For a long trip over the Thanksgiving weekend to the San Francisco Bay Area from our offices in Los Angeles, I had my sights set on something a bit more out-of-the-box: our new long-term Lucid Air.
What I wasn't prepared for were the several speed bumps I'd hit along the way, including overbearing driver aids, problems with closing the doors, and satellite radio that stopped working about 15 minutes after it was installed via an over-the-air software update. But the biggest hurdle turned out to be more like a brick wall: getting locked out of the car for about three hours.
I was carrying on my person two of the three methods that can unlock the vehicle: the Air's key fob and my smartphone. The key fob had been flaky all week (we'd later find that it had run out of batteries after only a few months of ownership), so I had been mostly dependent on using the mobile app. When I opened the app as I got to the car, I noticed a message that read, "Last updated: 2 hours ago." Normally, this message disappears and the car wakes up. But not this time. I tried hitting the unlock button on the app and my phone would attempt to connect to the vehicle, but it only showed a spinning ball next to a message that said "May take up to 30 seconds."
While waiting for several minutes for the car to wake up, I furiously tried the key fob to no avail. It was time to call the Lucid customer care line.
Full sad story at the link...
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