Do Lucid Air Owners Regret Buying This Electric Vehicle?

May 27, 2022

There is an excellent discussion going on at the Lucid Owners Forum asking those who have already accepted delivery of their Lucid Air, do they have any regrets now. The short answer is yes, some do, but the vast majority of the responses from owners say they do not regret the purchase at all.

As someone expecting arrival of a Lucid Air Grand Touring, these testimonials from Lucid Air buyers are reassuring.

I wanted to quote some of what these Lucid Air owners have said in the forums, but check out the thread (linked to above) for more details:

I picked up my Dream Edition Performance on 12/31/2021 and have 4,400 miles on it. I didn’t want a Tesla but did want an EV. If I had it to do over again, I might not have taken the DE and waited for the next Lucid high-end car, like a tri-motor? I think that sometime next year they will have fixed the software and ironed out their manufacturing issues and the cars will be better.

I do like the interior, range and how fast it is but the software makes it aggravating as a daily driver, for me. Also, I have not had a lot of fit and finish issues.

I have a GT and maybe about 1000 miles on it. First EV owned. Honestly, zero regrets with my purchase (so far!). I didn’t really enter with any expectations other than to have a ‘car’ i.e. four-wheeled vehicle that can take me safely and comfortably from point A to B with points A and B not being on opposite ends of the earth. When I try to galaxy brain this thing (usually after hours spent avidly reading every word on this forum lol – so educational!) I sometimes can understand how I might be disappointed with this that or the other in an alternate dimension where I wasn’t me. But the minute I look at the car again, or get into it, or start driving it, it’s still just pure pleasure and I always am grateful and consider myself lucky.

Eventually, those feelings will surely fade as newer and better tech emerges, but I hope they are simply replaced with a feeling of quiet and steady satisfaction. Kind of like, yup, car is great, nothing much more to talk about, she was the very best once upon a time and I love her still.

I have no regret, the excitement, cutting edge powertrain, aesthetic of this car in and out overshadow the basic functional software I have faith it will improve. I do agree cupholders can use dim light, wireless charging slot can be bigger and other little stuffs are not deal breaker for me. The range and charging speed are very important for me, less time at charging station is more quality time to enjoy the road. And I just don’t like to go to gas stations or charge stations given current economic downturn environment.

Almost 1500 miles. I love this car. Took it on a late night drive on some twisty roads in the area and it was like flying. The software is meh but the rest of the car… wow. Some Zojirushi thermoses solved the cupholder issue for me.

No regrets. Software will improve.

IMHO,
In term of hardware (battery, powertrain & handling)
Lucid > Tesla + 3~4 years

In term of software (UI, UX & FSD)
Tesla > Lucid + 3~5 years

Overall
Tesla > 4~8 years of ALL Legacy ICE companies

Hardware improvement needs to bring product back to manufacturer; software doesn’t, unless you are using legacy ICE products. Hardware is exhilarating ride and passengers comfort. Software is bells and whistles of more apps for UI.

No I regrets per se, but a few things after just under a month of ownership to note:

* I’d swear earlier pre-production cars had slightly longer steering wheel column extension. Mine is not as far as I’d like, mainly because the race car driver in me likes it ridiculously close. It won’t matter for most anyone else.
*The A/C dash vents don’t blow as much air as you may want which will surprise you on a hot day. You can still cool the cabin down fast if you use the defrost vents with the A/C on max. It blows air over the windshield and your face more effectively than just the dash vents imho. The remote climate also works very well.
*The app is pretty slow to wake the car. If you’re using the frunk/trunk then just carry your fob until they get it more responsive. Otherwise mobile key works great.
*I thought I’d want the glass roof tinted (I’m very light sensitive) but after only a day I stopped caring. At this point I prefer the glass overhead – something I did not expect at all.
*There’s still a lot of work to be done on the nav
*The minimalist interior has grown on me to the point that after hopping in an EQS recently I was almost totally turned off by how busy it is (very surprising to me)

All that aside, I love the car and still seek out flimsy excuses to go for a drive.

My one regret is fairly odd: I wish I’d pre-ordered a Rivian sooner for my wife. At this point we’re more than ready to go all-EV and never look back, but will have to wait until late next year for hers to arrive. Gee Shucks Darn.

I had to get my head straight about the various glitches. Once I realized all the new EV’s were going to have some software issues as well, and that this is a brand new car company producing an amazing car, I settled down. I really appreciate the beauty and feel of driving my DE. The glitches are insignificant to me now — I love it.

I have 800 miles so far. There are some trade offs for sure. The 21s are a little harsh over potholes and rough pavement but I found the 19 just too esthetically challenged. The stereo is great when you get a signal but I would love to play my own music without using blue tooth. Should be a usb enabled interface. The white carpets will be swapped out for grey when they come in. The app is rudimentary but I know the OTAs will improve it, just what time frame are we talking about? I need dog mode, not just a 45 min window then reup using a glitchy app. I miss the Tesla S hatchback but I love the interior on the lucid. Would I do it again? Absolutely, the car is a piece of art.

The driving dynamics of the car are so good that it is easy to forgive the work in progress not yet baked UI. I hope Lucid addresses the UI mess soon before the honeymoon wears off.

I’ve got 1400 miles on my Air GT, and have zero regrets. While I strongly dislike the navigation and am irritated by the audio workarounds and very poor. Bluetooth reliability, as well as maybe the panel gap on the clamshell trunk (it’s as designed, but looks bad, a fellow Tesla owning co-worker compared it to his early p90D gaps, which I didn’t want to hear haha), I don’t mind the rest of the software quirks and and actually think the UI is mostly great, certainly better than bumbling through a pile of icons like nearly all other automakers have you do. The interface is clean and attractive and simple.

I absolutely love the speed, range, charging, comfort, looks, storage space, and jaw droppingly good audio system (when it’s playing at maximum resolution). I don’t even regret my color choice (infinite black with Tahoe interior) even though the black is a pollen magnet and looks dirty one day after washing it. I suppose after one New England winter I may end up regretting not getting Grey or Silver, but then I also might not have gotten my car in time for a New England winter!

This is the best car I’ve owned and I now compare everything I’ve ever driven to this car. While I LOVE tech, I don’t need the “tech” necessarily in my car, i.e. CarPlay, Android Auto, FSD, etc. I’ve never been a true car guy due to limited financial capabilities, but I’ve always wanted to be a car guy.

I am currently on a trip caravaning with my Honda Odyssey and sad to say, I loathe having to get back into the Odyssey when it’s my turn. The Air is just flat out more comfortable, quieter, faster, smoother, everything you could want in a luxury car. On my part of the drive, I actually said I’d prefer to drive alone so I could crank the stereo.

There are things that COULD be better, yes. But as it is now, if nothing else Improved, I don’t think I would regret the purchase even then knowing they didn’t deliver everything they had marketed. Yes, the drive is just that good and the car is just that comfortable.

We already know from the feedback list what is still requested so no need to rehash that bit.

I do believe that Lucid and other companies using LIDAR will pass Tesla in the next 2 years though. So I’m looking forward to seeing how the tech progresses in the car and how the company moved along. I’ve already told all the sales people, I have my money ready for the Gravity and can’t wait to see what happens with that.

3000 miles in

Regrets…? None.
ok – if I plumb the bottom of the barrel. Colour. I started with Grey (when I confirmed in November 2021). 2 days later I changed it to RED. Which proved a great move (since I’ve had my car for nearly two months). I would have liked to see all the real colours – interior and exterior in the flesh – and for delivery to be a little more predicatable. Would I have stayed with RED. Actually YES. I love it. Would I have stayed with Mojave? That I am less sure about. I love the DE interior and this would have been my choice (but not at $50k more)

what would I like better?

* The SW has already been discussed. It is improving, and will continue to improve
* An area that impacts me – the reliance on cellular signal. I live in Silicon Valley and I am plagued with shocking cell signal. Streaming of any kind is a no for me (Even if it was from My phone)
* I would also like to see EA roll out charging stations with 6 or more stalls… rather than the normal 4. I have rarely had to wait … twice for a grand total of about 10mins in over 3000 miles (only L1 charger at home) but it feels like the charging capacity is going to be stressed sooner rather than later

No regrets at all. I also, for now, consider myself pretty lucky in that the car has been relatively problem free. I’ve never had a car with so much software that I honestly don’t know what to compare it to in terms of a bad experience. On navigation, both of my other cars have UConnect. Lucid is definitely not that bad there. On sound, Alexa plays what I tell it to play, and while I’d love for things to pick back up where I left off, it’s not causing heartburn. The build quality seems first rate as I’ve noticed no misalignments. Range has been fine.

Overall, I seem to have fallen in a sweet spot of having most software issues solved before getting mine while still getting a car that had decent quality control going on. I certainly sympathize with those who didn’t have the same experience. And despite my strong distaste for hearing the same issues over and over again, I feel very badly for @CLTGT and @Sandvinsd for the continued run around because everyone needs to experience this car just from a drive perspective. It just makes you smile, and knowing that but not knowing when you’ll get that experience has to be maddeningly frustrating.

But for me, no regrets at all except for wishing that I would have driven it more over the past two months!

Up until this week I would have said no regrets because the car is awesome. It drives great, the design is great, the interior is a refined modern that is superb, the materials are excellent and the ambient lighting at night is almost perfect. The software annoyances (unlocking, Tidal glitches, Alexa glitches, boot up time) are just minor and do not detract from the overall car.

However, this last week I encountered greater issues on every drive; failure to level 2 charge without multiple reboots, multiple blank screens requiring reboots. I still really like the car but I this weeks issues were more than just annoyances and are detracting from the driving experience.

No car is ever PERFECT, but this car is being pretty close up there. My reaction when I first learned this car online was WOW; during the production wait process, it went from wow to anxiety to concerned. After I got the car, I get euphoric feeling whenever behind the wheel, it just feel this car is so advanced and superior than every car out on the street overall.

I have put on 1460 miles, with 800 miles on Texas interstate highway between cities.

I did forget to mention and left out my frustration. While at Walmart Super Center in Denton, Texas, I couldn’t charge my AGT in that EA. I was panicking hard and texted to my Houston SC concierge reporting either Wunderbox failure or EA doesn’t recognize this car anymore and I was down to 15% SOC and 5 hours away from home and may need a tow. My man Josh is amazing! He always respond promptly with great service attention. It turned out it was just stall’s problem. I switched 4 stalls to finally get charged and relieved. So this particular station has major problem as I later learned from other YouTubers. Dallas only has 4 EA stations and are all far out from downtown. EA can improve with more stations. Again, like Lucid’s software, I’m sure more contents are coming in good faith.

I’ve had the car for a couple months, driven it around 2500 miles. I have zero regrets. I absolutely love this car. It’s comfortable, it’s quiet, insanely fun to drive, handles really well and feels much smaller than it is. And it is stunning too. I can now drive on roads I used to avoid as I no longer feel like my car is going to fall apart. This car triples the enjoyment I’ve had from other EVS (it’s my 3rd). I go out of my way to take longer drives and plan short trips that I never would have before.

The majority of small software glitches and issues people complain about here, I’ve been living with for years in my Model S – most on a daily basis. That ridiculous car still doesn’t recognize my keys 50% of the time, even while I am in the middle of driving. The Lucid is far and away a much better car and I don’t have any software issues with it. Would I like to be able to split the screen, yes, but it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the car one bit. I’ve had a couple hardware issues and their customer service teams are wonderful. I know it’s early days and there aren’t many of us, but they actually know us and our cars. When they fix an issue, if it comes up again they come back to it from a different angle and keep at it until they get it right. Something I have definitely not seen from Tesla’s CS – even back before the X was introduced and service was still good.