I posted a bit on range based on my trip to LA from Phoenix on Friday, but I thought I would post a little more about the car overall as well as range now that I have returned.
Things I loved/liked:
As has been stated by almost everyone, the drive. Having nothing high end to equate it to, apart from my father's Mercedes SL from 10 years ago or so, I'm probably not the best person to comment on it in comparison with other great driving cars, but certainly, I found it to be nothing short of a dream. It handled great. It leaps and bounds quieter than my truck or jeep (not a high bar). The way you can maneuver around traffic is like a knife cutting through warm butter. It's just bliss. The steering wheel is very comfortable too!
A close second and really part of the drive is the ACC. I can't say enough good things about it. It works so well. My Jeep has it, but merging into passing traffic causes a jarring slow down. This car just melts in. I know it's not even close to self-driving, but it is significantly less tiring when all you have to do is steer. Also, the override works very nicely with this too. It doesn't feel like you're fighting the ACC to keep speed up, and at times, and this was new to me, I was actually overriding below the set speed. A nice touch. It took me a bit to figure out how to resume. It's an up click on the knob. My only small complaint would be that I wish you could set the follow a little more closely, but their way is probably safer
.
The sound system was stellar. I'm not an audiophile and I'm not sure that will be able to tell the difference between regular music and Atmos. But it doesn't matter, very nice.
Likewise, I thought Alexa did a nice job. Made calls. Pulled up Amazon Music without problem. Even attempted to answer the question of "Why are teens so moody?" She came in very handy after a stop when the front right panel did not come up fully (more on that later). I needed to see the navigation, and Alexa was able to bring that up. Overall, I think it's going to work well. If I were a long time Alexa user instead of first time, I might have issues, but for the little bit I needed her to do, she did it.
Massage was very helpful for the two 6 hour trips. And the seats on the whole were great. The cooling function is nicer than ones I have had before. It's not a jarring cold plate on your ass type thing and it wasn't non-existent.
Things that I am getting used to:
Range: This may all be old hat for long time EV drivers. As has been posted many times here, little changes make a big difference, but things are not always repeatable from ride to ride. I detailed range in a different thread for my trip out to LA. Coming back was good practice for trying to make range work for me. I had 405 miles when I left LA with a planned stop in Quartzite, AZ (250 miles away). I was driving on Sunday morning, so traffic out of LA was light which also meant I could drive the car faster. The 150 mile buffer had been cut in half by the time I was halfway there. With about 120 mile to go, I had about a 70 mile buffer. I dropped the ACC down to 76 and began mapping the actual distance traveled to the range. Doing that was able to get me pretty close to 1 actual mile traveled for every 1 mile of range dropped. We got to the charging station with 30 miles of range to spare. The road was largely flat and the temp was mid-80s as opposed to over 100 on Friday. I need to do some more tests to see if that 75 mph is the sweet spot for tracking actual miles to range miles, so I can't say for sure, but if that's the case, I could get used to that pretty quickly. Conversely, it felt like 85 mph was getting about 0.5-0.6 actual mileage per 1 mile range dropped. It accurate, that's quite a steep drop for 10 mph faster.
Charging: I forgot to precondition the battery at all my charging stops. I think it was the EA spot in Quartzite that was the problem as another driver asked if I was getting slow charging speeds too, but when we stopped I only was maxing out at 11 kW a minute on the 350 fast charger. What I don't know is how much charging improvement you get when doing this. We spent 40 minutes charging up to 75%. Hoping this was just an anomaly.
Things that I don't like or can be improved:
Wiper washer: It took a few tries of holding the button to release the washer fluid, but when it did, I'm not sure I'm a fan. It comes out of the wiper which has the effect of sending the water upwards and at an angle on the windshield. This doesn't do a great job of actually cleaning the windshield and actually puts much of the water in places that the wiper can't reach. Not only does this not clean things for you, it leaves very noticeable spots when it dries.
The right front panel/navigation: The buttons to switch between navigation, music, etc, feel like they're too far away. It's a bit of a stretch to reach and hold your arm steady to hit the button. Alexa may allow for switching, but I didn't try that. I don't like the process for moving the map down to the pilot panel or back up again. At times, it got stuck halfway. Additionally, in trying to find charging stations, it's a very disorganized list and will show stations both behind you and in front of you. As others have mentioned, the EA ones are not listed first, and in a place like CA, you are just inundated with options...none of which are EA. Also, sometimes the stations were shown but it was clear that the distance to them was way off. I think that if you don't wait a certain amount of time before you start selecting other buttons, it just gets stuck. The maps themselves were fine. But the plotting of waypoints on the fly was not smooth. Additionally, if you add a charging station or really anything and then you don't actually stop there, I think it keeps on trying to send you back rather than just giving up after a while. It automatically added charging stops for me when I set up the trip back home. I thought that was cool, and I thought that the one they added was the Quartzite one, but it actually turned out to be one 20 miles earlier. When I ignored it, I could not figure out how to cancel it. Instead I had to cancel the trip and restart it. Also, as mentioned, after a stop, when the car woke up, none of the buttons were available. So I couldn't go to the music screen or the navigation or homelink for that matter. As mentioned, Alexa helped overcome that. Also, as a nice surprise, the homelink screen opened up when I pulled into the driveway, so just one step for me there [suggestion: maybe when that geolink screen shows up maybe Lucid could enable one of the steering wheel actual buttons to open/close the garage door].
The AC seems to take a little time to find its rhythm, but otherwise worked very well.
I have turned off almost all of the safety features. Lane keep assist feels like it needs a lot of work and is overly aggressive pulling you back in. Distracted driver seems to work inconsistently. And, I don't know what the speed limit sign recognition is supposed to be doing. I think it called out every sign but a speed limit one. Thankfully, that's only a visual indicator when using ACC, but man does that need A LOT of work. So given those items, I'd guess that DD Pro is a ways off. Also, though not an exhaustive test, it does not seem like the parking assist will recognize a garage bay as a space.
Though not a problem, I would also say that given the low front profile of the car, some sort of PFF is recommended. I haven't had that done yet, but there are already one or two pinpoint areas that knocked out the paint. It's not noticeable at all unless you're really looking for it, but I can see that space being a magnet for all sorts of nicks and such. I'd say one should at least get the front done.
On the positive though, it was warm/hot, and the glass overhead never made the car feel hot. I couldn't notice the sun directly over us either. Great job on the tinting there. I may still get the side windows tinted, but that wasn't much of a bother either. It was 105 at one point on Friday, and we were never uncomfortable.
Hope that was helpful. 5 days in and almost 1000 miles given the road trip, and I have not one ounce of regret!
Things I loved/liked:
As has been stated by almost everyone, the drive. Having nothing high end to equate it to, apart from my father's Mercedes SL from 10 years ago or so, I'm probably not the best person to comment on it in comparison with other great driving cars, but certainly, I found it to be nothing short of a dream. It handled great. It leaps and bounds quieter than my truck or jeep (not a high bar). The way you can maneuver around traffic is like a knife cutting through warm butter. It's just bliss. The steering wheel is very comfortable too!
A close second and really part of the drive is the ACC. I can't say enough good things about it. It works so well. My Jeep has it, but merging into passing traffic causes a jarring slow down. This car just melts in. I know it's not even close to self-driving, but it is significantly less tiring when all you have to do is steer. Also, the override works very nicely with this too. It doesn't feel like you're fighting the ACC to keep speed up, and at times, and this was new to me, I was actually overriding below the set speed. A nice touch. It took me a bit to figure out how to resume. It's an up click on the knob. My only small complaint would be that I wish you could set the follow a little more closely, but their way is probably safer
.The sound system was stellar. I'm not an audiophile and I'm not sure that will be able to tell the difference between regular music and Atmos. But it doesn't matter, very nice.
Likewise, I thought Alexa did a nice job. Made calls. Pulled up Amazon Music without problem. Even attempted to answer the question of "Why are teens so moody?" She came in very handy after a stop when the front right panel did not come up fully (more on that later). I needed to see the navigation, and Alexa was able to bring that up. Overall, I think it's going to work well. If I were a long time Alexa user instead of first time, I might have issues, but for the little bit I needed her to do, she did it.
Massage was very helpful for the two 6 hour trips. And the seats on the whole were great. The cooling function is nicer than ones I have had before. It's not a jarring cold plate on your ass type thing and it wasn't non-existent.
Things that I am getting used to:
Range: This may all be old hat for long time EV drivers. As has been posted many times here, little changes make a big difference, but things are not always repeatable from ride to ride. I detailed range in a different thread for my trip out to LA. Coming back was good practice for trying to make range work for me. I had 405 miles when I left LA with a planned stop in Quartzite, AZ (250 miles away). I was driving on Sunday morning, so traffic out of LA was light which also meant I could drive the car faster. The 150 mile buffer had been cut in half by the time I was halfway there. With about 120 mile to go, I had about a 70 mile buffer. I dropped the ACC down to 76 and began mapping the actual distance traveled to the range. Doing that was able to get me pretty close to 1 actual mile traveled for every 1 mile of range dropped. We got to the charging station with 30 miles of range to spare. The road was largely flat and the temp was mid-80s as opposed to over 100 on Friday. I need to do some more tests to see if that 75 mph is the sweet spot for tracking actual miles to range miles, so I can't say for sure, but if that's the case, I could get used to that pretty quickly. Conversely, it felt like 85 mph was getting about 0.5-0.6 actual mileage per 1 mile range dropped. It accurate, that's quite a steep drop for 10 mph faster.
Charging: I forgot to precondition the battery at all my charging stops. I think it was the EA spot in Quartzite that was the problem as another driver asked if I was getting slow charging speeds too, but when we stopped I only was maxing out at 11 kW a minute on the 350 fast charger. What I don't know is how much charging improvement you get when doing this. We spent 40 minutes charging up to 75%. Hoping this was just an anomaly.
Things that I don't like or can be improved:
Wiper washer: It took a few tries of holding the button to release the washer fluid, but when it did, I'm not sure I'm a fan. It comes out of the wiper which has the effect of sending the water upwards and at an angle on the windshield. This doesn't do a great job of actually cleaning the windshield and actually puts much of the water in places that the wiper can't reach. Not only does this not clean things for you, it leaves very noticeable spots when it dries.
The right front panel/navigation: The buttons to switch between navigation, music, etc, feel like they're too far away. It's a bit of a stretch to reach and hold your arm steady to hit the button. Alexa may allow for switching, but I didn't try that. I don't like the process for moving the map down to the pilot panel or back up again. At times, it got stuck halfway. Additionally, in trying to find charging stations, it's a very disorganized list and will show stations both behind you and in front of you. As others have mentioned, the EA ones are not listed first, and in a place like CA, you are just inundated with options...none of which are EA. Also, sometimes the stations were shown but it was clear that the distance to them was way off. I think that if you don't wait a certain amount of time before you start selecting other buttons, it just gets stuck. The maps themselves were fine. But the plotting of waypoints on the fly was not smooth. Additionally, if you add a charging station or really anything and then you don't actually stop there, I think it keeps on trying to send you back rather than just giving up after a while. It automatically added charging stops for me when I set up the trip back home. I thought that was cool, and I thought that the one they added was the Quartzite one, but it actually turned out to be one 20 miles earlier. When I ignored it, I could not figure out how to cancel it. Instead I had to cancel the trip and restart it. Also, as mentioned, after a stop, when the car woke up, none of the buttons were available. So I couldn't go to the music screen or the navigation or homelink for that matter. As mentioned, Alexa helped overcome that. Also, as a nice surprise, the homelink screen opened up when I pulled into the driveway, so just one step for me there [suggestion: maybe when that geolink screen shows up maybe Lucid could enable one of the steering wheel actual buttons to open/close the garage door].
The AC seems to take a little time to find its rhythm, but otherwise worked very well.
I have turned off almost all of the safety features. Lane keep assist feels like it needs a lot of work and is overly aggressive pulling you back in. Distracted driver seems to work inconsistently. And, I don't know what the speed limit sign recognition is supposed to be doing. I think it called out every sign but a speed limit one. Thankfully, that's only a visual indicator when using ACC, but man does that need A LOT of work. So given those items, I'd guess that DD Pro is a ways off. Also, though not an exhaustive test, it does not seem like the parking assist will recognize a garage bay as a space.
Though not a problem, I would also say that given the low front profile of the car, some sort of PFF is recommended. I haven't had that done yet, but there are already one or two pinpoint areas that knocked out the paint. It's not noticeable at all unless you're really looking for it, but I can see that space being a magnet for all sorts of nicks and such. I'd say one should at least get the front done.
On the positive though, it was warm/hot, and the glass overhead never made the car feel hot. I couldn't notice the sun directly over us either. Great job on the tinting there. I may still get the side windows tinted, but that wasn't much of a bother either. It was 105 at one point on Friday, and we were never uncomfortable.
Hope that was helpful. 5 days in and almost 1000 miles given the road trip, and I have not one ounce of regret!
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