Official Emira Pricing

[MJON]

29 minutes ago, DaveC72 said:

Audiophiles across the country just clutched their chests with despair at Bose being likened to Kef 🤣

I guess that means I’m not one of them😂 just did a quick research and seems like KEF is definitely high end. So that would suggest to get a closer match Porsche upgrade adds another £2k to the Cayman comparison. I will have to remember to switch it on some time 😵‍💫

[JJ]

The Dutch dealer expects the V6 FE price to be a whopping EUR 143K (USD 165K, GBP 122K). The I4 is expected to be EUR 30K cheaper in carbon tax alone, so will probably be something like 105K.

What a conundrum. I can have a used C8 3LT Z51 (whose owner I know personally) imported for EUR 10K more as he upgrades to a Z06.

And I'm not sure any of these are worth that money, at this point. On the other hand, possibly last chance to have a fun ICE.

[Wake]

 

Jeez you could get a brand new 911 Targa GTS for that in the UK! Or a standard 911 Carrera S and save £25k 
 

That’s completely bonkers 

[IwantOne]

6 hours ago, JJ said:

The Dutch dealer expects the V6 FE price to be a whopping EUR 143K (USD 165K, GBP 122K). The I4 is expected to be EUR 30K cheaper in carbon tax alone, so will probably be something like 105K.

What a conundrum. I can have a used C8 3LT Z51 (whose owner I know personally) imported for EUR 10K more as he upgrades to a Z06.

And I'm not sure any of these are worth that money, at this point. On the other hand, possibly last chance to have a fun ICE.

Not surprised. A Cayman GTS starts at 130k so everybody in the Netherlands should have seen this coming. Tax laws simply make anything that hasn't the tiniest of tiny engines very expensive. Even something like a gt86 is/was close to 60k, in most other countries you pay half that.

[ramjet]

On 21/09/2021 at 22:04, Nick in Sydney said:

In Australia we've been told that prices will be announced in early October.  I only wish it would be a simple conversion of the UK price to Aussie dollars!  We traditionally get hit with a significant premium over UK prices.  Porsche are one of the worst culprits; we pay about 40% more for a base 911 than the Brits.  Some of it is taxes (we have a luxury car tax), but it's also the manufacturers taking advantage of an isolated market that effectively prohibits private imports from other countries.

I am pretty sure that the luxury car tax was put in place to protect our Australian car industry. Since we don't have a car industry anymore, that should mean that the tax gets dropped now?

Yeah, right.

[Nick in Sydney]

Correct.  Put in place by Howard to protect the dying local car industry.  Back in June there was talk of (at minimum) dumping the LCT for UK imports as part of negotiating the free trade agreement.  They waived the 5% import tariff for UK cars, but seem to have gone very quiet on the LCT.

Getting our government to eliminate a tax is like asking a child to hand back a lolly!

[JJ]

3 hours ago, IwantOne said:

Not surprised. A Cayman GTS starts at 130k so everybody in the Netherlands should have seen this coming. Tax laws simply make anything that hasn't the tiniest of tiny engines very expensive. Even something like a gt86 is/was close to 60k, in most other countries you pay half that.

Oh yeah, I was expecting 150K so that was a pretty good guess. I'm just still bummed out. I hate this country so much, but economic prisoner and all that.

[IwantOne]

Well in many ways it's one of the better places in the world you can live. Just not if you happen to like sports cars and are not very well off. That and the housing market.

One way around this is live abroad for 12 months, buy the car there and then move back to the Netherlands. The car will be exempt from taxes as far as I know.  Given how small the Netherlands is, and depending on how much you might want to skirt the law with actually living abroad, you could (all theoretically of course) get away with just paying a couple of grand renting some student room just across the border.

Edit: I never looked into the actual rules/laws too much, but at a glance it looks like there isn't any limit on the amount of cars you can bring with. The only caveat is you have to own the car for at least 6 months before moving back and you can't sell it for a year after moving back. 

In the past I always wondered if that means it would be possible for multiple people to fund somebody to live in Belgium or Germany for a bit, buy a dozen or so cars, move back and "sell" them. Given that even a Cayman or Emira can easily be 40~50k cheaper, that could be a golden business.

[JJ]

1 hour ago, IwantOne said:

Well in many ways it's one of the better places in the world you can live

😂

[IwantOne]

Pricing for Japan is now available.

Base i4: 10 million yen.

V6 FE: 12.7 million yen. (95.000 euro, 81.000 pound, 111.000 dollar)

For comparison a Cayman S is 9.3 million, a 4.0 GTS 11.1 million and a GT4 is 13.1 million.

I hoped it would be a bit closer to Cayman prices but I think the comparative pricing is in line with that in other countries.

Oh well, I'll have something to work for the next couple of years

 

[IwantOne]

Just looked at the Lotus Japan site again and the price for the i4 has disappeared and they raised the price of the v6 FE by another million to 13.5 million... It's now a couple of grand more than a Cayman GT4 and ~20k USD more than a GTS 4.0 and Corvette C8...

The initial price made sense, with a base v6 with a few options probably ending up a couple of grand more than a GTS 4.0 with some options. 

Maybe the importer is getting a lot of interest and they think they can ask this much. For their sake I hope they are right.

[Greg | ValetPro]

Is there an official date they are going to release the full details for the i4 engine?

[bosshog]

Right, I need to decide whether to go for the LE before Friday. I did see a Sales PDF floating around at some point with all the costs of the options after LE. I can't find it now. Anyone have one they can share with me?

 

 

 

[duncx]

Keep your place in the LE queue and then pull it later if you change your mind. You have until early 2022 to think about it (and hope that more/better info is released) and in the meantime there's nothing to lose, it's just like having £5K sitting in the bank

EDIT: I hope

Edited November 1, 2021 by duncx

[bosshog]

I didn't know that. Is there some terms and conditions somewhere I can read to fully understand? Though I'd rather not waste Lotus's time (or mine).

[Neil D.]

24 minutes ago, duncx said:

You have until early 2021 

2022, I would hope. 🙂

 

[duncx]

Er...yep, 2022, well spotted Neil, you've passed the test

Edited November 1, 2021 by duncx

[duncx]

19 minutes ago, bosshog said:

I didn't know that. Is there some terms and conditions somewhere I can read to fully understand? Though I'd rather not waste Lotus's time (or mine).

Yep, very clear that it's not binding for either party in the T&C when you sign up for the second deposit of £3K. On the T&C for the first deposit it also stated that the final 'lock in' payment would be due early in 2022 and until that date (whenever that turns out to be) the deposit is fully refundable.

I don't think it's wasting Lotus's time at all, at the moment it's just a place on a list and they are using the data to get some idea of how production will start. As far as your own time goes it's a 5 minute task to think of a spec (you can change it later and BEFORE final committment) and place the second deposit. No brainer IMHO

 

[Del Lardo]

Is it possible to spec V6 now and change to i4 in the future without losing place in the queue.  I can't make my mind up between them and a large part of it is pricing, if it's a £5k price difference then I'm happy with the i4, if it's £2k then I may as well go with the V6 and get it earlier.  Without firm info on i4 FE pricing, it's quite hard to make the decision. 

[duncx]

No idea about your place in the queue if you spec V6 now and then change to i4 later - it's a good question that I too have thought about. The same question applies if you decide to wait for an 'own spec' car - does an early deposit make any difference at all or do you get just once chance to use your 'position' in the queue? If I change my mind and want to swap my V6 order to an i4 order (or any non-LE order) do I then go to the very back of the queue?

Regarding the difference in price, a Lotus employee confidently told me (at a roadshow event) that the price difference between the two LE models would be £5-6K (i.e. approx £5K cheaper for the i4 LE car).

[MJON]

£5/6k lower is a considerable difference for primarily the engine variation. Great if it is but probably V6 in Auto v i4? Still personally be happy if -£3/4k

[TomE]

2 hours ago, Del Lardo said:

Is it possible to spec V6 now and change to i4 in the future without losing place in the queue.  I can't make my mind up between them and a large part of it is pricing, if it's a £5k price difference then I'm happy with the i4, if it's £2k then I may as well go with the V6 and get it earlier.  Without firm info on i4 FE pricing, it's quite hard to make the decision. 

Yes, you can do this and retain your relative position in the i4 FE or own spec sub-queues.  The final decision point for V6 FE will be early 2022 so you can stay in the running until then by topping up to £5k, which is still a fully refundable deposit.  Lotus confirmed to me that build slot in each sub-queue (V6 FE, i4 FE, own spec) will be determined by the date of your first deposit, not date of second/third deposit or when you decided.

Also, if you decided a few weeks to defer for i4 and now switch back to V6 FE, I think you can still retain your place provided you decide before 5 Nov (for UK deposits).  After that it will be more difficult to switch from i4 into the V6 FE build - not necessarily impossible but you may be further down the queue. 

[Del Lardo]

2 hours ago, duncx said:

No idea about your place in the queue if you spec V6 now and then change to i4 later - it's a good question that I too have thought about. The same question applies if you decide to wait for an 'own spec' car - does an early deposit make any difference at all or do you get just once chance to use your 'position' in the queue? If I change my mind and want to swap my V6 order to an i4 order (or any non-LE order) do I then go to the very back of the queue?

Regarding the difference in price, a Lotus employee confidently told me (at a roadshow event) that the price difference between the two LE models would be £5-6K (i.e. approx £5K cheaper for the i4 LE car).

 

2 hours ago, MJON said:

£5/6k lower is a considerable difference for primarily the engine variation. Great if it is but probably V6 in Auto v i4? Still personally be happy if -£3/4k

 

I guess it's not just real value (can't imagine there's £5k difference is cost to Lotus) but perceived value and V6 offering Lotus higher margins.  There's also the first year car tax on top of the RRP which is likely to be £895 for the i4 and £1910 for the V6 which adds another £1000 to the price difference.