Lucid Motors‘ Vice President of Communications confirmed Tuesday that the company’s UX 3.0 software — currently available only on the Gravity SUV — will not be supported on first-generation Air sedan hardware when it eventually rolls out to the sedan.
Owners of the 2024 model year will be required to pay $950 for a processor upgrade to access the major updated version — which is planned to roll out this fall.
“The upgraded processor brings significantly more memory and compute. On first-gen hardware, some new features, including UX 3.0, won’t be supported without that upgrade,” Nick Twork wrote on X.
“Rather than leaving early customers behind, we’re offering a paid upgrade path,” the VP added.
Twork said that he had confirmed with the company’s team that customers will be able to use Lucid Rewards points toward the cost of the upgrade.
UX 3.0 launched with the Gravity SUV last year and features multitasking capabilities, an improved interface, enhanced CarPlay and Bluetooth consistency, faster profile switching, and upgraded voice commands.
Lucid told the YouTuber Jason Fenske in early January that the overhaul is planned for the Air sedan by early fall 2026.
Upgrade Details
The upgrade involves replacing the Center Console Control unit with the same second-generation chip used in 2025 model year vehicles and the high-performance Sapphire variant.
The company first offered the $950 retrofit in July 2025, initially positioning it as a performance improvement for faster touchscreen responses and smoother animations.
According to the company, the new unit doubles system memory and storage while delivering more than twice the compute power of the original hardware.
The $950 price includes labor, with taxes not included. The upgrade is available through Lucid Service Centers across the US.
UX 3.0 will be available to Air owners who purchased or leased their vehicle after April 2024 — when Lucid began installing the second-generation processor in production — or to anyone who pays for the retrofit.
Separately, Twork said on Wednesday that over-the-air software updates are region-specific due to homologation and hardware differences between markets.
“We are working to minimize the update time delay for our customers in the Middle East and Europe,” the executive wrote in response to a UAE-based owner who noted his 2025 Air was not able to get the hardware upgrade.
Software Struggles
The new software update was rolled out over the weekend.
SVP of Engineering Emad Dlala said in an interview released Monday that the latest 3.4 software update addresses “90% — or even close to 95%” of known issues, with another update expected within six to eight weeks.
Dlala was appointed in November to oversee all product development including software, replacing the Senior VP Product and Chief Engineer Eric Bach.
