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The American car dealership is a fossil, less of a monument to modern retail. Walk into one and you’re immediately caught in a script older than most of the floor models: a salesman with a toothy grin introduces himself, pretends the price is firm, then disappears to “talk to his manager” while you sip burnt coffee and wonder what sort of pact the finance guy will propose. And this system is precisely what direct-to-consumer startups like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid have tried to blow up since the pandemic made showroom browsing about as safe as licking a subway pole in NYC.
High-End Innovation vs. Limited Buying Options
Lucid, despite its innovation and modern image, has fallen into a classic pitfall, creating a high-end product without a practical way for many people in the country to buy it. This issue is perfectly highlighted by one frustrated Reddit user’s comment:
“Why isn’t Lucid opening more studios in the United States?
Question / Advice
If they want to increase sales that requires Lucid to be more accessible to their potential customers. One of the ways of accomplishing this would be to open more studios.
For example, if someone in Nashville, Tennessee, wanted to test-drive a Lucid, the nearest studio is a thousand miles away. That’s insane. Atlanta, GA, doesn’t have a studio.
On the East Coast, there are no studios between Miami and New York. They should postpone any further construction on AMP-1 and put that money toward building more studios.
Wouldn’t this make more sense?”
It does make sense. In fact, it’s painfully obvious. Tesla bulldozed its way into the market not just with its product but with access. Even as franchise laws tried to choke the company out, Tesla kept pushing, establishing locations wherever possible and pairing its growing vehicle portfolio with a growing network of service centers and Superchargers.
Redefining Luxury EVs with Direct Sales and Cutting-Edge Design
- Founded with a vision to redefine luxury electric vehicles, Lucid Motors focuses on innovative design, cutting-edge technology, and exceptional performance.
- The company’s flagship model, the Lucid Air, showcases their commitment to efficiency and luxury in the EV market.
- Lucid Motors employs a direct-to-consumer sales model through its Lucid Studios, offering customers an immersive experience to explore and customize vehicles.
Lucid, by contrast, is playing chess with half a board. The cars exist, and the interest is there, but the pathway from curiosity to conversion is clogged by distance and absence.
Why Traditional Car Sales Fail in the EV Era
And let’s not pretend the traditional dealership is doing anyone a favor. These glass box shrines to the MSRP markup exist solely to let you maybe sit in a car, run your fingers over the leather, and then get funneled into a back room where the real business happens, between your credit score and a guy named “Steve” who wears mirrored sunglasses indoors. They mark up prices under the banner of “market conditions” and tell you it’s your lucky day because the last one sold this morning. Manufacturers hate it. Buyers hate it. And post-COVID, the whole model looks about as appealing as Blockbuster on a Friday night.
So the new kids, the Rivians, the Scouts, and the Lucids, are building something else. Direct-to-consumer models promise transparency, control, and, in theory, convenience. Rivian leans heavily on its mobile service fleet and online ordering system. Scout, backed by Volkswagen, has declared its intention to sell directly to buyers from day one. And Lucid? Lucid has gone for the “studio” concept, Apple Store-like showrooms that showcase the car but don’t always handle sales directly. There’s an elegance to it. But as Nashville and Atlanta EV buyers are finding out, elegance is no substitute for availability.
How Proximity Impacts the Lucid Ownership Experience
Availability matters most when things go wrong. One Houston-based customer, fresh off a positive delivery experience, still acknowledged the problem: if the car hadn’t been nearby, he wouldn’t have bothered.
“I just received my Air on Saturday after a test drive last Monday. I live in Houston and there were about 8-10 cars in their delivery room waiting for pickup.
The salesperson said many were from Austin and San Antonio. If the tables were turned, I would’ve never made the trip to Austin/SA and I would have just taken another path.
I hope they are able to expand and have great success because I hate to think how many sales are missed due to inconvenience.
That said, I’m sure they evaluated where the concentrations of the EV markets were to support a studio. Look at how many are just around the Long Island area and yet virtually nothing in the Midwest.”
Another Lucid owner vented about warranty service, revealing that the company expected him to personally arrange transport to a service center seven hours away. There’s mobile service in some cases, sure. But for anything more complex than a tire rotation or a software update, you’re on your own. That’s not a premium experience. That’s a travel plan.
Lucid’s European Expansion: New Frankfurt Studio and Global Growth Strategy
- In September 2024, Lucid Motors expanded its European presence by opening a new Studio in Frankfurt, Germany, marking its third location in the country.
- This expansion aligns with Lucid’s strategy to increase its global footprint and make luxury electric vehicles more accessible to a broader audience.
- While the Lucid Air offers a longer range and quicker acceleration, the Tesla Model Y provides slightly higher horsepower but with less torque and range.
This is where the “no dealership” dream hits reality. Without local infrastructure, Lucid isn’t just skipping the middleman, they’re skipping the support network entirely. In a world where BMW will hand you a loaner without blinking and Lexus has a service bay in every ZIP code, Lucid is effectively asking customers to bet on reliability and hope they never draw the short straw. Because when your six-figure EV starts misbehaving and your nearest service center is in another time zone, that dream car starts looking like a burden.
Expanding Direct-to-Consumer Networks Nationwide
If direct-to-consumer sales are the future, and there’s little doubt they are, then Lucid has to embrace the full weight of that responsibility. That means studios in more cities, not just on the coasts. That means building a nationwide support system before ramping up production capacity. Because what good is doubling your output at AMP-1 when people in half the country can’t even sit in your car, let alone fix it when it breaks? Lucid doesn’t need more polish. It needs presence.
And if they don’t act fast, the very consumers who want to love their Lucid, like the guy in Nashville, are going to do what buyers have always done when they feel ignored: walk down the street, find something easier to live with, and never look back.
Image Sources: Lucid Media Center, r/Lucid subreddit
Noah Washington is an automotive journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. He enjoys covering the latest news in the automotive industry and conducting reviews on the latest cars. He has been in the automotive industry since 15 years old and has been featured in prominent automotive news sites. You can reach him on X and LinkedIn for tips and to follow his automotive coverage.
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Source: torquenews.com
