Lucid Motors’ studios will offer customers a very upscale experience with lots of VR integration.
Lucid Motors
Lucid Motors has been hard at work over the past months getting ready to bring the production version of its Air electric luxury sedan to market. We’ve seen it make progress on its Casa Grande, Arizona factory, and now we’re getting a clearer picture of what its sales and service plans look like, thanks to an announcement made by the company on Wednesday.
Specifically, Lucid is committing to a direct-to-consumer model, much like the one that Tesla has been championing for years. Its first retail location (which will be referred to as Lucid Studios) is located near the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters in Newark, California, and frankly, it’s pretty stylish looking.
The studios will all feature a mock Lucid Air interior that will allow prospective customers to experience the car in virtual reality by themselves or with others. I don’t know precisely how this improves upon the old model of just having actual vehicles for people to sit in and touch and drive — maybe seeing different interior finishes is a thing — but Lucid is leaning into it pretty heavily.
Lucid plans on opening eight additional studios across the US in 2020 with locations planned for New York, Miami, West Palm Beach, San Jose and Los Angeles. The brand has specifically teamed up with the Westfield Group to place its stores, so expect to see the bulk of future studios going in Westfield malls.
It’s like a Tesla store and a fancy hotel lobby made a baby.
Lucid Motors
Also like Tesla, Lucid is planning on basing much of its service program around the concept of mobile service. That worked reasonably well for the Big T once it worked some kinks out, so there’s no reason why Lucid shouldn’t be able to make it work as well. Lucid plans on starting with two large service centers for bigger jobs — one near the Newark flagship store and another in Beverly Hills — with plans to open more in 2021.
“We thoughtfully developed Lucid’s retail strategy to provide customers with very specific experiences when they enter our studios and engage with our representatives,” said Peter Rawlinson, Lucid Motors’ CEO and CTO, in a statement. “From the materials they view and touch, the experience of the VR configurator, the design of the studios in the context of the vehicles, and along with the physical locations of the studios themselves, everything comes together for our customers to absorb and appreciate the values infused into the Lucid brand.”
The Lucid Air is set to make its official public debut in production form in April in New York — presumably either at or somewhere near the New York International Auto Show — and Roadshow will be there when the sheet comes off.
Watch this:
Rapid development: Lucid Air electric car debuts with…
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