Finnish software company Basemark announced on Thursday that it has been chosen by the Saudi-backed EV maker Lucid Motors to develop the augmented reality head-up display for the brand’s second model.
The feature was first unveiled by Lucid two and a half years ago and has yet to fully deliver to owners of the Gravity SUV.
The deal tasks Basemark with implementing Lucid‘s in-house AR HUD design using its Rocksolid Studio development tools.
The hardware, feature set, user experience, and interface were all designed internally, with Basemark hired to build the software layer that brings the full augmented reality experience to life.
“We are extremely proud to have been chosen by Lucid to help them develop their new AR HUD experience for the amazing Lucid Gravity,” Basemark CEO Tero Sarkkinen said. “Additional features are planned and will be delivered in future updates.”
The announcement raises questions about why Lucid, which has marketed the Gravity’s AR HUD as an in-house achievement since 2023, needed an external partner to ship the feature — and why it took this long.
A Feature Promised Since 2023
Lucid first introduced the laser-enabled AR HUD at the Gravity’s world premiere at the 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show, positioning it as a centrepiece of what the company called the Clearview Cockpit.
The then CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson described the cockpit as a “definitive evolution” of the in-car experience, pairing the HUD with a 34-inch 6K curved OLED display.
When the Gravity configurator opened in November 2024, Lucid‘s press release described the AR HUD as a system that “transforms the vehicle windshield by projecting navigation and other critical information directly in the driver’s line of sight to the road ahead.”
Videos released by the EV maker showed clean projections of speed, navigation cues, and turn-by-turn directions overlaid onto real road views.
The feature is part of the optional Technology Package, which also includes dynamic ambient lighting, Lucid‘s Sanctuary Mode, and 120V power outlets.
What Owners Actually Received
Gravity deliveries began in 2025, and owners who opted for the Technology Package received a working HUD — but not the full AR experience Lucid had showcased in its marketing.
The current system projects speed, speed limits, and basic navigation arrows onto the windshield.
Owners on the Lucid Owners forum have described it as “crisp” and praised it for reducing the need to glance at dashboard screens.
However, the full augmented reality capability — road-painting overlays, advanced ADAS visualisations, and the holographic elements Lucid demonstrated alongside laser optics specialist Envisics at the Vehicle Displays and Interfaces Conference in Detroit last September — has not yet been delivered.
The Tech Behind It
Lucid‘s AR HUD is built on laser-based holographic technology.
At the September 2025 Vehicle Displays and Interfaces Conference in Detroit, Lucid keynoted alongside Envisics and Harman.
Envisics, which supplies holographic HUDs to General Motors for the Cadillac Lyriq and Vistiq, specialises in spatial light modulators illuminated by laser light to create dual-depth holographic images.
It features a near plane for cockpit data and a far plane for AR overlays such as navigation cues and safety alerts.
Basemark’s Rocksolid Studio provides the software middleware that sits between Lucid‘s hardware and the AR experience visible to the driver.
The platform is designed for real-time embedded automotive applications and handles common AR visualisation challenges such as projection calibration, depth rendering, and integration with vehicle sensor data.
Earlier this month, the company began rolling out Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to Gravity owners via UX 3.5, a feature that had been standard on the Lucid Air but was missing from the SUV at launch.
Hands-Free Driving
The AR HUD is not the only long-promised Gravity feature nearing delivery.
Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said at Bank of America’s 2026 Global Automotive Summit earlier this month that hands-free highway driving for the SUV is “a few weeks” from deployment.
“We are right now at what we call L2+, which basically means hands-free driving in the Air, and in a few weeks from now, also in the Gravity,” Winterhoff said. “We did this completely in house without any partners.”
The feature was originally promised for 2025.
Lucid delivered hands-free drive assist and hands-free lane change assist to Air sedan owners on schedule in July 2025 and said Gravity owners would receive the same capability “later this year.”
That deadline passed without delivery.
In January, VP of communications Nick Twork acknowledged on X that the company had “ended up prioritizing other software updates, hence a later delivery time.”
