Charging authentication error

We picked our Touring up last Friday evening and set off on an 850 drive the next morning. Charging, for the most part, did not go well and was very frustrating. After a very brief delivery, from the road we phoned back to a DA to inquire how to charge the car. This topic, and as we learned many other topics we needed to know, did not come up in our very short delivery process. Most of which was taken to set up two keys, and point out we had a least 6 different areas on the new car that have paint rubs and scratches. During our telephone call we were told “pull in to any EA stations, plug it in and it will charge”. That was never the case. We always received the same message from the EA charges, “unable to authenticate”. 1st charge did not begin until we had 50 minutes on the phone with Lucid Support and EA. Finally EA got us charging with a “complimentary charge”.

The next stop was a repeat of the same. About 40 minutes with Lucid Support and EA on a 3 way call to get another “complimentary charge” from EA. While we were charging a RIvian pulled in next to us and immediately charged with no telephone calls needed. He just plugged in and charged.

Our 3rd stop we parked next to a Volkswagen EV charging away. He just plugged in and began charging. We had to phone Lucid Support, and before they added EA to to the call they suggested we try to initiate the charge using the Lucid App. This procedure was not a topic in our “delivery”, as it turned out, most topics we would need to know to drive the car 850 miles also did not come up in the “delivery”. With the Lucid app working to initiate the charge, we quickly topped off. If you are wondering why we are charging so often, our Nav lost the ability to tell us where charging stations were located along our route and could not tell us where we were along the route, and of coarse then how many miles to the next charger was also missing. We had to rely on our phones and an EA app.

Our next charge was our first, and only non telephone call charge. We used the Lucid app and were able to get the charge flowing right away. A Polestar also pulled up and just plugged and began charging. After this stop our cameras quit working along with the Nav unable to provide any value to us.

The next stop was loaded with frustration. We couldn’t get Lucid on the phone. The Lucid app would feeze. Repeated opening and closing of the app did not change the results. Neither did erasing and downloading the app again. Always froze at “Set Limit”. After 23 minutes, Lucid service answered the phone, placed me on hold for another 15 minutes and then dropped the call. We tried all of EA stations while on hold with EA and Lucid. A chevy bolt quit charging and we tried that station with no success. Finally, EA answered and immediately gave us the “complimentary charge”, which charged the car very quickly. After charging, the Pilot Panel was frozen. We tried to reset it by turning on the left turn signal, locking the car, and waiting (something I read online). It worked, the Pilot panel was working and the cameras also began to work again. The Nav continued to be worthless.

Final stop New Years Eve night in Payson, AZ at a new EA fastcharger station. Same deal, “unable to authenticate” on all pumps. My wife placed a call to Lucid support, I placed a call to EA. EA answered the telephone before Lucid support and again, gave us the “complimentary charge”. We were nearly done charging when Lucid support finally answered, ”My wife had begun placing a call to Lucid support as we approached the charging stations. I placed my call to EA after we would get the “unable to authenticate”, message.

We detailed our day with the gentleman from Lucid support including the Lucid app no longer helping us in the process, along with the cameras not working/working, the sound system would not connect to our phones or music apps and would randomly work for a song or two and then not work anymore until we shut down the car and rebooted it. The Nav was of no use to us as it couldn’t locate charging stations, tell us distances along the route, or put the little triangle on the route map to show us where we were.

We explained, earlier in the day we had Lucid support on the phone for our many Nav issues. They has us pull over on the side of the road, to try a number of things in the Nav menu. Finally, we were instructed to leave the car locked on the roadside, walk away 60yds and wait 5 minutes before returning. This did not fix the Nav issues, but it did cause us much frustration.

The Nav also wanted to take us to Salt Lake City, UT in the biggest way and would continually change our route to Salt Lake City, which was not on our travel plans, nor any where near us on our travel plans.

Finally, we discussed our problem charging along with the Lucid app freezing, and our charging problem (unable to authenticate). Upon hearing about our day, the Lucid support person decided to give us a lecture on how all of the problems we were experiencing were EA problems, not Lucid problems. I kindly pointed out we had charged 2 out of 6 times that day using the Lucid app, after it froze, we were done initiating charging and back to relying on phoning EA to get a complimentary charge from them. The cameras, sound system, screens freezing, apps not working and Navigation issues are not EA’s problems. The Lecture to us continued absolving Lucid of all problems and pointing the blame to EA. At this point, the last thing I felt like we deserved from anyone connected with Lucid was a lecture placing blame on everyone but Lucid. We have owned the car for less than 24 hours and have had a lot of frustration. To be honest, I feel like we paid a hell of a lot of money for a car with a lot of problems. I am much more interested in Lucid purchasing back my car if they can’t solve all of these issues very, very quickly, rather than be lectured on EAs problems. I would have preferred something more along the lines of “I am sorry you are having so many problems with your brand new car. We will get them fixed to your satisfaction”. I wished the Lucid support gentleman a Happy New year and ended the call.

EA was very accommodating, helpful, and suggested there are some software issued with Lucid connecting with EA. I watched Volkswagens, a chevy bolt, Rivian, and a Polestar all pull up and use EA as simply as you would hope we could use EA. We did not witness any of the other makes of EVs have any problems with EA.

Lucid has a lot of software issues. (our car does) and may also have hardware problems. Whatever the charging issues with EA are, Lucid needs to fix them. An EV is nothing more than a paper weight of you can’t charge it. I would suggest this should be only software project going until they can get the problems fixed. They chose to partner with EA. Lucid is attempting to blame EA. This doesn’t really help. They are making Lucid’s problem my problem. That won’t work long for me. They need to fix their many problems, or a Lucid buy back program will become the most popular “Option” for Lucid.

I have an Air Touring and an Ioniq 5. The Air is my 8th EV, so, loads of experience using public DCFC. I have an Electrify America account (and corresponding app) that I use with the I5. It works well. But I can't use my account (and app) with the Air, because the Plug and Charge tries to take over.

I'm 0/5 for attempts with Plug and Charge. I wouldn't care if it simply allowed me to override Plug and Charge so I could use my personal account to pay for the session, but it won't. I don't want to piss around on the phone for an hour to get a "free" session. I just want to get back on the road.

Getting people on the phone to solve your problem is guaranteed to take more time than it is worth.

Until then, my solution for charging "in transit" when I'm far from home and neither the Plug and Charge nor the app work around can initiate the charge session, is to simply swipe my credit card and sending the receipts to Lucid Customer service. It is far, far faster than getting someone on the phone and they have been paying up. And nothing sends a message like a bill to customer service.