I was - and kind of still am - a Lotus fan, but... Due to the small production numbers, "hand built" has meant quality problems for a very long time - and the horsepower they're putting down just doesn't compare to offerings from other exotics, or even US vehicles - finally, there's no convertible/spider option... Was hope when Geely picked them up that they would capitalize the brand and bring it up a notch - so I was hanging on until the announcement of the Emira - which surprised me as there was ZERO engine upgrade from the Evora... At that point there was a lot of buzz about Lotus so I unloaded the Evora and... now have a Ferrari! Kevin
lets look at the lotus greats. the 7,Eltie, elan and elige. yes they made some other interesting cars, but they were not class leading greats. The evora may have bene interesting but it was not a great. it was not particular lit light, nor powerful, and the steering (dispite some magazine scribes)was nothing to write home about. Compared to a porche cayman Gts let alone a Gt4 the evora simply does not rate. An emira is an evolved evora, same as a 355 was an evolved 348. Thats a clue as the 355 is considered a great whereas the 348 not. What the emira has goign for it is truly exotic looks, probably the best sound, and a classic manual. For road it will be exoitic lookign and more than fast enough, but besides those attributes nothing stands out. Its not light nor particularly powerful, and while an evora tub handles ok its not fantastic. Perhaps when lotus deigns to build the 4cul with proper 420 hp amg motor and some good bits(brakes and suspension) we'll get there. Lotus are of course still the same geniuses who imported all the fist evoras in auto only. i see the same things over at morgan, the +4 coming to the usa is auto only. Who's wanting to buy a neo classic that's auto only? the Europeans still struggle to understand USA. Was it not BMW that made the v10 m5 with a stick for USa after outcry. Are not 50% of Gt3 porche manual in this country. So yes lotus gets it right with looks, sound and a manual, thats what sells the emira. Too bad they haven't made it a standout in some performance metric, yet. had lotus come out with the evora 400 way back when the evora was launched they would have had something, but it took them years to get there, by which time the game had moved on. the emira they're a year late to production and alienating peopel. hard to fathom,
This is the part I'll quote - because it would have been AWESOME for the Evora to come out with the "400" model (400 horsepower) in the initial release in 2008. It wouldn't have been a game changer at that time, but would have been respectable and a "higher bar" to build on from there. Instead it was only 276 horsepower, slobbering around 5 seconds for 0-60. Yes, I know it's not ALL about 0-60, but that's definitely an important measurement to consider for an exotic looking car. By 2017, they had the same engine block supercharged and up to 430 horsepower with 0-60 comfortably in the mid-three-second range - but... too late... This is a Ferrari board, so I won't go on further about the numerous missed opportunities for Lotus - but that's a recent one - and they're repeating the same mistake with the Emira - wasting the initial release hoopla with an engine that's not up to its peers... Kevin
Agreed. Imo lotus is also squandering their usp, namely lightness. Every car has to stand out, if its a nissan its cheap, or Porche ferrari have the brand. Lotus needs nto make its mark. In mnay ways the emira on looks and manual makes its case. But, what this car really needs is to loose weight and gain hp. I read the amg motor can be mapped to 500hp and comes from mercedes at 420 hp. Why is it only 360 hp in the lotus. How about an emira that has the full 420 hp, ap brakes(not lame drilled rotors) and 3000lbs or less. Thats going to stand out. Im a lotus guy. Currently if I could order a cyaman Gt4 I would, as it is Im goign for a z06, even though its too big and heavy. I really like a car that works on road and can actualy hack it on track. Lotus knows how to build such a car, and there is apparently a market for 10-20K cars per year based on Gm ford and P car sales in this truly trackable category. The only ones to date who really make cars that work out the box were the porche Gt cars and the eliges(maybe some Camaros and mustangs). Lotus could really be standing out with a 120k car thats light enough to really work on track, relatively economic to run, looks great, is exotic on road. Thats how you build a brand. Ferrari and Porche, they race, that's their halo, Lotus could own the weekend track day world with a better product, more exotic looking than pcar, and for the right price.. Right now, we have a car that looks exoitic, sounds nice and has a manual. A sort of old school near exotic with performance from a decade or more ago and a question mark over build. Lotus is not going to compete with porche head on. It needs to be making its own space, or at least not abandoning its space and expanding out from there. Maybe thats their electric car idea? Truth is the smart guys are not abandoning ice even when they do electric.
All good points. I'm not a Lotus guy at all, but I have to admit, the Emira looks amazing. It's precisely what many have been clamoring for - it's small enough, sounds great, is a manual, and looks fantastic. They'll sell a ton of them, I'm sure, mostly to a crowd that's mostly concerned with the things I listed and less concerned about the weight/power ratio. Frankly, for most, that's plenty.
Honestly, the performance is all kind of silly now. How much faster can it be? does it really matter? everything is fast. it is how it makes you and your butt in the seat feel. Shave off another 0.5 seconds to 60? I don't really care. Most of us can't handle the power of most of the cars out there anyways. IMO, it needs to tick several boxes, most importantly is the feel (all of it, steering, gear box, etc). My albeit short test drive in the Emira was really pretty great. ESPECIALLY at the price point of <100K, now its maybe 115K or more... makes me think I should just get a 911 or 1 of several other cars that are "proven". not to mention the poor communications, reported quality issues... and then you have Lotus joining the suicide pact of lots of other car companies saying they are going "all electric" (which won't happen.... but they will go out of business doing it, while ignoring a really pretty great car and not capitalize on making it better / different versions).
I was invited to the factory today by the Operations and Quality Director. He gave me a personal tour of the factory and explained all of the efforts that have been poured in to ensuring the cars are being built to a very high standard. It was a great experience and the factory was buzzing. They were on target to build 31 cars today which is a new record and there were a lot of finished cars waiting to be collected by various transport companies. I saw two of the new colours on cars in the factory - Atlantis Blue and Cosmos Black. He explained a number of challenges they have faced getting to this point and how they have been making continuous process tweaks to improve quality and increase production. I got to see the seat production area and hadn't realised they actually assemble the seats there. The seat frame they use is actually a modified version of a Ferrari seat produced by Lear. I also saw how the composite panels are hung on a specialist frame and then moved to the paint shop so that a full set of panels for each car is painted at the same time to ensure colour consistency. Each panel is then labelled so that they all marry up to the correct car on the assembly line. I asked about plans for further colours being added to the range at some point and if there were any plans to follow the personalisation programmes run by Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche etc. It is something they have been considering he told me as they have staff in both the paint and trim shops with the skills required so watch this space is very much the impression I was given but there is no timeframe on this yet. Quality is very much to the fore in everything they are doing and they have made huge strides in this. They have several inspection points dotted along the production line where cars are checked before being allowed to move onto the next stage. They have also identified issues that were recurring in early production and changed procedures to eliminate them. One example is glass on the engine cover. This was initially fitted whilst the bodies were still on the robotised trolleys and the suspension and wheels hadn't been fitted. Once those had been fitted and the car reached the end of the line and went for the quality check it was apparent the rear screens were marginally out of alignment. This was caused by the body flexing (within tolerance) once the car was settled on it's suspension. The solution has been to fit the glass as the last stage of build and after the car is sat on it's wheels and they can get perfect alignment. They have set up a special quality check area at the end of the entire process that replicates a dealer showroom with the same lighting and neutral grey flooring. The idea of this is to be able to view the cars in the same conditions an end customer will see their car in a dealer hand over situation. It is staffed by a team of quality auditors who randomly selected completed cars for full audits. The lieterally go through everything on the car and look for even the smallest defect so that any issues can quickly be fed back through to the production team. Each part of the build process is traceable using the production IT system which records all parts fitted, which employee fitted them, the tools used to fit them, torque settings used etc. In this way they know exactly who is reponsible if any element on the car does not come up to standard and appropriate steps can be taken - change in process, material quality issue, retraining of staff and so on. I saw the new i4 engine and was told they have started building cars with this power unit. Presumably these will be dealer cars. We had a great discussion on a wide range of topics relating to the car industry and the challenges it is facing. At the end of the tour my car was waiting in the final inspection bay and I have to say they had done an excellent and very thorough job on it for me. Having seen the paint and inspection process I am in no doubt that the paint issue on my car was the result of their UK service partner damaging then repairing the car whilst in their care as there is no way it could get through all the checks at the factory and be released for customer delivery. I had a very enjoyable time and came away with the feeling that everyone at the factory is committed to building a great car. Even the security guards at the gate house reception area were enthusiastic about the Emira and were concerned when I told them why I was there. When I was checking back out they asked how the visit had gone and were genuinely delighted that I was very happy and that my car was now perfect. I had a great 2 hour drive home in the car over a mix of roads and drove through some very heavy rain at one point. The V6 makes a surprisingly good noise and feels responsive. The touring suspension gives a great ride quality over poorly surfaced roads yet still feels taught. There were no squeaks or rattles and the build quality is very good. The controls and infotainment screen are pretty intuitive and CarPlay works well with easy control via voice commands. I made a couple of calls whilst driving and both recipients said the clarity of sound was great. They also could hear when I was shifting gears and said the enginee note sounded good. To anyone waiting I'd say hang on in there as you won't be disappointed. US buyers are certainly going to benefit from the lessons learned during the early stages of production that have brought a number of very worthwhile quality improvements. There is nothing else at this price point that comes close.
I'll take some better ones later. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Ferrari doesn't offer a manual because when they did, 90% of the buyers chose the F1 transmission... Everyone "wants" a manual. When it comes time to write the check, "everyone" chooses the automatic. Why would Ferrari make a $100K car? Ferrari sells every car they can produce, most of which have a years long waiting list, and you think it's a smart business move to take production capacity AWAY from the $250K-$500K cars to make...a $100K car to compete with ....Lotus?
Read the post properly. It never said anything about selling it for $100k. In fact, it said the opposite.
That’s because at the time it was a novelty to have the latest technology. Turns out that it *detracts* from what many want out of the driving experience. While it’s certainly no majority, there is definitely a large contingent of customers who would fall over themselves for a modern Ferrari with a manual. Me included.
I understand that the F1 tranny's put up the best numbers in terms of performance. but you'd think with what people spend in Taylor Made program... manual tranny +25K.... many folks would check that box. however, I suppose it would take an entirely different software platform... but looking down at that shiny chrome gated shifter..............
A few more pics. Sadly it's a grey and overcast day here so the green isn't showing at it's best. The camera has also made the tan leather look more orange than it is in person. It's now off for PPF to be applied. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
"Why can they (Lotus) pull it off and Ferrari can't?" Your post #422 It's a thread about Lotus, you ask a question involving Lotus, Lotus has never been a Ferrari competitor
The context of your post makes no sense. Again, as stated before by me and many, Ferrari could sell as many as they could make of a manual and slap whatever price they want on it. There's clearly a starving market for it.
You should watch this video, it's Tadge Juechter, Corvette chief engineer, explaining why the C8 doesn't have a manual. I bet this applies to Ferrari, McLaren, etc (High HP/High torque cars) Go to 48:35 2020 Corvette Chief Engineer Talks C8 Stingray - Autoline After Hours 489 - YouTube
With respect (honestly), a marque specific internet forum doesn't represent the Ferrari market... If internet forums were the real world, the Viper would still be in production.
