RE: Lotus: Dead weight lifted or dead man walking?
Discussion
I'm a Lotus fan. Had an elise for a few years as a toy and am always happier going slightly left field in my transport purchases. But if I was looking at a Evora type purchase I'd probably put my money with the Cayman. Ignore the 4 seat bit as they're silly in the Evora. Thinking about it theres' at most 5% of ones driving time exploring the true handling abilities of a car and for the other 95% the Cayman is going to be a better preposition.
If the Evora was a bargain I'd go with it. But it ain't. At £35k the Evora would fly out of the door and with some decent up selling no doubt most would be hitting £40-45 k. It's just silly money unfortunately
If the Evora was a bargain I'd go with it. But it ain't. At £35k the Evora would fly out of the door and with some decent up selling no doubt most would be hitting £40-45 k. It's just silly money unfortunately
LuS1fer said:
I recall when Lotus used to sell kit cars in the early 70s. It's an image I don't think they have ever really shaken off.
I think that to gain any credibility, they need to ditch the GRP and switch to aluminium and concentrate oon more Porsche/Audi attributes which translate into sales.
I'm not so sure, thats a long time ago. I think the mid eighties, where others invested and grew was the turning point. I think that to gain any credibility, they need to ditch the GRP and switch to aluminium and concentrate oon more Porsche/Audi attributes which translate into sales.
The Elise wasn't that unreliable (in fatc quite the opposite) but there's a limit to what a tiny budget can achieve.
I agree about the GRP. Lotus do too and the new cars will have metal bodywork.
vimfuegoturbo said:
If I was in charge of Lotus the first thing I would do would be to drop the price of the Elise by £5k and actually start marketing it again.
If you could buy an Elise with £5K discount, would you? I did.The price comparison with the boxster is interesting. They are £40K though by the time you add the obligatory leather and metallic paint (which I wouldn't either). £12K more than my Elise.
900T-R said:
I respectfully suggest you, Mr. Porsche salesman, do one. I have yet to meet the person who made money - or even got most of their money back - on so-called 'essential' optional extras come sale or trade in time.
Your counterargument will undoubtedly be 'A car with desirable options is an easier sell, Sir.' To which I will answer 'If I'm essentially giving stuff away, I expect people to bite my hand off.'
So please, provide me with an OTR qoute for a Boxster with no extras before I ponder what else I can get for £38K and change my mind...
Comparisons between the Boxster and Elise are pointless outside of internet forums. The prospective Boxster buyer will be weighing it up against an Evoque, and the prospective Elise buyer is weighing it up against a second-hand Elise. Those are the markets those cars in.Your counterargument will undoubtedly be 'A car with desirable options is an easier sell, Sir.' To which I will answer 'If I'm essentially giving stuff away, I expect people to bite my hand off.'
So please, provide me with an OTR qoute for a Boxster with no extras before I ponder what else I can get for £38K and change my mind...
Sales are low for simple reasons:
1. The factory produced next to no cars in the first half of the year. No cars to sell.
2. The new base Elise produces exactly the same power from its 1.6 1ZR unit as the old 1.8. That's admirable, but the new car is heavier that the one it replaced: it is slower. Can you imagine an archetypal German sports car manufacturer upgrading an existing model with a slower car?
3. The 1ZR is not a sporty engine. And neither is the mini-van sourced V6 in the Evora.
4. The new 1.6 Elise comes with a 6-speed box! At last! Unfortunately, it's from the diesel Avensis so is designed to be in a heavy family car with lots of low down grunt. Utterly inappropriate in a lightweight sports car.
5. The automatic Elise due to be launched last year has evaporated. 99% of Japanese drivers under 30 hold "automatic-only" licenses. In China that figure is higher.
6. At a time when PDKs or stepped CVTs with custom "ratios" are the norm, the Evora is now available with a slush box. Time to party like it's 1979.
7...... There's more but I'll stop now. Just writing this is depressing.
On the bright side, the 2ZR supercharged Elise is at least an equal to its predecessor. The Exige V6 is fantastic and will sell by the bucket load - because it had nothing to do with Dany's dream team but was born in typical Lotus fashion.
Lotus staff 1, "Hmmmnnn. The Evora isn't selling as well as hoped. We have surplus of V6s out back."
Lotus staff 2, "The 2ZZ can't pass EU5 exhaust regs. We've got a good car but no engine to put in it."
Lotus staff 1, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Most of the great Lotuses were born thus.
1. The factory produced next to no cars in the first half of the year. No cars to sell.
2. The new base Elise produces exactly the same power from its 1.6 1ZR unit as the old 1.8. That's admirable, but the new car is heavier that the one it replaced: it is slower. Can you imagine an archetypal German sports car manufacturer upgrading an existing model with a slower car?
3. The 1ZR is not a sporty engine. And neither is the mini-van sourced V6 in the Evora.
4. The new 1.6 Elise comes with a 6-speed box! At last! Unfortunately, it's from the diesel Avensis so is designed to be in a heavy family car with lots of low down grunt. Utterly inappropriate in a lightweight sports car.
5. The automatic Elise due to be launched last year has evaporated. 99% of Japanese drivers under 30 hold "automatic-only" licenses. In China that figure is higher.
6. At a time when PDKs or stepped CVTs with custom "ratios" are the norm, the Evora is now available with a slush box. Time to party like it's 1979.
7...... There's more but I'll stop now. Just writing this is depressing.
On the bright side, the 2ZR supercharged Elise is at least an equal to its predecessor. The Exige V6 is fantastic and will sell by the bucket load - because it had nothing to do with Dany's dream team but was born in typical Lotus fashion.
Lotus staff 1, "Hmmmnnn. The Evora isn't selling as well as hoped. We have surplus of V6s out back."
Lotus staff 2, "The 2ZZ can't pass EU5 exhaust regs. We've got a good car but no engine to put in it."
Lotus staff 1, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Most of the great Lotuses were born thus.
SWoll said:
kambites said:
I think Lotus' primary problem is simple - they don't have enough money to focus on everything and they choose to focus primarily on handling. Most sports-car buyers want a lovely interior with adequate handling, not lovely handling with an adequate interior, so they buy a Boxster.
They either need to follow the Porsche route and sacrifice the way their cars drive to make them more user-friendly/reliable/whatever; or they need to accept they're only going to sell in small volumes, IMO.
I can see what you are saying Kam but i think calling the Boxster's handling "adequate" is a little unfair TBH.They either need to follow the Porsche route and sacrifice the way their cars drive to make them more user-friendly/reliable/whatever; or they need to accept they're only going to sell in small volumes, IMO.
The gap between the handling of the Lotus and the Porsche is much closer than the gap in build quality/interior design etc. between the 2 and as most drivers are only ever going to drive at 5/10ths it's probably not noticeable at all.
Has anybody at Lotus ever actually looked back at when times were 'relatively' good and analysed where the volume was? I had an S1 Elise and so did two other guys at my work. We got them because they were just about affordable for us, insurance wasn't that bad, running costs were actually very good and they were such a fantastic drive for weekend blasts.
I don't really see any of those traits in the Evora+ range. They took a gamble but it was the wrong one. Look at MX5 sales - they seem to be still knocking out 1000's.
Lotus need an MX5 beater for MX5 money. It's what we loved about them.
I don't really see any of those traits in the Evora+ range. They took a gamble but it was the wrong one. Look at MX5 sales - they seem to be still knocking out 1000's.
Lotus need an MX5 beater for MX5 money. It's what we loved about them.
SpunkyM said:
Has anybody at Lotus ever actually looked back at when times were 'relatively' good and analysed where the volume was? I had an S1 Elise and so did two other guys at my work. We got them because they were just about affordable for us, insurance wasn't that bad, running costs were actually very good and they were such a fantastic drive for weekend blasts.
I don't really see any of those traits in the Evora+ range. They took a gamble but it was the wrong one. Look at MX5 sales - they seem to be still knocking out 1000's.
Lotus need an MX5 beater for MX5 money. It's what we loved about them.
The bottom of the Elise range now is almost identical in (inflation adjusted) price to the S1 at release. I don't really see any of those traits in the Evora+ range. They took a gamble but it was the wrong one. Look at MX5 sales - they seem to be still knocking out 1000's.
Lotus need an MX5 beater for MX5 money. It's what we loved about them.
98elise said:
Much as i hate to say it, but lotus need to start building heavy powerfull bling supercars if they want to sell cars/make money.
The current line up has too many flaws. The elise is too hard to live with every day (hence we also have an MX5) and the evora is too ordinary looking (even a bit ugly).
They need to:
Make the cars look exciting
Make them feel expensive inside
Make the body from something more exotic than fiberglass
Power them with a bespoke engine (ideally cosworth)
They could then double/treble the prices.
They are a good brand with a fantasic engineering branch, and a sucessfull F1 history. All they have to add is something people want to buy!
Basically something like this.The current line up has too many flaws. The elise is too hard to live with every day (hence we also have an MX5) and the evora is too ordinary looking (even a bit ugly).
They need to:
Make the cars look exciting
Make them feel expensive inside
Make the body from something more exotic than fiberglass
Power them with a bespoke engine (ideally cosworth)
They could then double/treble the prices.
They are a good brand with a fantasic engineering branch, and a sucessfull F1 history. All they have to add is something people want to buy!
Edited by 98elise on Friday 6th July 13:40
They need to build cars (as nice as they are) that don't look like pre-assembled kit cars. It's hard to put your finger on it but they just scream 'plastic'. The rear end of the new Exige is an improvement though.
Lotus were in a niche market producing extremely lightweight cars that were excellent for a Sunday blast and the odd trackday. They now want to enter the quality sports car market with their range of new cars where they are looking to compete with everybody from Audi to Porsche and Ferrari. Good luck with that one. Especially when you are doing it on a shoestring.
Do what you do best, and then gradually over many years move into other markets. Or buy into new markets.
I give them 18 months.
Do what you do best, and then gradually over many years move into other markets. Or buy into new markets.
I give them 18 months.
DMC2 said:
Do what you do best, and then gradually over many years move into other markets. Or buy into new markets.
^^^^ This exactly. Lotus have tried to go from being a small niche manufacturer to competeting with the big boys far too quickly. There is no way on earth that they can compete at the same level as Porsche etc at this point in time as A) They don't have the money
B) They don't have the expertise and manufacturing processes in place to produce a car which appeals to that mass market.
They may have all the handling voodoo magic sorted better than anyone else but they still don't know how to make a car which feels like it's worth £50k.
They need to learn to walk before they can run.
kambites said:
The bottom of the Elise range now is almost identical in (inflation adjusted) price to the S1 at release.
..yeh, but I, like most people have a lot less diposable income these days. To re-iterate my comment "We need an MX5 beater for MX5 money"...12 plate pre-registered MX5 1.8i SE = £13,952
Elise 1.6CR = £28,110.
yeh, I know Mazda have economies of scale.. but you've got to start somewhere. You've got to have an affordable model in the line up for people like me when I was 25.
Miura Anjin said:
Sales are low for simple reasons:
1. The factory produced next to no cars in the first half of the year. No cars to sell.
2. The new base Elise produces exactly the same power from its 1.6 1ZR unit as the old 1.8. That's admirable, but the new car is heavier that the one it replaced: it is slower. Can you imagine an archetypal German sports car manufacturer upgrading an existing model with a slower car?
3. The 1ZR is not a sporty engine. And neither is the mini-van sourced V6 in the Evora.
4. The new 1.6 Elise comes with a 6-speed box! At last! Unfortunately, it's from the diesel Avensis so is designed to be in a heavy family car with lots of low down grunt. Utterly inappropriate in a lightweight sports car.
5. The automatic Elise due to be launched last year has evaporated. 99% of Japanese drivers under 30 hold "automatic-only" licenses. In China that figure is higher.
6. At a time when PDKs or stepped CVTs with custom "ratios" are the norm, the Evora is now available with a slush box. Time to party like it's 1979.
7...... There's more but I'll stop now. Just writing this is depressing.
i.e Lotus didn't study the market properly and produced cars that no one wants. 1. The factory produced next to no cars in the first half of the year. No cars to sell.
2. The new base Elise produces exactly the same power from its 1.6 1ZR unit as the old 1.8. That's admirable, but the new car is heavier that the one it replaced: it is slower. Can you imagine an archetypal German sports car manufacturer upgrading an existing model with a slower car?
3. The 1ZR is not a sporty engine. And neither is the mini-van sourced V6 in the Evora.
4. The new 1.6 Elise comes with a 6-speed box! At last! Unfortunately, it's from the diesel Avensis so is designed to be in a heavy family car with lots of low down grunt. Utterly inappropriate in a lightweight sports car.
5. The automatic Elise due to be launched last year has evaporated. 99% of Japanese drivers under 30 hold "automatic-only" licenses. In China that figure is higher.
6. At a time when PDKs or stepped CVTs with custom "ratios" are the norm, the Evora is now available with a slush box. Time to party like it's 1979.
7...... There's more but I'll stop now. Just writing this is depressing.
SpunkyM said:
kambites said:
The bottom of the Elise range now is almost identical in (inflation adjusted) price to the S1 at release.
..yeh, but I, like most people have a lot less diposable income these days. To re-iterate my comment "We need an MX5 beater for MX5 money"...12 plate pre-registered MX5 1.8i SE = £13,952
Elise 1.6CR = £28,110.
yeh, I know Mazda have economies of scale.. but you've got to start somewhere. You've got to have an affordable model in the line up for people like me when I was 25.
The only way I can see that happening is if they get bought by a big multinational and turned into a badge and tuning department.
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