u/bobman3212

we stopped getting the buyback status updates in June after the dept of ed fulfilled the court order of 6 status reports. These were a great source of transparency and accountability.

Since then there have been two "status conferences" where the only viewable outcome seems to be setting the next status conference.

I'm surprised that there hasn't at least been an order to continue the status reports, as it was very revealing of the buyback processing problem and the wrong trajectory its been on. Dept of Ed certainly didn't demonstrate anything in those required disclosures that might suggest that they should be relieved of the burden of future disclosures.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69753739/american-federation-of-teachers-v-us-department-of-education/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc

We are family of 5 and a 1 car household. A week ago we upgraded from the model y to a new gravity. Just sharing my experience in case it's helpful to anyone else. Also seeking tips from current Gravity owners for the smaller issues.

tl;dr - the car is excellent. I'm not really a 'car guy' but driving this thing brings me a joy i'm not used to. I've had no significant technical issues so far.

Stuffing 3 kids into a model y was not a long term solution so I jumped into the world of 3 row EVs. Looked at the EV9, Ioniq 9, Vistiq, R1S, ID Buzz (while it existed) and Gravity. Happy to share my pros/cons for all those models if anyone else is in the same boat. With the current discounts Gravity was actually in the middle of that pack on price, which helped make it an obvious choice.

The delivery and trade-in experience was mediocre. This sub had prepared me for that. Once I had placed my order all urgency on Lucids side seemed to melt away and I had to follow-up consistently to keep things moving forward. They offer the $3k trade-in allowance but in my experience most of that just compensates for the low-ball offer you'll get. Still I stayed with the trade-in since it seemed easier to get it all done in one transaction.

Actual pickup day with a bit of a mess. Despite me signing everything that was sent to me earlier in the day and showing up at my scheduled time I guess lucid financial decided they needed something changed in the contract minutes before I was set to drive off, to the tune of $34, which they ultimately waived. The guy at the showroom didn't know what was going on and it took 90 minutes to resolve and then I had to re-sign everything on my phone, which isn't my favorite way to review long documents involving significant financial commitments.

ok now for the car - its amazing. The ride is so much smoother than the MY was, and the power really is something. The interior has the spirit of the minivan with all of its space, fully folding seats, power sunshades, tray tables etc... It will make hauling our kids around easy and enjoyable. I have had one software hiccup that required a restart, something I only had to do in my Tesla twice in three years. Given that it's our only car I am worried about getting sucked into a service center vortex, but so far so good.

A couple things that feel like a step backward relative to the tesla. If anyone has advice I'd appreciate it

• entry and exit: we have 3 people who are regularly driving the car. In the Tesla each had their own phone key and they car would just set their profile when the approached the car and locked it when they walk away. I am not really sure how to navigate this with 2 key cards and 1 fob. I have one key card linked to my profile, and so it will set my profile when I use it, but the key card kind of sucks to use daily when loading/unloading kids. Should we all just use the fob linked to a guest profile and then manually set our profile? It was nice not having to think about all of this before.
• The two separate semi-independent screens is neat, I guess, but I haven't quite figured out how they should work together. I can get Android auto on one, with google maps and spotify, while also getting a different car-based instance of google maps and spotify on the other screen?

Also potential Tesla converts who currently use autopilot for highway driving should know that Dreamdrive premium is not the same. yes it has traffic-aware cruise control and auto-steering, but it is NOT auto-lane centering. This was a bit surprising for something that's increasingly standard across a variety of brands.