After finally putting the Lucid Air luxury sedan into production earlier this year, the team at Lucid also unveiled details about their driving aids, namely the DreamDrive system.
By now, it’s a known fact that, if you want to compete with Tesla, making a good electric car is not nearly enough. One of the reasons why so many people choose the American brand is the software that comes with it and the functions offered. Some might not agree with the Autopilot naming but the Tesla system is still one of the best around. Could Lucid’s DreamDrive actually be a real competitor?
The system unveiled yesterday seems to have the hardware to beat Tesla’s Autopilot. According to Lucid, their driving assistance system uses 32 sensors including 14 visible-light cameras, five radars, four surround-view cameras and a range of ultrasonic sensors. Furthermore, unlike Tesla, Lucid promises that its future, DreamDrive Pro system will also include a much-needed LIDAR.
Even with all this tech on-board, Lucid was adamant in pointing out that their system is not to be used hands-free. The car will feature anything you can think of, from adaptive cruise control, to lane-keeping assistants but even so, you’ll still have to pay attention to the road and keep your hands on the steering wheel.
According to Lucid, DreamDrive works in traffic jams, at speeds over 40 mph and can take care of most of the driving up until you reach a complete stop. It also has emergency autonomous braking, a self-parking module (both for parallel and perpendicular parking maneuvers) and the car knows when you parked on a hill, turning the wheel correspondingly.
On-board, the driver will be monitored constantly by a range of sensors and cameras, to make sure they are paying attention to the road. The monitoring system includes an infrared camera watching your eyes as well as sensors inside the steering wheel. If the car senses that you’re not attentive, it will bring the car to a stop unless you take over driving duties.
Lucid also mentioned the DreamDrive Pro system which is a first step towards hands-free operation. With its LIDAR sensor, the Pro version will also get a different software and some more hardware to keep up with the added data that needs to be processed.
“DreamDrive Pro has been designed to grow in capability, thanks to our ability to deliver software over-the-air and key equipment already in place in the vehicle,” said Dr. Eugene Lee, the senior director for ADAS and autonomous driving at Lucid Motors.
“Thanks to highly integrated hardware and software teams, Lucid has the ability to develop new functionality for DreamDrive Pro in-house. This can benefit every facet of the DreamDrive Pro experience, from the frequency of updates to the planned rollout of the Highway Pilot system for conditional automated driving on select roadways in the coming years,” he added.
