De-tune for CARB? No…

Like many of you, I’ve been a bit worried that the holdup with CARB certification meant that they were de-tuning the Emira by re-flashing the ECUs, adding more emissions controls, or just generally raining on our performance parade in some way.

My dealer (who has been very transparent and helpful), has assured me that this is NOT the case.

He has stated that the European standards are actually more stringent than CARB, so there will NOT be any de-tuning. In fact, this is why Lotus was surprised that it has taken so long. They figured they would sail through US approval. But we all know how red tape goes!

Fingers crossed this is accurate and we all get good news soon.

 

[Nova]

I wouldn't trust what dealers say on this. They don't know anything.

 

[Joshbr32]

Little bit of a bump but as a Canadian hearing about the bullshit red tape for the US is funny. My friend needed to file some paperwork from the DMV and like it was a comedy skit they sent him home telling him to fill out different paperwork every time he came back in until he got real pissed and made a big fuss. Took him 2 weeks to sort through something that should have taken him a day.

On the other hand I showed up to get my driver's license as they were closing the door to service ontario and I told them i'm really sorry but if i could pretty please get my license and they did it for me in 3 minutes.

Biggest problem with america (and canada too nowadays) is people get power trips. Should Lotus have already been greenlighted through CARB? probably. why not? typical cali power trips

 

[Nova]

Little bit of a bump but as a Canadian hearing about the bullshit red tape for the US is funny. My friend needed to file some paperwork from the DMV and like it was a comedy skit they sent him home telling him to fill out different paperwork every time he came back in until he got real pissed and made a big fuss. Took him 2 weeks to sort through something that should have taken him a day.

On the other hand I showed up to get my driver's license as they were closing the door to service ontario and I told them i'm really sorry but if i could pretty please get my license and they did it for me in 3 minutes.

Biggest problem with america (and canada too nowadays) is people get power trips. Should Lotus have already been greenlighted through CARB? probably. why not? typical cali power trips

It depends on the people. Administrators have some degree of leeway. They can make it difficult or they can make it easy. There is discretion involved. I find that if you show that you've done some work to be prepared, are respectful and put them in a place where they can help you solve a problem, many of them will help. I would bet the people at CARB mostly don't give a flying flip about how the manufacturers and car buyers feel. It's just a job to them. They mostly care about logging their hours, keeping up with the case flow metrics, and that's about it. Everything else they'll let the chips fall where they may.

 

[dgrace]

A lot of the California hate around here is taking at face value Lotus's claim that CARB is the holdup. Given that Lotus has failed to keep a single promise in 3 years, I hesitate to put much weight into what they tell us. I think it more likely that Lotus had banked on selling a specific number of Eletres in order to balance out fuel economy averages, and they are significantly under their sales projections and late to deliver.

 

[Porter]

A lot of the California hate around here is taking at face value Lotus's claim that CARB is the holdup. Given that Lotus has failed to keep a single promise in 3 years, I hesitate to put much weight into what they tell us. I think it more likely that Lotus had banked on selling a specific number of Eletres in order to balance out fuel economy averages, and they are significantly under their sales projections and late to deliver.

This. My guess is that they're trying to avoid needing to buy carbon offset credits, and are happy to continue pissing off Americans as long as it takes in order to get the financial part done "cleanly".

 

[KAR120C]

This. My guess is that they're trying to avoid needing to buy carbon offset credits, and are happy to continue pissing off Americans as long as it takes in order to get the financial part done "cleanly".

Admittedly I've not spent much time learning the finer details about offset credits, but they seem to fall somewhere between alchemy and crypto currency. In that very gray "trust zone".

 

[WarriorHockey2266]

A lot of the California hate around here is taking at face value Lotus's claim that CARB is the holdup. Given that Lotus has failed to keep a single promise in 3 years, I hesitate to put much weight into what they tell us. I think it more likely that Lotus had banked on selling a specific number of Eletres in order to balance out fuel economy averages, and they are significantly under their sales projections and late to deliver.

There are a lot of moronic things California does. Trying to make emissions be lower isn't one of them.

 

[Eagle7]

There's also the possibility that the people at CARB, facing the government mandate that their jobs and careers must be eliminated as we all dance to the EV piper's song, just may not be too enthusiastic about doing anything quickly. Extending the time it takes to process the backlog might be a form of job security, at least for the time being.

 

[Porter]

There's also the possibility that the people at CARB, facing the government mandate that their jobs and careers must be eliminated as we all dance to the EV piper's song, just may not be too enthusiastic about doing anything quickly. Extending the time it takes to process the backlog might be a form of job security, at least for the time being.

There's no evidence of an actual backlog. Manufacturers are getting EOs through CARB very regularly, including for MY2025 cars. Even Vinfast was able to get their vehicles through CARB with little delay, and they are basically running a giant grift.

 

[kitkat]

There's no evidence of an actual backlog. Manufacturers are getting EOs through CARB very regularly, including for MY2025 cars. Even Vinfast was able to get their vehicles through CARB with little delay, and they are basically running a giant grift.

Yup, this is exclusively a Lotus problem.

The idea that carb is purposefully slowing approvals for job security is pure copium.

 

[Nova]

It's frustrating to go through this waiting game but I would pay some small amount of money to have been a fly on the wall when the news was broken that someone forgot to file for CARB approvals.

 

[Porter]

It's frustrating to go through this waiting game but I would pay some small amount of money to have been a fly on the wall when the news was broken that someone forgot to file for CARB approvals.

There are too many sequential delays for that to be the only issue. I think it's more likely that they tried to do a strategic delay for business reasons, possibly related to additional product release for fleet averaging, and then got caught with their pants down. And they may have soured their relationship with the regulator by pumping the brakes.

 

[Eagle7]

Yup, this is exclusively a Lotus problem.

The idea that carb is purposefully slowing approvals for job security is pure copium.

I don't know how much experience you have dealing with government agencies now days, but they've become an entity unto themselves. They rule, you wait. There's no guarantee that the person you were dealing with will continue to be the person you're dealing with, and when you find out 'your' person is no longer available for whatever reason, the new person wants you to submit all your paperwork again because they either don't have what the 'other' person left, or they don't want to bother to look for it.

It gets worse. The people in the mailroom apparently don't feel there's any particular urgency to forward the FedEx package of documents to the person specifically named on the front. They'll sign for it, but then it can sit there for weeks before being delivered. When you inquire to your current person if they received the package, and include the tracking receipt that shows it was signed for and who signed for it, in a week or two they'll tell you it can't be found, can you send it again?

And all that is just normal operating procedure apparently. It doesn't include any politics or other concerns.

 

[Bear Dalton]

As you probably all know, CARB certification for the Lotus Emira V6 Manual has gone through and no re-tuning necessary! Now we just need to wait for the Emira to ship to CARB states, Maroni stickers and MSO's to be sent out and the ECM/VDDM software update that fixes the start problem to be completed and we can start selling them. The Emira delivering is finally on the horizon!