Top Gear Speed Week - Emira MIA

[Jonhklee]

Sounds like Lotus has finally learned that giving journos unfinished cars won’t do them any favours!

 

[Leonard]

Sounds like Lotus has finally learned that giving journos unfinished cars won’t do them any favours!

View attachment 9485

Properly set up sounds interesting 👀

 

[912Matt]

Sounds like Lotus has finally learned that giving journos unfinished cars won’t do them any favours!

View attachment 9485

Ooh, cheap shot ….
Edit: Article re breakdowns, not Jonhklee’s comment 👍

 

[TomE]

This week first EVO and now TG with the sniping remarks. Did Lotus forget to send them Christmas cards last year?

Interesting the implication that previous prototype cars weren’t just unfinished but also not correctly set up.

Lotus are creating some new hills to climb to get the press on side with the production cars. Hope they’ve got a plan.

 

[Lotustoronto]

This week first EVO and now TG with the sniping remarks. Did Lotus forget to send them Christmas cards last year?

Interesting the implication that previous prototype cars weren’t just unfinished but also not correctly set up.

Lotus are creating some new hills to climb to get the press on side with the production cars. Hope they’ve got a plan.

I'm sure Lotus have many "plans" - implementing seems to be a different story at Hethel. This is all from the top down. Im convinced Mr. Windle may be a great engineer, but proving not to be the right captain for this ship.

 

[roundincircles]

This week first EVO and now TG with the sniping remarks. Did Lotus forget to send them Christmas cards last year?

Interesting the implication that previous prototype cars weren’t just unfinished but also not correctly set up.

Lotus are creating some new hills to climb to get the press on side with the production cars. Hope they’ve got a plan.

Mclaren Artura press launch, in Spain, had cars on fire, due to oil coolers failing and key transmission software failures.....you do wonder.....

 

[digilotus]

Does anyone recall details of the last two Lotus’ that broke down for TG? What models and what failed?

 

[DJS]

Lotus need to start by getting us the loyal enthusiasts on side first 🤷🏻‍♂️ and then they go and give unfinished cars to the journalists 🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ next thing you know we’ll be getting told most of our cars will now be 2023 🫡

Brace for impact…….😞

 

[Porter]

I'm sure Lotus have many "plans" - implementing seems to be a different story at Hethel. This is all from the top down. Im convinced Mr. Windle may be a great engineer, but proving not to be the right captain for this ship.

Any other captain would likely have advocated to not build the car at all, end all Lotus sports car production, and turn it into a pure engineering consultancy that never builds another car again. I personally prefer Matt Windle at the helm to some corporate drone.

 

[Lotustoronto]

Any other captain would likely have advocated to not build the car at all, end all Lotus sports car production, and turn it into a pure engineering consultancy that never builds another car again. I personally prefer Matt Windle at the helm to some corporate drone.

I disagree, the Lotus plan of building electric SUV's /"lifestyle cars" and entering a very competitive field is their main goal. I'm sure it wasn't Matt Windle's idea to build a Billion dollar factory in Wuhan and make electric SUV's. How many EV start up's are there along with the legacy auto makers? Not all will succeed, and Geely was banking on branding/Emira to draw customers into showrooms. A well priced beauty that lives off the legacy of what Lotus is/was and blending that to what it is becoming. Smart corporate move to leverage the legacy. Much like how the 911's bring in the Porsche buyers that end up buying a Macan or Cayenne because of its lineage. It's the execution of production planning/marketing/CS/Comms/dealer network/direct sales (UK) of the Emira that is faltering. How can you say they have done a good job in any of those areas? They have the lowest social media/engagement numbers of any auto company I have seen.

Even going by comparable "new" EV companies - Lucid Motors, Polestar, Rivian even Radford (which isn't even an auto/EV company) has better marketing engagement than Lotus. More media subscribers and CX engagement. A company that has been around for decades with a storied history to talk about including F1 legends driving Lotus', is shameful to see. Corporate drone's or not, you have to realize that they are not competitive in area's that they should be levarging. It's a top down problem, Geely always needed a 911 type car to tie in the heritage of the Lotus brand to what they want in the future. They made a great looking one, but are faltering in many other area's that should be their strongest. (or at least stronger than most).

 

[Jonhklee]

I disagree, the Lotus plan of building electric SUV's /"lifestyle cars" and entering a very competitive field is their main goal. I'm sure it wasn't Matt Windle's idea to build a Billion dollar factory in Wuhan and make electric SUV's. How many EV start up's are there along with the legacy auto makers? Not all will succeed, and Geely was banking on branding/Emira to draw customers into showrooms. A well priced beauty that lives off the legacy of what Lotus is/was and blending that to what it is becoming. Smart corporate move to leverage the legacy. Much like how the 911's bring in the Porsche buyers that end up buying a Macan or Cayenne because of its lineage. It's the execution of production planning/marketing/CS/Comms/dealer network/direct sales (UK) of the Emira that is faltering. How can you say they have done a good job in any of those areas? They have the lowest social media/engagement numbers of any auto company I have seen.

Even going by comparable "new" EV companies - Lucid Motors, Polestar, Rivian even Radford (which isn't even an auto/EV company) has better marketing engagement than Lotus. More media subscribers and CX engagement. A company that has been around for decades with a storied history to talk about including F1 legends driving Lotus', is shameful to see. Corporate drone's or not, you have to realize that they are not competitive in area's that they should be levarging. It's a top down problem, Geely always needed a 911 type car to tie in the heritage of the Lotus brand to what they want in the future. They made a great looking one, but are faltering in many other area's that should be their strongest. (or at least stronger than most).

Geely bank rolling Lotus for production and investment. PR should have been way better and should have the relevance and reputation of other Geely brand like Polestar. Lotus has dropped the ball with Emira buyers, but let’s hope they pick it back up soon. Having said that, a car as important and as good looking as the Emira, they usually sell by itself - will have to see.

 

[TomE]

Matt was responsible for Lotus product planning after Geely took over, which lead directly into their Vision80 strategy, EVs, Wuhan etc.

 

[lion shf]

I disagree, the Lotus plan of building electric SUV's /"lifestyle cars" and entering a very competitive field is their main goal. I'm sure it wasn't Matt Windle's idea to build a Billion dollar factory in Wuhan and make electric SUV's. How many EV start up's are there along with the legacy auto makers? Not all will succeed, and Geely was banking on branding/Emira to draw customers into showrooms. A well priced beauty that lives off the legacy of what Lotus is/was and blending that to what it is becoming. Smart corporate move to leverage the legacy. Much like how the 911's bring in the Porsche buyers that end up buying a Macan or Cayenne because of its lineage. It's the execution of production planning/marketing/CS/Comms/dealer network/direct sales (UK) of the Emira that is faltering. How can you say they have done a good job in any of those areas? They have the lowest social media/engagement numbers of any auto company I have seen.

Even going by comparable "new" EV companies - Lucid Motors, Polestar, Rivian even Radford (which isn't even an auto/EV company) has better marketing engagement than Lotus. More media subscribers and CX engagement. A company that has been around for decades with a storied history to talk about including F1 legends driving Lotus', is shameful to see. Corporate drone's or not, you have to realize that they are not competitive in area's that they should be levarging. It's a top down problem, Geely always needed a 911 type car to tie in the heritage of the Lotus brand to what they want in the future. They made a great looking one, but are faltering in many other area's that should be their strongest. (or at least stronger than most).

Citizen and I find your attitude disgusting

 

[Lotustoronto]

Matt was responsible for Lotus product planning after Geely took over, which lead directly into their Vision80 strategy, EVs, Wuhan etc.

I am sure he was involved in planning and Vision80, but I am also sure he was involved in hiring directors of media/marketing, production, procurement, sales, CS etc.

The Lotus vision is all well and good. I am not complaining about the Emira or future EV's. What there seems to be is a lot of fire's burning and not enough interest in putting them out. I also do not understand their marketing strategy, removing "for the drivers" to be replaced with ....? Nobody seems to know. Not sure if that was part of Vision80.

I said back when Matt made his video of delays a few months ago, that if they did not deliver on the new timelines and are delayed again, it will prove to be very problematic. Here we are in October and the list of disappointments continues;

-LOG 41's army turned into a single shadow grey
-First deliveries to Europe
-Demo deliver's delayed
-Not 1 UK delivery
-Magazine reviews / YouTube done with pre-prod cars for the 2nd/3rd time resulting in mixed opinions / unfinished reviews (interior)

It is interesting that the say the only want to give out information that they are certain of.

When you compare this to other auto manufacturers that is where you really start to see the issues. It will be almost 2 years that the F/E configurator is up and running without a single delivery to N/A market. 1.5 years for UK/europe, that is a lot. I don't think I know of another car company that had a configurator running for over a year without delivering one car. Maybe a Bugatti or something extremely niche. Certainly not anything sub 100K.

 

[KusaKusa]

It's not a given that a brand positioning as sporty will release a sporty halo to attract customers. Fisker only has an SUV shown. Lucid likes to say they're super sporty and have Lotus engineers, but they have basically no intention for a sports car. Alfa Romeo likely won't make a sporty EV. Porsche says they'll make an EV Cayman, but so far there are tons of details on the EV Macan, Cayenne, facelift Taycan, and Panamera but only speculation on the Cayman; I wouldn't be surprised if it misses the rumored release dates. The Mustang brand doesn't even have an actual Mustang in the plans, and why would they when making an SUV still sold well. Tesla Roadster lol they don't give a fuck about that.

There are VERY few EV sports cars on the horizon, especially committed to be attainable in pricing. It's really just Lotus and Porsche. The easy way would've been just making sedans and SUVs on one platform and pretending a 4 door Taycan competitor was the inheritor of Lotus legacy. Lotus deciding to make a unique platform for 2 doors and trying to amortize it with Lotus Engineering is a brave and mostly stupid move that I give them and Matt Windle credit for.

The build issues Lotus is facing isn't unique with the automotive supply chain as it is. Lucid and Rivian are probably facing even worse build problems vs their expectations. Most major automakers are feeling it, even when they have more engineering resources to work on pivots or influence to source different parts. Ford stalled production because they couldn't get fricking Ford badges of all things lol. And then compound this with Lotus trying to scale up to new production levels and levels of quality with new equipment and a renovated site, all of which is hard in itself but also occurred during covid. Personally I'm okay with giving Lotus a pass on that.

Marketing works in mysterious ways. Just because it doesn't appeal to a specific person doesn't mean it's bad. If it doesn't make sense, that's not a bad thing in itself because cars (let alone sports cars) are such an emotional purchase. The marketing looks whack to me as well, but I have self awareness on how little my opinion matters.

Sales and communication wise yeah it looks like they're dropping the ball pretty hard. It seems the sales director is for the global Lotus organization, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's focused on China and the Eletre. But that's no excuse.

So overall, while they're not perfect, I don't think they're incompetent. I think if the product ends up being good at good price and the company is sustainable, that's what matters. Sales and comms would be the cherry on top.

 

[Matthaus]

Top gear studio related Harris posted a photo to show they are back and in shot is an Emira

 

[NicolasB]

Top gear studio related Harris posted a photo to show they are back and in shot is an Emira

Front and center, I might add...hmm.