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Cosmos incoming ……

watermelonrooste said:
Why is Lucid spending millions of dollars in commercials? Wouldn't it be wise to invest them in the vehicles, service and the team? Why not focus on making a car which people would want to buy? Tesla has famously never done any kind of traditional marketing and now it is the most valuable car company because the product speaks of itself.
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Tesla is a first mover, has a CEO who has a big mouth, owns Twitter, but hardly achieves what he promises but has a huge cult following. A few of the cult wander these forums if you haven’t noticed.
 
That red is GORGEOUS! I would have liked Zenith Red (and hopefully it is still there), but this is something different and still clearly great.
 
doubletwist said:
The key word is "traditional" and they were in a unique position in that they had an incredibly unique product that was effectively a totally new type of product entirely. There were other "electric vehicles" on the market but they were incredibly lame, and slow.

Coming in with a super sporty, and quick roadster was like nothing anyone had seen before. Then they had years of "we'll have a sporty and still-cool sedan soon" being talked about on forums and video sites.

It was all enough to sustain via word of mouth.

The state of the EV market is far different now. Everybody and their dog has at least one EV model. It's no longer an entirely new and novel concept. Lucid has spent years trying to let word of mouth work, and it was almost successful, but it's not enough by itself any more.

Obviously, they still need to execute on reliability, software, and service, but they need this advertising to and I for one am glad to see signs that they are executing that part well finally.
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I would say that Tesla had a bigger challenge. To your point, they had to create a demand for a completely new type of product. However, they had a plan from the beginning. Show that and electric car can be high performace and luxurious and then move on to mass produced cars. Lucid did not have that challenge. People are looking for alternatives to Tesla. If they just spend the time and money in building a good product, folks will come. Overpromising and underdelivering is not going to make it work.
 
gaskiller said:
Tesla is a first mover, has a CEO who has a big mouth, owns Twitter, but hardly achieves what he promises but has a huge cult following. A few of the cult wander these forums if you haven’t noticed.
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Yes, but at the same time they have an incredible product. I used to be a big Elon fan when he was about science and innovation. But I never paid heed to his exobitatnt claims that time. I sold my Tesla stock and car and got a Lucid when he got crazy. If you notice, both Lucid and Rivian CEOs have made wild claims about autonomy and their vehicles. After my lackluster experience with Lucid, I am going back to a Tesla, becuase nothing else compares to it. When I was a Tesla's showroom to test drive, there was another Gravity owner, doing the same. So, to my point, it would be better use of time and money for lucid to work on the car rather than spending it on Timothy Chalamet.
 
watermelonrooste said:
Yes, but at the same time they have an incredible product. I used to be a big Elon fan when he was about science and innovation. But I never paid heed to his exobitatnt claims that time. I sold my Tesla stock and car and got a Lucid when he got crazy. If you notice, both Lucid and Rivian CEOs have made wild claims about autonomy and their vehicles. After my lackluster experience with Lucid, I am going back to a Tesla, becuase nothing else compares to it. When I was a Tesla's showroom to test drive, there was another Gravity owner, doing the same. So, to my point, it would be better use of time and money for lucid to work on the car rather than spending it on Timothy Chalamet.
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It’s not an either or proposition. Successful companies must do both.
 
Northpointe said:
It’s not an either or proposition. Successful companies must do both.
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I agree. But the 10 million spent in the commercials can be invested in hiring 1000 service employees to improve their customer experience. The cost of getting a new customer is much higher than keeping an existing customer. Lucid lacks the focus. They are all over the place. People will end up buying the new Cosmos from these ads to realize that service is so bad.
 
watermelonrooste said:
I agree. But the 10 million spent in the commercials can be invested in hiring 1000 service employees to improve their customer experience. The cost of getting a new customer is much higher than keeping an existing customer. Lucid lacks the focus. They are all over the place. People will end up buying the new Cosmos from these ads to realize that service is so bad.
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A little perspective needed again. $10 Million will pay for 1,000 service techs for a total period of 2 months - maybe.

We could go on and say those 1,000 service techs will be doing warranty work, so Lucid is paying those guys to try and keep a customer while not acquiring any new customers.

YMMV
 
watermelonrooste said:
People will end up buying the new Cosmos from these ads to realize that service is so bad.
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Cosmos is at least a year away. We have no idea what the state of service will be at that point. I’m sure they won’t be sitting on their hands for the next 12 months.
 
Northpointe said:
Cosmos is at least a year away.
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That puts release late in FY2027Q4 at the earliest. What is the basis for your position?

I hope the later release is incorrect. I'd like to see Cosmos NLT end of FY2027Q2, assuming your state of service point is resolved.
 
Northpointe said:
Cosmos is at least a year away. We have no idea what the state of service will be at that point. I’m sure they won’t be sitting on their hands for the next 12 months.
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I hope Lucid's service center performance will improve in the coming year. The status-quo is unacceptable.

That said, for Cosmos to penetrate the mid-segment market in earnest, Lucid must have a robust (HW/SW) entry, competitive pricing, and convenient access to service. The status quo of waiting 2-3 months for service appointments and THEN leaving the car in service for 2-4 weeks won't cut it. The "center-of-gravity" of Cosmos buyers will likely be 1-2 car families. Owners are highly dependent on their vehicle to go to/from work, or ferry children to/from school and after school activities. These owners will NOT put up with the current shenanigans.


We all hope Lucid's service will improve. BUT, in the next 1–2-year horizon, will it get to a level consistent with the expectations? I think the answer is NO!

That means Lucid must rethink its service model. I think partnerships with other established nation-wide/region-wide service providers (e.g., Discount Tires, etc.) might be the only way out. This angle has been discussed in other threads so i won't repeat.

Linear thinking and in-house scaling won't get Lucid there!
 
bcjenkins said:
That puts release late in FY2027Q4 at the earliest. What is the basis for your position?
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Q2 earnings call. And initial deliveries will be in the KSA. We might see a few US deliveries in late 2027 but I wouldn’t bet on it. They’re putting an emphasis on getting it right out of the gate. I’m guessing sales won’t scale up until 2028. And frankly they need the time. There are service centers right now where the backlog and repair time is approaching a quarter. And the stated goal of improving wait times by 30% doesn’t put a big dent in that. They need to put some distance between the service center issues and the new model launch. And keep in mind that a significant part of the backlog is resolving production issues which Silvio Napoli acknowledged have occurred because their products were rushed to market.
 
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socktucker said:
I wonder who they’re using now for marketing because this actually looks professional and well done compared to some of their prior stuff. It actually tells a story to target demo, its engaging and exciting.

It’s more of a rebranding video than an advertisement. It reminds me of The Grist, which we just started using.
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I agree. Until the Cosmos comes out, Lucid has to sell what it has to sell. There is a market for both the Air and the Gravity. But probably 50% of the people I know have never heard of Lucid. That needs to be fixed.
 
mwscan said:
I agree. Until the Cosmos comes out, Lucid has to sell what it has to sell. There is a market for both the Air and the Gravity. But probably 50% of the people I know have never heard of Lucid. That needs to be fixed.
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They also need to see if they can create demand for the current models. Part of the problem with the prior approach is that there was very limited, and perhaps ineffective, marketing. And they way overestimated the demand which meant they had a whole bunch of cash tied up in vehicles that weren’t selling. This seems like a more deliberate attempt to create demand through marketing and then (hopefully) increase production to meet it.
 
mwscan said:
I agree. Until the Cosmos comes out, Lucid has to sell what it has to sell. There is a market for both the Air and the Gravity. But probably 50% of the people I know have never heard of Lucid. That needs to be fixed.
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Totally agree. I know this varies by area of country (or even country itself), but driving the Gravity around NC and way more often than not (like 90%), people ask "what is that car?" I say a Lucid Gravity and they don't know Lucid or Gravity. Life on the East coast? ;-)

I still think their marketing needs to go more hard-sell on what differentiates the Gravity over others. It is so difficult to cut through the modern media noise, so soft-sell lifestyle type of marketing only works after someone already has initial interest, in my opinion. To capture attention, I think they should show off what we show off when people in parking lots ask about the car and are usually very impressed. (Style, space-including frunk/subtrunk, range, power/speed, fast charging, air suspension that can raise/lower car, 90 degree rear doors, great use of monitors in front, great sound system-looking at you Rivian, etc.) These are usually my discussion points with folks and they always walk away impressed.
 
Northpointe said:
They also need to see if they can create demand for the current models. Part of the problem with the prior approach is that there was very limited, and perhaps ineffective, marketing. And they way overestimated the demand which meant they had a whole bunch of cash tied up in vehicles that weren’t selling. This seems like a more deliberate attempt to create demand through marketing and then (hopefully) increase production to meet it.
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To be fair, the Air has sold extremely well for its niche of an expensive EV sedan. The Gravity disappoints so far, but the sales are hardly zero, and the terrible launch of a vehicle that couldn't reliably open the doors probably accounts for that more than any other cause. Cleaning up after a flawed launch is still in progress, and accounts for a lot of the service center woes. But even if that job is successfully completed, they need the Cosmos, which is targeted at a segment with fundamentally larger market volume.
 
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