As the market launch of Lucid Motors,’s Air luxury EVs approaches, the company revealed more details on the car’s interior user interface it calls the Lucid User Experience or Lucid UX. The company says that the technology package is designed for intuitive, effortless, and elegant interaction by the car’s driver and other occupants.
“In much the same way that a holistic, clean-sheet approach to design and engineering has made possible the revolutionary packaging and efficiency of Lucid Air, this built-from-the-ground-up strategy has also enabled the creation of Lucid UX, a truly innovative human-machine interface that is easy-to-use and aesthetically beautiful,” said Derek Jenkins, Senior VP of Design and Brand, Lucid Motors. “Lucid UX retains specific aspects of a traditional physical interface and pairs those with an innovative digital form factor that’s highly advanced and ergonomic, providing intuitive access to all vehicle systems.”
Glass Cockpit and Pilot Panel
There are two primary touch-control displays. The Glass Cockpit is the 34-in 5K-resolution curved instrument display, and the Pilot Panel is the lower, central console display. Both are contoured toward the driver and positioned to be within easy reach.
The Glass Cockpit groups information and controls into three sections, with a gentle curvature of both the glass and underlying displays.
On the left are core vehicle controls for such functions as window defrosters, lighting, and wiper settings.
The center cluster shows speed and range information. When certain features in the DreamDrive driver assistance system are activated, this screen is reconfigured to a three-dimensional depiction of the Air and the other vehicles around it on the road.
To the right is a home screen for managing navigation, media, and communications.
In addition to displaying climate controls and seat functions, the console’s Pilot Panel serves as a larger display when users need more information. A driver or passenger can swipe menus from the Glass Cockpit to the Pilot Panel to display in-depth controls for music or navigation. The Pilot Panel can also retract, opening access to storage space behind it.
The panels were designed to ensure a seamless transition between digital and physical, creating an interior that feels like a single coherent space.
Immersion, aided by sound
The car’s UX is designed to be warm and inviting, with the graphical interface, like the interior themes, inspired by the warmth and light of Lucid’s design home in California. Even the colors shown on digital displays are color-matched to interior fabrics and trims.
Throughout the development process, interior designers and software engineers jointly identified a set of features and interactions that would be best served with dedicated physical touchpoints such as climate controls and window switches. These are operated with physical controls on the dashboard, doors, and steering wheel that are crafted to look beautiful, feel solid, and provide clear tactile feedback.
This concept of unifying digital and physical also extends to the 21-speaker Surreal Sound system, featuring the world’s first integration of Dolby Atmos. The technology is designed to deliver a class-leading immersive in-car audio experience.
“The post-luxury experience is not just about beautiful design and next-generation technology, it also speaks to an unmatched in-car experience that engages all the senses,” said Jenkins.
The Surreal Sound system consists of front, rear, side, and height speakers positioned to allow the driver and passengers to feel the relative movement of individual sounds as they move around the cabin. Dolby helped tune the speaker system using the Capitol Records’ Studio C recording studio as the reference design.
“It was very obvious to us that Lucid was trying to do something different and trying to do something that was unique to the automotive experience,” said Tim Pryde, Director of Music at Dolby. “The way that Lucid has approached the automobile very much resonates with Dolby’s approach to experiences. With Atmos, we’re giving creatives a whole new way of thinking about audio to where they now just think about audio in space.”
The Surreal Sound system also helps increase the overall safety of the Air, extending the experience to notifications, indications, and warnings to alert the driver and passengers. For example, a seatbelt warning will, to the driver’s ears, come from the direction of the unbuckled belt. Blind-spot detection and turn signals will feature directionality to help the driver.
Key partnerships help give Lucid UX users a range of infotainment options in terms of content and control. Users can control many vehicle features by speaking to Amazon Alexa Built-in, which the company says is the best-in-class voice AI (artificial intelligence). The Air will also feature Apple CarPlay wireless connectivity, Google Android Auto, and several music services including Spotify and iHeartRadio. Connectivity also applies to the Lucid mobile app, for which users can view charge status, check and set climate controls, and pre-load navigation journeys.
OTA for an evolving experience
Over-the-air (OTA) software updates will bring new and updated features that reflect real-world user preferences and feedback.
The OTA capability will also be leveraged to expand and enhance the car’s DreamDrive, which Lucid claims will set a benchmark in ADASs (advanced driver-assistance systems), with a combination of an advanced sensor suite, high-resolution LIDAR, a driver monitoring system, and a fully redundant platform. Key partners for the system include Here, Continental, and Bosch, with the integration of their systems conducted in-house.
The technology supports 19 safety, driving, and parking assist features that will be available at the start of production. Another eight features are expected later via over-the-air (OTA) updates. Additional capabilities to enable Level 3 driving in certain conditions are in development.
“We have ensured that the Lucid DreamDrive hardware and software platform not only offers a full suite of Level 2 features but is also Level 3 ready, which means we’ll be able to quickly add features and functions over-the-air throughout the lifetime of Lucid Air and for future Lucid models,” said Dr. Eugene Lee, Senior Director, ADAS and Autonomous Driving, Lucid Motors.
The Air will come to market with 32 sensors including the latest camera, radar, and ultrasonic sensors, as well as a long-range, high-resolution LIDAR in front. An in-car monitoring system will ensure a driver’s attention on the driving task.
Lucid says that DreamDrive is the first ADAS system built upon a high-speed Ethernet ring. The advanced electrical serves as a fully redundant platform for key functions such as steering, brakes, sensors, and includes redundant independent power sources and communications paths, fail-operational actuators, and fault-tolerant computation.
Class-leading space
The Air interior experience is physically enhanced by the “Space-Concept” design, which takes advantage of Lucid’s compact EV drivetrain and 113-kW·h battery pack to deliver class-leading interior space. The experience is enabled by the car’s LEAP (Lucid Electric Advanced Platform) skateboard platform and full Canopy Glass Roof above.
“It’s relatively easy to achieve more range by adding progressively more batteries, but gaining ‘dumb range’ that way increases weight and cost, and reduces interior space,” said Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO, Lucid Motors. “Lucid Air has achieved its remarkable range whilst also reducing battery size through its in-house technology, resulting in a breakthrough in overall vehicle-level efficiency.”
In addition to the large interior passenger space for its compact exterior footprint, the Air features what is said to be the largest frunk ever offered in a production EV. With a capacity of over 280 L (9.9 ft³), it is 89% larger than the current leader in the Air’s vehicle class. In combination with its trunk, the car offers a total of 739 L (26.1 ft³) of luggage space, a claimed best-in-class for both electric and internal combustion engine vehicles “by some margin.”
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