As the summer approaches in the United States and we see more and more Lucid Air owners come to the forums and talk about their experience with the Lucid Air, I am seeing more and more complaints about heat and air conditioning issues with the new EV.

I have seen a nice number of complaints where Lucid Air owners are saying that inside the Lucid Air cabin gets way too hot when parked outside in the sun. But that is not the big issue, most cars get super hot when parked and not running. The bigger issue is the time it takes for the Lucid Air to cool off when turned on or when you select to pre-condition the Lucid Air to cool off before you enter the car.

I should note, that in version 1.2.5 of the Lucid Air software, they did state improvements to the air conditioning. So I assume this is something Lucid Motors can fix on some Lucid Air EVs with an over the air update?

Owner Feedback on Heat and Cooling Issues

There are a number of threads in the Lucid Owners Forums, I can’t link to them all but here are select quotes from the forum threads I found.

Chicago resident (not too hot there now):

I have had a DE for about 3 months in the Chicago area.

The air conditioner is pretty lack luster. It does blow cool air, but not very strongly. The car takes 10+ minutes to cool down, if not longer.

It is to the point that I pretty much have to precool it using the app (and we know how well that works).

The car was towed to the Chicago service center to investigate. I was told that it is blowing cool air and working fine.

Is this consistent with everybody else’s experience, or (hopefully) a problem with my car?

That matches my experience as well. I think it should cool much faster than it does. My best guess is that it’s another trade off between performance and battery life.

It is 101F outside today. I started the A/C 15 minutes ago and the interior temperature is 85F.

Driving doesn’t appear to help. It is bad enough that I try not to get in to the car without precooling. However, it doesn’t appear to get better while driving.

I find the AC to be only so-so. You have to put the fan on high which is somewhat noisy to get enough cool air on hot days. Plus the vent angles are not great for directing on your face.

Does the Heating work? My experience here with the car is similar. At 10 and temp set to 60, we could not feel much air circulating. Just took my ICE around the corner like half a mile and the car was standing in 104 degrees and was cool by the time I had reached my destination. I did open the sunroof and all windows prior to getting in.

Maybe precooling is the trick we can use to ensure the car stays cool. Also the feature where it can maintain the temp for 45 minutes. That would be sooo nice in this Texas heat while going from one store to another on weekends.

106 currently at my house. On my drive home, fan speed ranged from 5-7 and I was comfortable. I do have full tint, and as of today windshield tint

I don’t live in Phoenix, and rarely see the temps that you see, but I have regularly been in the 90s lately and up to 106 yesterday; tinted all around and A/C no where close to full and was completely fine. My car is parked outside for 8 hours a day while I’m out working, and garaged at home. Again, not Phoenix, and not multiple days on end over 100, but my small sample has made me happy thus far.

We were in bright sunshine for much of our recent road trip and saw 108 degrees on one leg through South Carolina. Our car has no aftermarket glass tinting, and we were perfectly comfortable.

Even sitting at an EA charging station in Columbia, SC in 103-degree heat, the A/C kept the car comfortable. However, with no air flow over the glass canopy, it did get hot to the touch while sitting, and that required us to crank the fan speed up a bit to stay comfortable.

Back home in south Florida, where the temperatures tend to stay in the 90’s this time of year, we have no problem at all keeping the car comfortable, rain or shine. I’ve had a couple of long stints sitting in cell phone lots at the airport in bright sunshine and have stayed perfectly comfortable without having to touch the A/C controls.

Went out today and the car was in the sun for 3+ hours. Got in and outside temp was 104 and car was hot. A/C did a got job of cooling at first, and seat air flow helped a little, but it was struggling during the 45 min trip home. I have light tint on the back windows only.

Is anyone having issues with heat transmission through their cabin canopy. The temperature of my canopy was 111 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday.

First thing I noticed after picking up the AGT from Beverly Hills going home. My head felt the heat radiating through the canopy. Now looking for a roof sunscreen though it might take awhile for a custom fit to appear. Sweating bullets that’s for sure !

Fixable Issue With Some Cars?

Here is an update in this thread suggesting there was an issue with at least on car:

The Chicago service center picked up the car Wednesday. They are great to work with and brought me a Model Y.

Again, they said it was functioning as designed and sent me a thermal picture of 51F air coming from the vent. However, he confirmed with the porter that it wasn’t working well for the drive.

They have a new diagnostic procedure they are going to try today.

I wonder if they are testing indoors and not subjecting it to the heat. I’d love to set a few outside and have a race.

Data On Pre-Cooling

In April, we posted data from one Lucid Air owner with data he shared on how fast the Lucid Air cools down. Here is part of that, but see that post for more details:

As you can see, it was 134 degrees in the interior cabin of the Lucid Air when he started:

	Charge rate mi/hr	Power In	Interior Temperature
Prior to starting AC	21	6 kW	134
Just after starting AC	0.0	6 kW	134
5 minutes in	0.0	6 kW	112
10 minutes in	0.0	6 kw	94
15 minutes in	0.0	6 kW	91
20 minutes in	0.0	6 kW	89