The 'baffling Lotus' thread

[NickR]

A slight tongue and cheek list of baffling Lotus communication from early days to now. I bet there's plenty I missed!

Don't tell the dealers Pike
Best we handle this, can't be that hard can it?

The deposit anomaly
Guess a number, the number of deposits and when you need to pay them.

The stealth lock in
Thought you could change your spec??? Not anymore, ha, ha ha ha.

The mystery of the single colour swatches
Why produce a set for each dealer when you can just have one? Makes more sense that way and we save postage.

The disappearance of the ice grey colour swatch.
Why? What? Where?

V6 rounding errors
416hp or 400, something else? Let's ask Matt ... oh perhaps not.

The case of the missing colour photographs
Make car in all colours.. tick. Only have black and white camera.... boo

Mystery in China
A yellow car with different spec appears unannounced from parallel universe. I4 400hp?

The lost web server password
ARRIVING FROM SPRING, 2022

The factory tour carousel of production
1 make some cars
2 let people see some cars
3 un-build cars
4 goto step 1

We have a problem
Ok, who forgot to order the car bits??

Suspension through obfuscation
Tour or Sports? We don't know either so don't ask, but one is more bouncy .. we're pretty sure of that.

No one will notice
Cars still not built, can't find the bits, and the bits we do have dont fit. Best we don't tell anyone. Someone will sort it.... 'soon'

 

[ksegg]

I feel LOTUS should tackle all of their issues from an IT Agile perspective.

1.) Get a Senior Business Analyst to figure out what all the problems are, identify what are short-term issues, long-term issues, and impossible issues, create tickets for it in JIRA, then work with the appropriate team/team members to start knocking these issues out.
2.) If there are entire teams/team members missing, start hiring for them.
3.) I have no idea if Lotus has a dedicated Marketing/Comms Team, but they PROBABLY needed one 5 years ago, so as to avoid issues TODAY since it's foolish to release new products without a Marketing/Comms Team.

 

[Pav]

May have been posted before but the head of comms looks to have had an increase to his responsibilities..!

New Group Lotus Global Brand centre structure established - Lotus Cars Media Site

media.lotuscars.com

 

[Porter]

This thread is hilarious and awesome. Well done.

 

[TomE]

Made me chuckle!

Plus (and firmly tongue in cheek):

Let's do the time warp again
Everything Lotus-related is going to be communicated "soon".

The curious incident of the dog in the night time
Lots of people at Lotus have responsibility for Comms, Marketing, PR, Customer Care ... but no one seems to put themselves in the customers' shoes and then act accordingly.

For the drivers? Not any more...
We're happy to reference our heritage and previous design philosophy when it suits us, but we don't really do "simplify and add lightness" these days, so we talk about "carved by air " and "limitless" instead. Hopefully no one noticed?

Show and tell
We love to put on a big show: Goodwood 2021 and 2022, Monterey, Laguna Seca, HAC, Eletre launch (interpretative dance anyone?). But we don't do "tell" very much.

A car company that doesn't have enough wheels
You thought KFC running out of chicken was awkward...

What do you mean, you wanted to give us money and get a car in return?
You know we only talk about "product" these days. Wait in line please - that long line of "priority customers" over there...

 

[Mctaff]

I've come up with an explanation for Lotus' approach.

Management got sent on a "think out of the box" type consultancy day.

They taught them that technique where you figure out how to make something good by writing down all the characteristics you don't want, and then reversing them.... aka reverse brainstorming... but Lotus just made the list of bad stuff and then got so excited learning a new design technique, they forgot to reverse it

What characteristics do we not want in our car company?

infrequent vague customer comms
randomly making up answers to customer questions
having no idea on a delivery schedule
forgetting to order all the parts we need
not having a backup in case suppliers can't give you what you need
not having a f$£% clue

 

[BeHappy]

A slight tongue and cheek list of baffling Lotus communication from early days to now. I bet there's plenty I missed!

Don't tell the dealers Pike
Best we handle this, can't be that hard can it?

The deposit anomaly
Guess a number, the number of deposits and when you need to pay them.

The stealth lock in
Thought you could change your spec??? Not anymore, ha, ha ha ha.

The mystery of the single colour swatches
Why produce a set for each dealer when you can just have one? Makes more sense that way and we save postage.

The disappearance of the ice grey colour swatch.
Why? What? Where?

V6 rounding errors
416hp or 400, something else? Let's ask Matt ... oh perhaps not.

The case of the missing colour photographs
Make car in all colours.. tick. Only have black and white camera.... boo

Mystery in China
A yellow car with different spec appears unannounced from parallel universe. I4 400hp?

The lost web server password
ARRIVING FROM SPRING, 2022

The factory tour carousel of production
1 make some cars
2 let people see some cars
3 un-build cars
4 goto step 1

We have a problem
Ok, who forgot to order the car bits??

Suspension through obfuscation
Tour or Sports? We don't know either so don't ask, but one is more bouncy .. we're pretty sure of that.

No one will notice
Cars still not built, can't find the bits, and the bits we do have dont fit. Best we don't tell anyone. Someone will sort it.... 'soon'

Hilarious please keep going this is good reading you could fill at least another 3 pages - can we post it on all Lotus sites hilarious

Let’s give everyone a nice surprise that ordered the infamous Verdant Green - but we’ll deliver black just for the fun of it

To Track or not to Track - let’s wait till everyone books transatlantic trips then let’s pull them - that will perk everyone up and keep them on their toes

50 shades of Grey - shit someone didn’t order the grey paint - let’s bung silver out there no one will notice

Come on we could go all night with this one.

 

[Evotion]

Right now, I reckon I have more chance of seeing John Lennon this year.

 

[Kajer87]

Let's not mention the steering wheel stitching

 

[R1272]

Seeing red
Or not. We’ll entice you with a sumptuous red leather interior, but we won’t show it to you, ever.

Emira reviews finally out
Just kidding. It’s a prototype.

Lingering questions finally answered
Nah.

Silver wheels
Go find a unicorn. They look just like that.

Standing in front of the first production Emira
Will be awesome when we make one.

 

[EspritGuy]

Seeing red
Or not. We’ll entice you with a sumptuous red leather interior, but we won’t show it to you, ever.

Emira reviews finally out
Just kidding. It’s a prototype.

Lingering questions finally answered
Nah.

Silver wheels
Go find a unicorn. They look just like that.

Standing in front of the first production Emira
Will be awesome when we make one.

Entertaining thread.
The whole `wheel availability issue` if true was a stunner.
So maybe appropriate that the Hagerty Driveshare website gave me this message.