RE: Evora GTE 'Proves Lotus Is A £100k Brand'

[Blown2CV]

DJRC said:

If Lotus has sold 114 of these in China Im a Dutchman.

Bahar, yer talking PR bks. If it gets this thing built though I dont care, but £120k is once again...bks.

dunno the east asian enthusiasts love all the heritage and history attached to all british sports car stuff. The actual cars are not so important, and after all those who can afford £120k in china are amongst the newest of new money.

[RobM77]

Isn't there a major difference between selling 120 special edition Evoras and volume selling the Esprit to 458/MP4-12C customers? Volume sales will require a higher feeling of quality, and won't be able to rely soley on performance.

[DJRC]

Blown2CV said:

DJRC said:

If Lotus has sold 114 of these in China Im a Dutchman.

Bahar, yer talking PR bks. If it gets this thing built though I dont care, but £120k is once again...bks.

dunno the east asian enthusiasts love all the heritage and history attached to all british sports car stuff. The actual cars are not so important, and after all those who can afford £120k in china are amongst the newest of new money.

He hasnt flogged 120 of these out in China. Not a chance in hell. This edition was planned months ago, the China story is just an angle to give it spin.

[Blown2CV]

If this is £120k, then surely Esprit must be pitched at £130k-140k++ otherwise the ranged will clash...?

[Chris-R]

Blown2CV said:

If this is £120k, then surely Esprit must be pitched at £130k-140k++ otherwise the ranged will clash...?

The GTE will remain a special edition in Europe too, apparently. No numbers suggested in public yet though.

[f1ten]

I wish lotus success as its a fanastic British brand. the cars are great handling but terrible to own and interiors are very low budget and not worth the £50k basic car price.

interesting £100,000 in China... what is the actual price there because a rolls Royce phantom is equiv of £700k there because China has massive import tax on European cars... So I dont believe £100k price. 2nd the Chinese have no taste or knowledge and jump onto any band wagon. They have probably exhausted all Lambo and Ferrari sales order books and have now gone out and bought all the Lotus, Porsche and Maseratis!

[British Beef]

John145 said:

Miura Anjin said:

Well, Lotus for a start. The Elise Clubman Racer is lighter and cheaper than its standard counterpart thanks to the deletion of luxuries, like the radio, and essentials, like the roof. Strangely, those items can be added back as options, which would rather ruin the point of buying one of course.

But the original question was I want a premium car to have a bespoke lower volume interior (stripped out, can't simply pull they interior out, you must put something in it's place for obvious reasons), bespoke suspension and then some design tweaks. What would porsche do for this priveledge?

The Elise CR was just a design tweak hence it was cheaper as it deleted everything the most basic spec elise came with.

Fair point, dash needs to stay and door cars and other bits of trim. But how about sound deadening, carpets, AC, Sat Nav, electric glass windows, list goes on..... Bottom line is making a cheaper version of the Evora and selling it for less, even with these deletions will make Lotus less money, which obviously defeats the object of the company.

Making driver focused version of their cars with compromises for weight reduction is something that, and selling them for less than the Premium models, would set Lotus apart from the Porsches / Ferraris, I think. Whether it would strengthen the brand name enough to claw back some of the lost £s is debatable.

[kambites]

f1ten said:

I wish lotus success as its a fanastic British brand. the cars are great handling but terrible to own and interiors are very low budget and not worth the £50k basic car price.

Do you know many owners then? All the (very few) people that I know of who've bought them have been extremely happy with them.

[Thorburn]

kambites said:

Do you know many owners then? All the (very few) people that I know of who've bought them have been extremely happy with them.

I know of one person who's had issues with his Evora, although part of that was someone crashing into it while it was parked so not really Lotus's fault. Other than that the majority of owners I've heard from seem happy.

Only complaint I have with my Elise is I don't like the current (non-standard) suspension setup and I don't get to use it as much as I'd like.

[98elise]

kambites said:

f1ten said:

I wish lotus success as its a fanastic British brand. the cars are great handling but terrible to own and interiors are very low budget and not worth the £50k basic car price.

Do you know many owners then? All the (very few) people that I know of who've bought them have been extremely happy with them.

Very happy with mine, I bought it as a stop gap, and still own the same one 5 years later. If I won the lottery I'd still own one (+ a lot of other nice cars)

[frosted]

Lotus will be bankrupt in 2 years time , sad but true !

For anyone to pay 120k for a lotus would mean the car would have to be a 200k Italian/german beater and I can't see that happening

At the end if the day they should just keep the Elise , make it cheaper and sell the same car for another 5 years when they can do a facelift . Let's be honest everyone would buy a 15k brand new Elise

Ok , I'm talking gibberish now

[frosted]

Lotus will be bankrupt in 2 years time , sad but true !

For anyone to pay 120k for a lotus would mean the car would have to be a 200k Italian/german beater and I can't see that happening

At the end if the day they should just keep the Elise , make it cheaper and sell the same car for another 5 years when they can do a facelift . Let's be honest everyone would buy a 15k brand new Elise

Ok , I'm talking gibberish now

[British Beef]

frosted said:

Lotus will be bankrupt in 2 years time , sad but true !

For anyone to pay 120k for a lotus would mean the car would have to be a 200k Italian/german beater and I can't see that happening

At the end if the day they should just keep the Elise , make it cheaper and sell the same car for another 5 years when they can do a facelift . Let's be honest everyone would buy a 15k brand new Elise

Ok , I'm talking gibberish now

Your whole post is gibberish!!

Nothing you stated has any substance and is pure (ignorant and ill-informed) opinon. I cant be bothered to dissect and comment. Maybe someone else will.....

[Mr Whippy]

frosted said:

Lotus will be bankrupt in 2 years time , sad but true !

For anyone to pay 120k for a lotus would mean the car would have to be a 200k Italian/german beater and I can't see that happening

At the end if the day they should just keep the Elise , make it cheaper and sell the same car for another 5 years when they can do a facelift . Let's be honest everyone would buy a 15k brand new Elise

Ok , I'm talking gibberish now

Nah I agree.

Going up market has the potential to make lots of money, but also the potential to make none.

What they had made *some* money and worked.

Just taken a risk to make more money. Greed doesn't seem to have a way of paying off at the moment

Dave

[frosted]

Guess the evora was such a high seller that gave them confidence to build premium cars then ?

Thing is , I don't blame him taking investors money to build light,nimble cars however if it was his money I doubt we would see this coming from lotus.

The Elise is not broken , it drives good , looks good has a really good following and 10 years on middle aged men still have wet dreams about it . Why not keep at it ?

[Thorburn]

Mr Whippy said:

Nah I agree.

Going up market has the potential to make lots of money, but also the potential to make none.

What they had made *some* money and worked.

Just taken a risk to make more money. Greed doesn't seem to have a way of paying off at the moment

Dave

I think the issue was it wasn't making money, while the company as a whole has been making money, Lotus CARS hasn't.

[Thorburn]

frosted said:

The Elise is not broken , it drives good , looks good has a really good following and 10 years on middle aged men still have wet dreams about it . Why not keep at it ?

http://www.lotuscars.com/en/elise2015

"LOTUS ELISE

The Grown Up. Oh yes, here it is! There's still room for the Elise at Lotus but what a difference a decade or two makes. The Elise, due for release in 2015 is a sexy, agile beast of a car. Finally the Elise comes of age."

I think the plan is to still have an Elise as an affordable option, it's not like they're going to be 100% £60k+...

[British Beef]

I think and hope that in 5 - 10 years time Lotus will be a truly competitive alternative to Porsche and Ferrari while still delivering reasonably priced lightweight Elise sports cars in a class of its own. They need to make big and bold steps to achieve this, which will either be their making or breaking. I remain optimistic!

Only time will tell!

[Mr Whippy]

Thorburn said:

Mr Whippy said:

Nah I agree.

Going up market has the potential to make lots of money, but also the potential to make none.

What they had made *some* money and worked.

Just taken a risk to make more money. Greed doesn't seem to have a way of paying off at the moment

Dave

I think the issue was it wasn't making money, while the company as a whole has been making money, Lotus CARS hasn't.

I guess innovating their way out of trouble is better than 'cost cutting'... I just wonder if they have gone a bit TOO ott with the innovation thing.

They haven't innovated like they did with the Elise, they have just changed their WHOLE business model/sales demographic etc etc...

And after all that, their actual products are no more innovative than anything else out there (assuming they have even made what they say they have)

Dave

[Shotgun Rider]

frosted said:

At the end if the day they should just keep the Elise , make it cheaper and sell the same car for another 5 years when they can do a facelift . Let's be honest everyone would buy a 15k brand new Elise

So easy isn't it!