I spent a few days traveling around Mount Desert Island, Maine in a Lucid Air Touring. The back seat of this machine is truly palatial. The ride is solid and comfortable. Every hospital that profits from treating traumatic brain injuries should love this design because the dimensions are optimized for hitting one’s head while getting in and out (a common issue noted on the Interweb; example). It’s far easier to get in and out of a C8 Corvette without hitting one’s head than in/out of a Lucid, front seat or back.
Folks in Maine love Lucid so much that we parked next to two Lucids in the same color. Here’s one:
When it was my turn to drive, some of the limitations of the EV-smartphone integration became apparent. There apparently isn’t a way for an owner to authorize a friend as a temporary driver of the machine. I wasn’t able to register and log in for a Lucid account because there isn’t a vehicle registered to me. There is no “share this car” option in the Lucid app. I had to get my friend’s username and password and log in on the app on my phone. After that, we spent about five minutes trying to pair the car with my phone and finally succeeded after turning off Bluetooth on his phone. The car isn’t smart about whether it has been started with a phone or a key. If you have no key with you, but only your phone, it reminds you to take the non-existent key after parking:
My trip in the vehicle was on paved roads in what Mainers call “summer” (cloudy with light rain). We were rich in error messages. One concerned the failure of the LIDAR system with instructions to clean the lens:
This disappeared for no apparent reason (we neither found nor cleaned any sensor). Another error message concerned the stability control and regeneration systems. This cleared itself.
The driver assistance features are similar to those on a modern gas-powered car. The driver is warned about lane departure, cars in blind spots (the A and B pillars are huge!), and obstacles nearby when parking. Lucid doesn’t seem to be competing in the self-driving world so this is a car for the EV-lover who wants to drive him/her/zir/themself.
How would Mindy the Crippler like this vehicle? It’s a few button presses to get into “Creative Comfort Mode”, similar to Tesla’s Dog Mode:
I agree with my owner-friend (see below) that is a great car from the driver’s perspective, at least assuming that he/she/ze/they has recovered from the skull-roof impact. Loyal readers familiar with my passion for reducing inequality in American society won’t be surprised that my favorite moments with the Lucid were parked at a taxpayer-funded city-run charger. Here are photos documenting the transfer of wealth from peasants driving 20-year-old pickups to the person fortunate enough to own a $90,000 Lucid:
Here’s a sign posted at a pottery shop in nearby Islesford, Maine:
I haven’t figured out which of the above things that we must do covers “pay taxes so that owners of $90,000 SUVs can charge for free.”
Related:
- Lucid Air Touring versus Tesla X and S (the owner’s perspective)
“Lucid Air Touring”
But I cannot see where the wings are!
A rip-off!
Ayuh. Why do you keep rage baiting us? 🙂 I was ready to log off the Internet and get something done on “Workingman’s Scheme”, my Grateful Dead inspired back-to-basics Scheme distro, when I saw this post.
Here are some songs I used to recover and get back to my happy place (SFW, kinda):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33-9Z4RKLbc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVktlb-oB9k
Lucids are about as common as Teslas now. Had an ivy league coworker go to Facebook & then Lucid, making zillions of doll hairs. Unfortunately, their cars are more sustainable than their balance sheet. Wonder how much runway they have left & whose going to buy them out.
> https://lucidmotors.com/air-touring
Does the woman come with the car? I’d ask her to remove her fishing hat before she gets in.
At one NBAA trade show in the 90s I asked a model standing next to a bizjet mockup if she came with the the plane. “Oh, you!”, she giggled. I guess she heard that one before, probably the previous minute.
I guess I need to Trust Women more, but it seems like models were hotter back then. (“Does the Lucid have room for all my fishing gear?” would be a better Q for their model.) I asked the the bizjet girl if she wanted to go to the after party, but she declined I think because I was wearing *last year’s* Hilfiger tie, yeah that’s why.
[Connected at 9600,N,8,1…starting IP over PPP.]
Looks like the Thoreau set are gone. Interestingly Thoreau in part studied the Judeo-Christian bible as literature of philosophy, outside of religion. And speaking of Deutschland, I think Goethe was more interesting than Martin Luther, who was more incremental in his thoughts on reformation. Goethe viewed Christianity outside of the factions and sects altogether, and admired the work of Luther.
Working in aerospace was kind of like being in middle school, except sometimes the cool kids (flight test) would let me sit at their table, and there were less wedgies in the lavatory. One time I was eating a lunch of bone meal burger and semi-defrosted soy-fries in the canteen at the cool table, and this burly test pilot (I think he was the one who jumped into a plane without checking the fuel gauges, and had to dump a $4M plane in a field during a test flight) slapped me on the back and said, “Mr. Toad, you must really do well with the ladies.” After I wiped the milk I had sprayed through my nose in laughter (middle school again) and the uproarious laughter settled down around the table, I said deadpan, “Yeah, you know I think Beckie, that female pilot has been stalking me, I keep seeing her everywhere.” More uproarious laughter. For reference, I’m 5’5″, very nebbish and nobody reads Lord Byron anymore. Both my wife and I chose each other over test pilots, so maybe Hoss had a point. Nobody believes I won a company award for my work on a project which won a Collier Trophy, either…
I was just reading a recent vintage article in the NY Times by a woman who was complaining that she didn’t see men out in restaurants anymore, much less anyone that would ask for her number. I’ve seen discussions on the Interwebs about how men are called creepy if they flirt with a woman in public, especially if they are shorty toads like me. I’m glad I’m happily married to a 5’9″ woman and out of the dating pool. I really was expecting people to miss the irony of Women Trusting neo-liberals driving EVs from a company with an attractive woman (sans fishing hat) hawking cars. What the hell do I know, I’m just a landed gentry, “self payer”. I think the model in front of the bizjet in the ’90s saw my “I <3 my R182 Skylane RG!" flair button, and could tell that I didn't have RG money, hard landings aside. I was really expecting her to be wearing a bicycle helmet, given Phil's head banging issue with the car.
Now (and I'm really trying to tighten this comment up as best I can)…on to the next story, I've been trying to do one comment a day, one with measurable enthalpy every 6 months…[Your AOL CD trial subscription has expired, disconnecting.]
Mr g., i would advise a long sojourn among the plain folk, be they mennonite or amish. Brush up your deutsche and embrace the teachings of martin luther. Discard the vanities of man. Fear almighty. Horses and buggies for the sustainable win.
So…”Come hear Uncle John’s Band…”? Preach it brother. But the hippie movement was experimental evidence in how back-to-nature for the ill-prepared, “civilized” masses didn’t work then and won’t work now.
> Horses and buggies for the sustainable win
More like population reduction for the sustainable win. (Stop making babies, log off the internet, grab a hoe, and start planting). Can you imagine the effect of methane emissions of 9+ billion plus personal horsies? Never mind the depth of the manure. Greta Thunberg would fall off her carbon-fiber sail boat if she saw the new dT/dt of the new warming curve.
As for the Amish and Mennonites, I’ve known a few and what they are doing is righteous, but we should really just leave them in peace, and not go on vision quests when they are trying to plow. You know they are patriarchal, right?
And for that matter, why don’t you leave those of us who have busted our humps working on a better world for half a century, with great violent opposition, given up, and now trying to watch the world die in peace and humor.
Now let’s all practice what we preach, and start by logging off the Internet…#mefirst Self cancel and jump off this unsustainable cloaca of Babylon–Goodbye cruel…^@^@^@… NO CARRIER
@MemeMe, the simple life you are referring to did exist long ago, when people worked hard to improve their circumstances. That changed when the government began offering free handouts to the so called poor and unwilling to improve their own lives.
Over time, the poor and unwilling became smart and learned that by remaining poor and unwilling, they will receive even more benefits.
Here is a shocking fact: today, roughly one in three Americans participated in at least one government assistance program. For an exercise look it up and see the numbers for 1950s, 1960s, or even the 1980s. You might be surprised by how much they have grown.
“The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.”
Re-establishing link…
The rich man’s wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty.
The labour of the righteous tendeth to life: the fruit of the wicked to sin.
— Prov. 10:15-16 KJV
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
— Isiah 2:4 KJV
True, but so what? Follow me off the Internet.
#mefirst
Bye.
I was wondering how Thoreau managed to support himself while living in a pristine wilderness. How does gathering nuts and berries pay property tax in Taxachussetts?
According to HAL9000-GPT:
> Land Ownership: Thoreau did not own the land where he built his cabin at Walden Pond. The land was owned by his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau rented a small plot of land from Emerson for a nominal fee, which allowed him to avoid the burdens of property taxes associated with ownership. [Total energy used 1.5e18 freshwater bathed ergs.]
Man, nowadays I personally try to avoid staying at some rich guy’s island. Walden is gone, people, we now live in Bizarro World.
Thoreau’s mom brought him meals daily, I think.