RE: Lotus Exige S Automatic: Review

[shipoftheseus]

Jellinek said:

A great deal of rhetoric has been forthcoming of late from the new CEO expounding the importance of launching a product on time. Being a Marketing man and allegedly a fan Lotus, he should have been acutely aware of the dangers of bringing an under-developed product to market.
Lotus' future can only be secured with an Engineering led recovery. To sack a bundle of your engineering staff (and have talented staff get to the point of walking out), then demand a slush box to compete with PDK and to be delivered in a ridiculously short lead-time indicates a failure of policy, not of the engineers.
Perhaps it would have been more appropriate if the gearbox had 6 reverse gears and one forward.....

Clearly a marketing move. Could even be called cynical, but I can't ever recall a time when Lotus' finances could ever afford not to take precedence over their brilliance as engineers. Slightly different to the GT3 pdk thing, in my opinion. I suspect Porsche could've quite easily made a manual option, but in their stereotypically Teutonic manner, decided the car was that fast it would be a safer option to allow all drivers to keep both hands on the wheel(knowing they could sell the lot). I don't think Ferrari took as much flak when they stopped offering a stick. Lotus need to sell cars, if that means an auto option, so be it. Then hopefully one day they'll be to afford to engineer their own lightweight dct, and show everyone else how.

[sugerbear]

Better to have a product that can be improved than no product at all.

I see this auto car aimed at the U.S. market and Asia.

[Limpet]

I'm sure Lotus has done its sums carefully, and the demand for this exists in the Asian market. As a European car enthusiast though, it is very hard to get my head around what kind of person would want such hardcore, driver focused car with an automatic gearbox.

But if it helps with Lotus's profitability, then fair do's.

[skyrover]

Automatic exige?

[kbf1981]

Limpet said:

I'm sure Lotus has done its sums carefully, and the demand for this exists in the Asian market. As a European car enthusiast though, it is very hard to get my head around what kind of person would want such hardcore, driver focused car with an automatic gearbox.

But if it helps with Lotus's profitability, then fair do's.

I'd consider it. I don't get much time to use my Exige, so sometimes I commute to work in it to get a drive in. Some of my commute is in traffic and it's annoying using a manual in traffic.

People on this forum obviously don't live in the real world. Most sports cars are now sold as auto's - porsche pdk, ferrari etc.... they're not sold with this gearbox because it's faster, but because it's more convenient. If the gearbox is "as fast as" a manual, and offers more convenience, people will go for it.

Personally I'll stick with my manual Exige V6 but tbh I'd have test driven this before buying mine had it been available, as perhaps it'd have been more convenient for on those days when I take the Exige to work.

[TimS2000]

article said:

Like a three-legged race pairing Usain Bolt with the fat kid from sports day this doesn't seem a natural partnership.

the mental image made me chuckle

[Jellinek]

shipoftheseus said:

Jellinek said:

A great deal of rhetoric has been forthcoming of late from the new CEO expounding the importance of launching a product on time. Being a Marketing man and allegedly a fan Lotus, he should have been acutely aware of the dangers of bringing an under-developed product to market.
Lotus' future can only be secured with an Engineering led recovery. To sack a bundle of your engineering staff (and have talented staff get to the point of walking out), then demand a slush box to compete with PDK and to be delivered in a ridiculously short lead-time indicates a failure of policy, not of the engineers.
Perhaps it would have been more appropriate if the gearbox had 6 reverse gears and one forward.....

Clearly a marketing move. Could even be called cynical, but I can't ever recall a time when Lotus' finances could ever afford not to take precedence over their brilliance as engineers. Slightly different to the GT3 pdk thing, in my opinion. I suspect Porsche could've quite easily made a manual option, but in their stereotypically Teutonic manner, decided the car was that fast it would be a safer option to allow all drivers to keep both hands on the wheel(knowing they could sell the lot). I don't think Ferrari took as much flak when they stopped offering a stick. Lotus need to sell cars, if that means an auto option, so be it. Then hopefully one day they'll be to afford to engineer their own lightweight dct, and show everyone else how.

I think Jaguar offered a Manually-activated Auto and was widely lauded for the effort. I don't think there was anything wrong with their strategy because it was a fit with the brand values. However, coming from the other end of the spectrum its a big ask. I haven't driven one, but the article is definitely critical of the application as well as the concept of an slushbox in an extreme sports car. The wrong product, launched prematurely can do huge damage. One international Marketing consultancy estimated the Jag X-Type erased $637 million (or 17.5 percent) in brand value after it was launched. I hope for Lotus' sake it will sell, but I have strong reservations. Only time will tell of course.

[braddersm3]

That to me makes a lot of sense.Well done Lotus,think the uptake on this could be surprisingly high.Properly quick car,now made very usable,i would like to demo one of these when available.

[Europa1]

skyrover said:

Automatic exige?

What's the problem? You'd rather they didn't sell more cars?