makes it easy to see the controls while also providing excellent visibility.
The adaptive cruise control is the best I have used. It is very smooth an does not overreact to cars coming into or out of your lane. It quickly detects relative speed to another cars and adjusts correctly.
The car is smooth and quiet although rough asphalt does create some tire noise. The seats are comfortable and massage combined with the sound system keep me in the car for a few minutes after getting home. The surreal sound is awesome. I will take the buggy Tidal interface over SiriusXM DJs promoting their Facebook and Twitter feeds any day. I really like playing any song at any time with just an Alexa command. Did I say that the sound is incredible. On the downside, Tidal does not buffer enough music to handle even short durations without cellular coverage. Using it with spotty cellular coverage is an exercise in futility. I want Apple car play so that I can play from a library on my iPhone outside of good cellular coverage.
I want to take longer trips before commenting on efficiency. The range is more than adequate for a drive from Phoenix to the mountains without worrying about driving conservatively or minimizing the AC. The ability to add 40% to my SOC in 17 minutes without preconditioning the battery amazes me. Unless there is a line at charging stations, DC fast charging is very unlikely to slow down typical road trips.
The navigation system is weak. It does not pick the fastest route nor does it provide an option for an alternate routes. Many others have correctly voiced their disdain for navigation voice prompts and volume.
I have had more than my share of service calls but never a mobile visit. I guess that goes with being 10 minutes from the service center and almost driving past it to and from work. While I may not get to taste the espresso from the machine in the mobile van, I do get a free detail each time they service my car. They do a really great job so I will take this over an espresso. A full list of service visits is below along with a list of software bugs that I have encountered.
Recent issues detract from the driving experience; screen crashes that prevent controlling the AC, drive system warnings with sluggish acceleration and no regen, frunk opening when it should not. I remember a comment from @hmp10 when he was dealing with screen crashes early on and wondering what was not going to work on any particular day. While @hmp10 said it better, not having confidence that important systems will work takes away from enjoying the car.
I will not end this review on a negative tone, my overall summary in one sentence. The car is such a good design and so much fun to drive, I would buy it again in heartbeat.
Service visits:
I am not a car expert but I love a car that is fun to drive. My grandfather taught me to drive in a 1948 Willys CJ when I was 12. The Lucid Air GT is about as opposite as one can get. It won’t go off road but it will do just about anything else.
Nothing compares to the Air design, both interior and exterior. I see and think about this every time I get in it. The materials are of high quality. It looks good and feels good. The design is reserved with a good balance between modern minimalism and functionality. It gets a lot of attention. On the freeway today, the passenger in another car rolled down his window and stuck his head out to get a better look at my Lucid, it was 107 degrees out.
The Air is the best driving car that I have owned. I love flying around corners, looking in the rearview mirror when first at a stoplight no matter what is next to you (yea, the Plaid and Dream Edition are faster but I never see those). Passing a Mclaren on steep winding hill because acceleration is great and it just keeps going no matter how fast you are already going. The Air GT is extremely quick, a whole lot of fun and at the same time very easy and relaxing to drive. As @bunnylobowski said, this car will do any style of driving that you desire and it will do it well.
High regenerative braking is easy to learn and once learned hard to live without. Besides improving efficiency, single peal driving provides a better modulation of acceleration deceleration than you can get with friction brakes and a gas pedal. People who have owned other EVs know this but I needed to experience it for myself to truly appreciate it.
For anyone out there that looks for an excuse to drive their Lucid Air, this feeling does not go away. However, I no longer feel the need to have an excuse. I just go for a drive without pretending there is any reason.
The controls are well laid out with a few exceptions. The steering wheel should extend a little bit further. The steering wheel buttons (not the rotating wheels) have a poor haptic feel. The turn-signal stalk leads to accidentally activating windshield wipers. The lag between pressing the turn-signal and the blind spot camera coming on makes this feature useless for most lane changes. The four screens are intuitive with the most needed controls readily available. Night lighting makes it easy to see the controls while also providing excellent visibility.
The adaptive cruise control is the best I have used. It is very smooth an does not overreact to cars coming into or out of your lane. It quickly detects relative speed to another cars and adjusts correctly.
The car is smooth and quiet although rough asphalt does create some tire noise. The seats are comfortable and massage combined with the sound system keep me in the car for a few minutes after getting home. The surreal sound is awesome. I will take the buggy Tidal interface over SiriusXM DJs promoting their Facebook and Twitter feeds any day. I really like playing any song at any time with just an Alexa command. Did I say that the sound is incredible. On the downside, Tidal does not buffer enough music to handle even short durations without cellular coverage. Using it with spotty cellular coverage is an exercise in futility. I want Apple car play so that I can play from a library on my iPhone outside of good cellular coverage.
I want to take longer trips before commenting on efficiency. The range is more than adequate for a drive from Phoenix to the mountains without worrying about driving conservatively or minimizing the AC. The ability to add 40% to my SOC in 17 minutes without preconditioning the battery amazes me. Unless there is a line at charging stations, DC fast charging is very unlikely to slow down typical road trips.
The navigation system is weak. It does not pick the fastest route nor does it provide an option for an alternate routes. Many others have correctly voiced their disdain for navigation voice prompts and volume.
I have had more than my share of service calls but never a mobile visit. I guess that goes with being 10 minutes from the service center and almost driving past it to and from work. While I may not get to taste the espresso from the machine in the mobile van, I do get a free detail each time they service my car. They do a really great job so I will take this over an espresso. A full list of service visits is below along with a list of software bugs that I have encountered.
Recent issues detract from the driving experience; screen crashes that prevent controlling the AC, drive system warnings with sluggish acceleration and no regen, frunk opening when it should not. I remember a comment from @hmp10 when he was dealing with screen crashes early on and wondering what was not going to work on any particular day. While @hmp10 said it better, not having confidence that important systems will work takes away from enjoying the car.
I will not end this review on a negative tone, my overall summary in one sentence. The car is such a good design and so much fun to drive, I would buy it again in heartbeat.
Service visits:
- Mar 29: Whistling AC – resolved be actuator recalibration and 1.2.1.
- April 19: Right rear window inoperative – resolved by plugging it back in after window tint technician unplugged it. Not Lucid’s fault and they did not charge me for the repair which I really appreciate.
- May 3: False shock and tilt alarms – trouble shooting but not resolved.
- May 18: False shock and tilt alarms – Replaced frunk latches but did not resolve.
- June 1: Wiring harness recall Inspection – no issues.
- June 10: Drive system warning and unexpected frunk opening. This is in the future.
- Left rear radar error parking next to a building
- Screen crashes – both right cockpit panel and pilot panel
- Failure to initiate level 2 charge without valet card reset
- False shock and tilt alarms
- Doors not unlocking with key fob present or immediately re-locking after unlocking.
- Right cockpit panel display going blank
- Pilot panel blanking out
- Failing to initiate a level2 charge
- Navigation not choosing the fastest route
- Alexa failing with "Something went wrong" response or no response from Alexa when using either steering wheel button or voice command
- Tidal blanking out with "No Active Media"
- Park Assist system errors while backing out of garage
- Incorrect efficiency calculation - discrepancy between efficiency from last charge and trip calculation
- Left rear radar error when parking next to a building
- Switching user profiles in the middle of a drive without user input
- Drive System warning with sluggish acceleration and no regenerative braking
