Emira Update from Lotus

[TomE]

An email was supposed to go to people last week in the first few batches of deliveries.  The email has been delayed due to quality issues... 🙄

[Barrykearley]

That’s the trouble with emails and these Chinese servers - Mail shots just ain’t what they used to be.

[AK70]

You talking about delivery? In Switzerland, we don't even have an official pricing yet.
The Emira has not been homologated here and no test drives are available...  Think it will take a while until one can be seen in out in the wild.

[dpm]

Hello again.

I just had (with the last hour) a call from Alex at Lotus Customer Care.  This was a call to confirm again that the first cohort of deliveries would now be September.  He also said that his part of the organisation had pitched the idea that delayed customers might be allowed to make specification changes without further delay.  However, he reported back the news that they are holding the line that any spec change (however small or large) pushes back in the queue.  E.g. for this cohort any change would push delivery back to 2023.

Additionally, i4 FE deliveries have been scheduled for Jan-Mar 2023, so if e.g. an early order (like me) switched from V6 to i4 then the delay would be to April (or possibly March) 2023.

(My spec is auto, verdant, tan, touring, diamond cut, no bp . . . but like many I waver between verdant and nimbus so had asked about the colour change. I'll stick with verdant for now, given that my Evora is quartz silver which is kind of nimbus-ish.)

Hope info (not very informative info of course) is useful.

Cheers, D.

[Evotion]

8 hours ago, AK70 said:

You talking about delivery? In Switzerland, we don't even have an official pricing yet.
The Emira has not been homologated here and no test drives are available...  Think it will take a while until one can be seen in out in the wild.

I assume you can order with, and take delivery from, Germany or Italy?

[AK70]

Maybe one can. But normally it is only easily possible when the car was produced within the EU. 

[Arregueti]

Germany does not have pricing for the base model yet (ie beyond the FE), apparently.

[Newnameneeded]

Just had the update call.

Mine was originally a June delivery that I'd been informed in April would be a July car.

Advised today it will be a September build for October delivery.

He did say they were struggling to get updates from Lotus (clearly haven't  had access to the information that had been available at Goodwood).

He also said that delivery period included both manual and automatic cars so there didn't appear to be the significant delays to autos that we've seen rumoured.

He suggested opting for factory collection may cause delays as it has been a very popular choice and they are limited to how many handovers they can do each day. If you want your car as soon as possible he advised dealer/home delivery.

He expected test drives to be available to allow customers with the earliest deliveries to have a test drive before taking delivery.

[KennyN]

Hmm, if they're quoting October for cars that were originally planned for June, then they can hold off on delivering mine until next March.  I really don't have much use for it over the winter months.  Someone will hopefully benefit from getting bumped up the queue.  They've played a risky game cash flow wise by not having a sales contract in place if they cannot find enough people willing to take a winter delivery, but I guess it works both ways.

I will wait and see which story I get when they finally get around to calling me.  When it comes to comms, at least they've been consistent, they've missed their own timeline on every occasion so far! If they really believe they're in the £100k+ market (post Emira) they'd better get their act together if they hope to be on the same page as other marques.  I realise there's a global supply issue in play, but that really does not excuse failing to keep their customers informed, even if the update is we still cannot give you a firm delivery date.  Other brands at least manage that aspect well, it's really not that difficult.  I'm pretty sure things would have been better on the comms front of they'd retained the dealer network as the sales channel instead of believing Norfolk knows best.

I haven't even had an email confirming the spec that I entered when I paid my second deposit...I'm supposed to be happy with "it'll be worth the wait".  At least B&C sent me a key ring, which is significantly more than can be said about the buying experience from Lotus so far!

[Evotion]

This is bad news. October!??   

I am livid really. I know it is mostly  outside of Lotus' hands  but will ruin the whole thing for me. I might as well not bother.  

I still have never heard from  them since they told me I would et the car in July!!

[Newnameneeded]

They only contacted me today because they saw a post where I'd complained about the lack of communication and tagged Matt Windle in it!

[TomE]

It appears the email with the link to the Matt Windle video sent the week before Goodwood didn't go to a lot of people in the V6 FE queue who had already been advised of (original) delivery batches in June-Sept.  So quite a few on here, FB and other forums were still expecting (June moved to) July delivery and not been contacted.  Lotus also said at Goodwood they'd be contacting first batch (July now Sept/Oct/Nov) people in the week after Goodwood - that didn't happened either.  Some are being contacted this week, but not in deposit date or batch order.

This stuff isn't difficult.  Just run a selection filter in the CRM system and send a template email to each batch.

[DaveC72]

I can't, for the life of me, understand why this is so difficult.  Sorry.

If it wasn't for (for some of us at least) contact with Scott and other "insiders" some would probably had given up and walked by now.

Those of us without those links must be sat there wondering what the Donald Duck is going on.

On the back of tremendous good will at launch, pre-release reviews, and a surprisingly good review and fantastic exposure on Top Gear, Lotus seem to be squandering the opportunity to elevate the perception of themselves in the market.  It's a heartbreaking thing to watch.  We're Lotus enthusiasts.

Comms with your customers are really, really important.  They need to be consistent and timely.  So far it's been a proper Cake and Arse party.

I would say that "somebody" needs to be taking charge of this at Lotus, but I can imagine that it's analog to the following:

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

Within this forum, or this thread at least, we're holding on for the car.  We know it will be worth the wait.  For many it's a sinking and depressing familiarity of "same old Lotus, great cars, but..."

It is such a shame.  A wasted opportunity.

We've parted with cash, we're emotionally invested. 

Maybe this is like that crazy, toxic relationship we had in our 20s... the fun stuff was shout out loud amazing, but they treated us like dirt (maybe that was just me).

Outside of the forums/ Lotus Community, in the real/normal world, there's almost certainly a bemusement about what the ownership experience is going to be like - and the omens aren't good.

I cannot believe however, that Lotus are satisfied with the current state of affairs.  They can't keep relying on putting Matt in front of the camera, though.  It's about time someone took charge otherwise Everybody will be thinking that Somebody is making a better offer that Anybody can provide and Lotus end up dealing with (effectively) Nobody.

[ramjet]

I am not in the group of getting an Emira. I do think it is a fabulous looking car and will be great.

Sitting on the sidelines though and hearing people talk about the lack of communication re deliveries etc, it really is a bit mind boggling why it seems to be so difficult for Lotus.

They know the customers. They know when the deposits were placed. As @TomE said, just have a template email that gets sent to each group each week/fortnight saying what is going on.

Crikey, we were using Outlook and our maintenance system and MS Word many years ago to do mail merges to multiple addressees.

[Mctaff]

It’s appears to be a matter of can’t be bothered, not can’t do it

 

[ramjet]

I just can't believe that is the case. I keep thinking there has to be some other reason.

They're trying to make a transition to a different customer base or to extend their customer base. Everything has to change, not just the car.

[DaveC72]

I can understand your point @Mctaff, but that does feel a li'l harsh.  Feels very much like they're trying to, but not putting much process and strategic thought in to it.  I could be wrong.  Like @ramjet says, this is supposed to be a brave new world for Lotus.  There's a lot to change. It's just disappointing (and mystifying) that they're missing the mark.

[C8RKH]

I don't think it's harsh at all 

Lotus, from the CEO down have set a high expectation. As leaders, it is THEIR job to provide the resources (people) to deliver those standards.

Lotus V2 is supposed to be moving everything on. It's time to stop making excuses and move it on This is the expectation they themselves have set 

[Trevsked]

One thing for sure, we may have viewed old Lotus as a cottage industry and tittered at they way they cars were delivered but I don’t recall them ever being this far behind, and there was better communication. We begged for more money to make them efficient in every way. Must remember to be more careful in what I wish for next time 🙂

 

Trevor.

[Graham Ridgway]

I do get a sense of some over reaction here.  We don't have a sense of the actual challenge lotus are facing.  They are trying to gear up production of a new car in a new facility for very ambitious volumes.  That's hard in itself to solve the inevitable problems even when they are within their control.  Also hard to predict when those problems will be solved. Then add in the huge supply issue and trying to solve those problems.  It's not just the getting of stuff, but the rework needed on the designs to use what they can actually get.

That all adds up to an almost intractable problem to predict when cars will actually be made.

So for all those demanding, more info, perhaps they isn't any. Perhaps lotus just don't know what they can say apart from sorry, no news.

So I suspect they are really scratching their heads about what to say when.  If I may say, all those saying they don't care, or they are completely incompetent and they can just do a mail merge (as if that were the issue) are being perhaps somewhat unfair.

In case anyone thinks I've just got rose tinted specs, I've been quite critical of a lot of the things of the new lotus company, but maybe we should just give them a break?

And to compare, my mate is waiting on his new defender and the flow of info has been non existent.  He's just had a message that it's gone into build.  But nothing else is forthcoming.  Which model year it is, what the spec is, what the price is, when it'll actually turn up, nothing!

Sorry for the long message.  tl;dr lighten up and give lotus the benefit of the doubt in extremely challenging circumstances!

 

 

 

[TdM]

I tend to find that the best path in these situations is to over-communicate. They need to inform people as to what is the biggest blocker, where it's sat and what they are doing to resolve. Even if they don't have a firm date and people don't fully understand, it gives customers information and progress updates that have some tangibility to them. This calms folks down and allows them to dig in for the wait.

If you send vague messages to small groups but not everyone, everyone gets concerned, everyone gets annoyed and you don't have a happy customer base which doesn't set you up well for delivery as any niggle (and there will be some) will cause people to boil over. This is where they should be asking Volvo/Polestar to lend a hand, they obviously HAVE robust systems in place, they should be leveraging this stuff.

[Trevsked]

Both above posts are of course true given differing viewpoint, however, Lotus have under delivered on all counts sadly. I’m not sure anyone is really moaning particularly, just expressing a view and killing a bit of time 🙂

 

Trevor.

[Barrykearley]

30 minutes ago, TdM said:

I tend to find that the best path in these situations is to over-communicate. They need to inform people as to what is the biggest blocker, where it's sat and what they are doing to resolve.

Having spent a long time previously in the specialist manufacturing sector  I would suspect given the current global supply chain mess that it’s an ever changing picture. It sounds easier to give an answer than it really is in real life.
It is probably better for them to be very clear in what the realistic worse case is though and work to pull that forward - rather than the alternative of a death by a thousand cuts.

I really do hope to see a car on the road very soon in customers hands.

[ramjet]

They would definitely be  having supply chain issues. Australia has just lost 19 private building companies to either bankruptcy or just closing down. Materials was a major issue with things as simple as pine building timber being up to 12 month behind schedule. When they did get it, the price had skyrocketed. At work, I am still waiting on another of key lockout door switches for some of our machinery. Been 6 months as they cannot get the chips that are required for them.

That is just two simple examples. With a car, there would be many like issues.

I still understand that they should be doing something to let people know what is going on as @TdM said.

[KennyN]

Having just received an email from Lotus, which was mainly about Goodwood FoS, it mentioned contacting customer services to find out about delivery delays, so I thought I'd give them a call. 

Apparently, my car will be built this month and should be with me in August.  I can expect a call in the next week or two to finalise the arrangements and pay the balance.

The lady I spoke to said that the details had very recently been agreed and she apologised for the lack of communication regarding the delay, as they had previously expected to deliver my car in July.  If they manage to stick to this, I'll be happy.