RE: Lotus: Dead weight lifted or dead man walking?
Discussion
Max_Torque said:
which car is that?
"And the headline on the press release boasts of the lowest CO2 emissions for any comparable petrol-engined sports car before it talks about anything else"http://www.pistonheads.com/doc.asp?c=47&i=2181...
The base model 1.6 they've been trying to flog since 2010.
I think it's good that they've got it, but I think the overlap between tree huggers and sports car fanciers is a bit niche even for Lotus.
Scuffers said:
don't buy that.
at the time, Lotus were making good money, they could not keep up with Elise orders, they had just spanked £££ on the Autocar w*nkfeast that was the 340r.
Now, I know the M250 was not finished, but being blunt, it was not that far off, and at the ~£40K it was launched at
(worth reading this from the time)
now consider this in the context of the new Exige S (with it's 'basic' interior)....
I was one of the people who lost their deposit at the time. Lotus did not take any deposits for the car, but let the dealers organise an unofficial waiting list and manage deposits themselves. With issues around parts and the S2 Elise coming out, the deposits weren't protected and a handful of dealers ended up relying on them to keep them afloat. When the M250 was canned, it took those dealers with it.at the time, Lotus were making good money, they could not keep up with Elise orders, they had just spanked £££ on the Autocar w*nkfeast that was the 340r.
Now, I know the M250 was not finished, but being blunt, it was not that far off, and at the ~£40K it was launched at
(worth reading this from the time)
now consider this in the context of the new Exige S (with it's 'basic' interior)....
As for the car itself, the styling was great but the packaging was a problem that would have killed sales. For a car costing 20K more than the Elise, it had a cramped cabin with the A pillar way too close to the driver. It had terrible storage (again, less space than the Elise and much harder to get to) and the promises for engine output seemed to evaporate as the car approached production. For a GT it would have launched as an underpowered, impractical and compromised car. In addition, it didn't meet American legislation, so world sales could not happen. The styling was lovely, but I can fully understand the reasons for it being canned.
And £40K... it was pretty clear that it would never be that price.
After the M250, Lotus said that they had the technology to put a new car into production in 18 months and that the Esprit replacement would be developed shortly. But the debacle over the introduction of the S2 and the contract over the VX220 nearly killed the company, and it struggled for the next five years. It was only with the arrival of MJK and the introduction of VVA architecture that Lotus managed to convince Proton it had a way forward.
still don't buy that.
engine wise, I know there were issues, but that should have been resolvable.
the car itself was pretty good, (got to have another look at it a few years back when Lotus sold it), and whilst I agree it's not perfect, I don't agree about space etc, it was bigger inside than the Elise, and had more luggage space.
I was not wild about some of the detailed design externally, but that was eminently resolvable, it would be good to know the reality of why it was canned.
What I find interesting was the Q&A here:.
engine wise, I know there were issues, but that should have been resolvable.
the car itself was pretty good, (got to have another look at it a few years back when Lotus sold it), and whilst I agree it's not perfect, I don't agree about space etc, it was bigger inside than the Elise, and had more luggage space.
I was not wild about some of the detailed design externally, but that was eminently resolvable, it would be good to know the reality of why it was canned.
What I find interesting was the Q&A here:.
Scuffers said:
still don't buy that.
engine wise, I know there were issues, but that should have been resolvable.
the car itself was pretty good, (got to have another look at it a few years back when Lotus sold it), and whilst I agree it's not perfect, I don't agree about space etc, it was bigger inside than the Elise, and had more luggage space.
I was not wild about some of the detailed design externally, but that was eminently resolvable, it would be good to know the reality of why it was canned.
What I find interesting was the Q&A here:.
I understood that the A-pillar was the thing that killed it for world markets - too close to the driver's head. It was (from recollection) a lot like previous Lotus' cars such as the Excel - you were a bit closer to the windscreen than felt comfortable.engine wise, I know there were issues, but that should have been resolvable.
the car itself was pretty good, (got to have another look at it a few years back when Lotus sold it), and whilst I agree it's not perfect, I don't agree about space etc, it was bigger inside than the Elise, and had more luggage space.
I was not wild about some of the detailed design externally, but that was eminently resolvable, it would be good to know the reality of why it was canned.
What I find interesting was the Q&A here:.
As for the luggage space - the Blue demo car had a big parcel shelf behind the driver which was difficult to reach and had no better way to keep things stowed than the Elises' netting. That gave them the claimed '2 golf bags' storage, but it was really impractical (hence the "more usable space" quote in that Q&A). The killer was the complete absence of a rear boot - taken up by the engine. Somewhere I've got some photos. At the time I spent a lot of effort finding out what was going on - both as a lead up to putting down the deposit, and when it was canned to find out what happened and to try and get my deposit back (I never did). That's one of the reasons I've followed Lotus so closely since - they owe me a car!
otolith said:
Max_Torque said:
which car is that?
"And the headline on the press release boasts of the lowest CO2 emissions for any comparable petrol-engined sports car before it talks about anything else"http://www.pistonheads.com/doc.asp?c=47&i=2181...
The base model 1.6 they've been trying to flog since 2010.
I think it's good that they've got it, but I think the overlap between tree huggers and sports car fanciers is a bit niche even for Lotus.
A proper ECO elise would have to be sub 100g/km!!
Still nobody buying it though. Maybe there is a market there, but it seems to me that the real driver of low CO2 cars is company car taxation. Nobody is going to get a Lotus company sports car. Punters might care about fuel economy, but not in cars that only do a few thousand miles a year. And the one thing I have never thought about my Elise is "hmm, this engine doesn't sound quite s
t enough, I wonder if I could get a diesel fitted".
t enough, I wonder if I could get a diesel fitted". I don't think Euro anything has anything at all to do with the weight. It's consumer demand for bigger, safer, more refined cars which has driven the weight increase, and Lotus don't even have those excuses.
I would say that Lotus tried to market it on the grounds that it is an environmentally responsible sportscar, and that sportscar buyers generally don't give a fk about that as long as it isn't so juicy they can't afford to drive it.
I suspect, by the way, that the actual environmental performance in use is pretty good. Our Saab estate has similar official figures to my Elise, but if I drove it the way I drive the Lotus it would give 2/3 the mpg. I think Lotus just can't be arsed gaming the EU drive cycle properly.
I would say that Lotus tried to market it on the grounds that it is an environmentally responsible sportscar, and that sportscar buyers generally don't give a f
k about that as long as it isn't so juicy they can't afford to drive it.I suspect, by the way, that the actual environmental performance in use is pretty good. Our Saab estate has similar official figures to my Elise, but if I drove it the way I drive the Lotus it would give 2/3 the mpg. I think Lotus just can't be arsed gaming the EU drive cycle properly.
"Build it and they will come." Trouble is, Lotus built the Evora instead.
I'm not an MJK fan at all. Evora was badly conceived and has failed in the market-place, jeopardising the whole future of the company. In comparison Bahar's dreams (what an idiot) were relatively harmless - at least they had the sense to boot him out before he did any real damage of his own.
I really hope Lotus can survive and prosper. Whether any company will want to bet big money on that is a different question altogether.
I'm not an MJK fan at all. Evora was badly conceived and has failed in the market-place, jeopardising the whole future of the company. In comparison Bahar's dreams (what an idiot) were relatively harmless - at least they had the sense to boot him out before he did any real damage of his own.
I really hope Lotus can survive and prosper. Whether any company will want to bet big money on that is a different question altogether.
Max_Torque said:
er, 149g/km of CO2?? WTF!! That is laughably bad for a car of that size and weight!
A proper ECO elise would have to be sub 100g/km!!
Indeed, my Cooper S is about 250 kg heavier and has 181 bhp - 136 g/km. Was introduced (with this engine) at the same time as the 1.6L Elise S, too.A proper ECO elise would have to be sub 100g/km!!
The problem with Toyota here is that they really don't have any competitive middleweight petrol engines for the EU market - pretty much everything over 1.3 litre up to a 2.0 has been superceded by the hybrid Prius drivetrain (Prius, Auris, CT200h)...
otolith said:
I don't think Euro anything has anything at all to do with the weight. It's consumer demand for bigger, safer, more refined cars which has driven the weight increase, and Lotus don't even have those excuses.
all well and good, but the Elise has got no bigger, and I very much doubt the potential Elise customer gives a stuff about NCAP ratings etc.I've never really understood how Lotus managed to make the fuel economy of the Elise so poor. My car barely manages to be better than the Rover 25 they nicked the engine from, despite being 2/3 the weight and having 2/3 the frontal area.
Even with their (admirable) refusal to resort to turbochargers, the bottom of the Elise range should be getting pretty close to 100g/km and the top ones shouldn't be more than about 150.
Even with their (admirable) refusal to resort to turbochargers, the bottom of the Elise range should be getting pretty close to 100g/km and the top ones shouldn't be more than about 150.
Scuffers said:
otolith said:
I don't think Euro anything has anything at all to do with the weight. It's consumer demand for bigger, safer, more refined cars which has driven the weight increase, and Lotus don't even have those excuses.
all well and good, but the Elise has got no bigger, and I very much doubt the potential Elise customer gives a stuff about NCAP ratings etc.kambites said:
I've never really understood how Lotus managed to make the fuel economy of the Elise so poor. My car barely manages to be better than the Rover 25 they nicked the engine from, despite being 2/3 the weight and having 2/3 the frontal area.
Even with their (admirable) refusal to resort to turbochargers, the bottom of the Elise range should be getting pretty close to 100g/km and the top ones shouldn't be more than about 150.
Part of that would be down to a coefficient of drag of 0.4-ish - given the small/negative lift on the cars, I guess Lotus prioritised stability over drag reduction.Even with their (admirable) refusal to resort to turbochargers, the bottom of the Elise range should be getting pretty close to 100g/km and the top ones shouldn't be more than about 150.
I think achieving a good Euro drive cycle result requires a decent amount of effort to game the test - perhaps Lotus didn't bother. The driving style of the test cycle is even more irrelevant to a sports car than it is to anything else.
otolith said:
Part of that would be down to a coefficient of drag of 0.4-ish - given the small/negative lift on the cars, I guess Lotus prioritised stability over drag reduction.
Yes but the Elise still has a significantly better CdA than the Rover (and indeed than almost anything else on the road). As far as I know, only a few other sports cars and some very aerodynamically designed "eco cars" like the Prius better it. It is true that Lotus problem don't put the effort into fooling the test, but quite frankly, they probably need to. However daft it may be, the CO2 numbers from that test have a massive effect on the running costs of cars these days.
Edited by kambites on Thursday 12th July 10:09
I simply cannot believe that people are whimpering about fuel consumption of the Elise! It's a sportscar, not some eco-mapped city car with zero throttle response!
Biggest problem for Elise is the design is 20 years old, it's very small and it soldiers on with a laughable door opening. (For any who are unaware, the door looks OK from outside but when you open it the whole lower half of the aperture is is filled by a deep, wide sill making access awkard.) Regrettably this handicap has been carried over to the new Exige V6. Fine for a handful of 25-year old trackday enthusists but hopeless in terms of achieving Lotus' desired sales volumes.
Biggest problem for Elise is the design is 20 years old, it's very small and it soldiers on with a laughable door opening. (For any who are unaware, the door looks OK from outside but when you open it the whole lower half of the aperture is is filled by a deep, wide sill making access awkard.) Regrettably this handicap has been carried over to the new Exige V6. Fine for a handful of 25-year old trackday enthusists but hopeless in terms of achieving Lotus' desired sales volumes.
Ozzie Osmond said:
I simply cannot believe that people are whimpering about fuel consumption of the Elise! It's a sportscar, not some eco-mapped city car with zero throttle response!
if you follow the thread, the comments are in response to this:otolith said:
"And the headline on the press release boasts of the lowest CO2 emissions for any comparable petrol-engined sports car before it talks about anything else"
http://www.pistonheads.com/doc.asp?c=47&i=2181...
The base model 1.6 they've been trying to flog since 2010.
ie. we know it's bhttp://www.pistonheads.com/doc.asp?c=47&i=2181...
The base model 1.6 they've been trying to flog since 2010.
ks, but if your going to push the Eco bullst, at least have a decent figure to start with.ie. what the F**k is the 1.6 Elise? it's too heavy/gutless to be a proper sports car, and it's not exactly an Eco car, so what was the point?
Yes, you right, the Elise is almost 20 years old now, however, what we have now is a lifetime away from the original concept.
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