Brutal lol
thats what I am starting to believe, so yes, we have gone from perhaps a 2/4 week delay out now to a 3 month delay, if you consider we were looking originally at June hand over, with clever words altering that to June build and July handover ie the first 2-4 week delay and now, August build, September delivery which could be a window of 4 weeks right there of course. So not June, but September, 3 months and missing out on the summer and me missing out on my 1 month in the UK a year
I dont fancy your gear change in that one!!!
Amazing cheers for the very comprehensive write-up! I thought you had been quiet since visiting
This is ace @TomE massive thanks from meInfo update - part 2
Boot space: looked a bit bigger than the Evora. No 12V socket but access to the battery behind a panel and hence possible to fit battery tails if you want to use a charger/conditioner.
View attachment 6818
Screen visibility: I'm not sure which version of software the cars had but I had no problem with seeing and reading the drivers display and infotainment display. That included looking at them from the passenger seat while going up the hill. We had a bright sunny day and I didn't have problems with contrast or reflections. I believe there is at least one more version of software to be delivered, which is aimed at optimising use in very bright and very dark conditions. The software will be able to be updated in future by dealers - not yet clear if it will be something owners will be able to do themselves as well.
View attachment 6819
View attachment 6820
Forward view: for the first time sitting in the car it struck me that you can't see the bonnet or nose of the car. You can see the "Becker Points", the rises in the wings that show you where the axle line is, but you all you can see straight ahead is a thin sliver of exterior colour above the wipers and then the road. I tried raising the seat and leaning forward and it was the same. This is even more dramatic than my Evora and Exige and it gives a real sense of being close to and connected with the road. I loved it. But you will need those front parking sensors
View attachment 6821
View attachment 6822
PPF: Scott says they are going to offer PPF for the factory collection people (and ceramic coating too). They’ve found a local supplier who can handle the volume, so it will be done by a specialist rather than in-house by Lotus. Dealer and home delivery people will have to make own arrangements. Most dealers have a local specialist they use. I believe the Lotus PPF pricing will be similar to specialists, so £3000-3500 for full coverage, less for partial packages.
Type Approval: not formally received yet, but another step signed off last week and final sign off expected by 1 July.
Delays and delivery timeframes: Customer Care on stand had information on delays for individual customers. Contact Centre apparently do have this info too (although I've seen some posts from people saying they called in yesterday and couldn't get the info). Delays vary from +4 weeks upwards and depend on several components, place in queue and build sequencing, so you can't just say for example "everyone with silver wheels is +6 weeks)". This makes sense if you consider their suppliers may be able to deliver enough components for say the first 100 cars in 4 weeks but the next batch is going to be 10 weeks. This is affecting ramp up and post-ramp up run rate. From what I've read so far, people early in the queue (orders up to Goodwood Day 1 last year) are delayed 4-8 weeks and then Goodwood deposits are delayed more. Mine looks like it's +6 weeks on the original June date, so into early August. Yachtie had a Goodwood Day 1 deposit (manual Seneca) and has moved from July to October, which is disappointingly long. Autos (V6 IPS) were said to be "bigger delays" but I've not heard or seen anything specific yet - my hunch is later orders may have bigger delays than earlier ones. This means any chance of cars being delivered in strictly deposit date order are gone, but they will still try to honour that principle, now within the constraints of component supply/availability. Emails to individual customers are going to be sent, as well as people being able to get info at Goodwood or call in. It isn't possible to change your spec to try and reduce the delays.
Dealer demos and test drives: UK dealers are expected to have cars by late July. Hethel are also organising an extra test drive programme centrally, using the HQ cars, press cars, LDA cars and the LDA instructors and factory staff.
Customer service and comms: I had chats with many Lotus people, including Matt, Geoff (head of sales), Scott, the Customer Care team at Goodwood and the recently-joined Head of Customer Experience. I'll write separately on this, as there's a lot of info. Matt wants to do something soon as a follow up, involving this forum and one of the other forums.
I also had interesting chats with Gavan, Russell and Will from the braking systems team. Will drove me up the hill and although that was only a minute or so, we had about 45 minutes in the car with all the queuing and the return run down the hill.
Gav had been with Chris Harris for the Top Gear filming and his off-camera feedback was even more enthusiastic, but filled with swear words (in a good way "f***ing amazing" etc) so not repeatable!
I think I've covered most of the questions people posted earlier in the thread. I'll run through them again and answer any I've missed.
Note: if any of you social media types decide to "borrow" my pictures then some acknowledgement would be appreciated
The cars are great and I'm excited about getting mine, whenever that might be.
Finally, it was great to meet several forum members and chat. Thanks in particular to @JumboJet for managing to get pictures of my hill run in the HY Emira.
Superb mate, thanks for the full review, makes the wait all worth it, guess my I4 will have further delays than they have stated, but doesn't worry me, would rather have the car 100% than a 'friday' car full of issues and gremlins that will make me want to get rid and move to another brand 🙈🤝👌👍💛🚘💨💨Info update - part 2
Boot space: looked a bit bigger than the Evora. No 12V socket but access to the battery behind a panel and hence possible to fit battery tails if you want to use a charger/conditioner.
View attachment 6818
Screen visibility: I'm not sure which version of software the cars had but I had no problem with seeing and reading the drivers display and infotainment display. That included looking at them from the passenger seat while going up the hill. We had a bright sunny day and I didn't have problems with contrast or reflections. I believe there is at least one more version of software to be delivered, which is aimed at optimising use in very bright and very dark conditions. The software will be able to be updated in future by dealers - not yet clear if it will be something owners will be able to do themselves as well.
View attachment 6819
View attachment 6820
Forward view: for the first time sitting in the car it struck me that you can't see the bonnet or nose of the car. You can see the "Becker Points", the rises in the wings that show you where the axle line is, but you all you can see straight ahead is a thin sliver of exterior colour above the wipers and then the road. I tried raising the seat and leaning forward and it was the same. This is even more dramatic than my Evora and Exige and it gives a real sense of being close to and connected with the road. I loved it. But you will need those front parking sensors
View attachment 6821
View attachment 6822
PPF: Scott says they are going to offer PPF for the factory collection people (and ceramic coating too). They’ve found a local supplier who can handle the volume, so it will be done by a specialist rather than in-house by Lotus. Dealer and home delivery people will have to make own arrangements. Most dealers have a local specialist they use. I believe the Lotus PPF pricing will be similar to specialists, so £3000-3500 for full coverage, less for partial packages.
Type Approval: not formally received yet, but another step signed off last week and final sign off expected by 1 July.
Delays and delivery timeframes: Customer Care on stand had information on delays for individual customers. Contact Centre apparently do have this info too (although I've seen some posts from people saying they called in yesterday and couldn't get the info). Delays vary from +4 weeks upwards and depend on several components, place in queue and build sequencing, so you can't just say for example "everyone with silver wheels is +6 weeks)". This makes sense if you consider their suppliers may be able to deliver enough components for say the first 100 cars in 4 weeks but the next batch is going to be 10 weeks. This is affecting ramp up and post-ramp up run rate. From what I've read so far, people early in the queue (orders up to Goodwood Day 1 last year) are delayed 4-8 weeks and then Goodwood deposits are delayed more. Mine looks like it's +6 weeks on the original June date, so into early August. Yachtie had a Goodwood Day 1 deposit (manual Seneca) and has moved from July to October, which is disappointingly long. Autos (V6 IPS) were said to be "bigger delays" but I've not heard or seen anything specific yet - my hunch is later orders may have bigger delays than earlier ones. This means any chance of cars being delivered in strictly deposit date order are gone, but they will still try to honour that principle, now within the constraints of component supply/availability. Emails to individual customers are going to be sent, as well as people being able to get info at Goodwood or call in. It isn't possible to change your spec to try and reduce the delays.
Dealer demos and test drives: UK dealers are expected to have cars by late July. Hethel are also organising an extra test drive programme centrally, using the HQ cars, press cars, LDA cars and the LDA instructors and factory staff.
Customer service and comms: I had chats with many Lotus people, including Matt, Geoff (head of sales), Scott, the Customer Care team at Goodwood and the recently-joined Head of Customer Experience. I'll write separately on this, as there's a lot of info. Matt wants to do something soon as a follow up, involving this forum and one of the other forums.
I also had interesting chats with Gavan, Russell and Will from the braking systems team. Will drove me up the hill and although that was only a minute or so, we had about 45 minutes in the car with all the queuing and the return run down the hill.
Gav had been with Chris Harris for the Top Gear filming and his off-camera feedback was even more enthusiastic, but filled with swear words (in a good way "f***ing amazing" etc) so not repeatable!
I think I've covered most of the questions people posted earlier in the thread. I'll run through them again and answer any I've missed.
Note: if any of you social media types decide to "borrow" my pictures then some acknowledgement would be appreciated
The cars are great and I'm excited about getting mine, whenever that might be.
Finally, it was great to meet several forum members and chat. Thanks in particular to @JumboJet for managing to get pictures of my hill run in the HY Emira.
I'll try on Sunday first thing but I've only got a mobile phone and I'm not a great photo-/video-grapher.
Tom mate do you have Insta?
. The position in the queue is not that relevant now as Tom has explained, but supposedly I am no. 34... country code for Spain... so thats nice. Maybe may be m a y b e I will get a car in August after all, but I wont be standing up while waiting for it.
