I think you are right on the dealer network and the direct to customer approach, this one is always tricky and it appears they haven't scaled their customer care plateform accordingly. But when it comes to cachet, I do think they have it and as it is EVs we are talking about, the following does not matter as much. China and the US will gulp most of these cars and if Porsche as cult status and the Germans still do well there's room for new entrants in the EV segments.
However, in order to make a mark, the cars will have to deliver on absolutely every aspects : design, they do ; ergonomics and ease of use, they do or do they? ; range (that is a big one and I don't think Eletre is delivering on that one. I think despite Volvo and Geely's experience on Zeeker and Polestar something did go amiss. There's still time for course correction though .
Any way time will tell, and also the one thing that cannot be argued is the following, Lotus and Geely did promise cars in a given timeline, it was slow in the beginning, but Emira got out and the Lotus Tech cars are coming out pretty close to on schedule, the next one is due in two years so a bit of a wait but they are not vaporware and that is a first in a long time.