CRA Motoring News – USA
By Eric Walz
Luxury electric vehicle startup and Tesla challenger Lucid Motors has officially opened its Lucid Studio and service center in Beverly Hills, California. The Lucid Motors Design Studios will support the company’s “direct to customer sales strategy.”
Like rival Tesla, Lucid Motors will not have a traditional network of dealerships, so the spaces will serve as in-person design centers, where customers can go to see the Lucid Air sedan up close and select from the various vehicle options, as well as place their order. Customers will also be able to speak with Lucid representatives about the Lucid Air.
The Beverly Hills Studio & service center is the company’s second retail location, the first to open is at Lucid’s Newark, California headquarters. The Beverly Hills Lucid Studio is one of 20 set to open throughout North America by the end of 2021.
The Beverly Hills Studio offers a digitally-oriented luxury experience tailored to each customer’s purchase and ownership preferences, whether visiting in-person, making inquiries online, or a combination of the two, the company said.
The Lucid Studios allow customers to review all of the options for the Lucid Air sedan, including for the Lucid Air Grand Touring and Air Touring versions. To comply with current Los Angeles COVID-19 social distancing guidelines, Interested customers are also able to book a private appointment for the Beverly Hills Studio.
The Lucid Air combines one of the most technologically advanced electric powertrains and battery designs with an ultra luxurious interior space for passengers. The sedan offers up to 517 miles of estimated EPA range on a single charge.
“California has always been a leader in making bold decisions, and recent announcements around the phasing out of gas-powered cars has reinforced just how much the state embraces innovation, including EVs as a sustainable mobility alternative,” said Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO, Lucid Motors. “With this Southern California location as the first of many to come, now more people have the opportunity to engage in an entirely new EV car-buying journey that is as groundbreaking as the performance, efficiency, and design benchmarks set by the Lucid Air itself.”
The Studio features Lucid’s “Virtual Reality Experience”, which combines the physical and virtual worlds with a vehicle interior model that enables customers to explore the Lucid Air inside and out by wearing a VR headset. The VR configurator that allows customers to finalize everything from interior finishes and materials to exterior color and view them in VR as if they were sitting in the car.
Lucid is also offering the luxury one-to-one Studio experience online for those customers that want to shop from home. The “Lucid Studio Live,” is a cloud-based configuration solution powered by ZeroLight’s Concierge product. With Lucid Studio Live, customers can interact with a car while a sales representative virtually guides them through key features and configuration options.
Lucid says its the “world’s most advanced online vehicle configurator”, where owners can customize their Air sedan car and view it from any angle.
The Beverly Hills Studio is just one of 20 Studios set to open throughout North America by the end of 2021. These locations include Miami, West Palm Beach, New York City, Boston, and the D.C. Metro area, with several additional locations planned in Northern and Southern California.’
The Beverly Hills location is Lucid’s first service center in Southern California, which will provide a physical location for service to area owners along with a mobile service option that will be able to complete simple maintenance requests from the convenience of the home or office.
Lucid is developing a service strategy using a service team that will come to a customer’s location using mobile service vans. Eventually, a nationwide network of service centers, mobile service providers, and certified collision repair centers will be linked to Lucid’s customer care team to address any customer issue.
Lucid Motors officially revealed the production version of the Air in a global web broadcast from the company’s headquarters in Newark, California on Sept, 9.
The Lucid Air will rival the likes of the Tesla Model S Performance and Porsche Taycan. The company says its ultra-luxurious Air sedan is the “world’s most advanced electric car” and it will define Lucid as a company going forward.
The top of the line Grand Touring edition starts at $131,500 (after $7,500 USA Federal Tax Credit). The less expensive Air Touring version starts at $87,500 (after $7,500 USA Federal Tax Credit).
Production of Lucid Air is scheduled to begin in Spring 2021 at Lucid’s newly constructed factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, which is nearing completion. The Air sedan was originally set to go into production later this year, but the coronavirus pandemic led Lucid to delay production until next Spring.
Article Credit to FutureCar.
