from my days in manufacturing, many years ago, I would have thought your parts suppliers provide you pricing on various basis, and depending on your contract with them, and certainly in the case of the company in which I worked, the prices would have been fixed for at least a year if not a certain quantity of units.
Remember airlines pre purchase their fuel to protect them from price fluctuations, well I am sure Lotus would be cleaver enough to do the same, right? Best not answer that...
I would have thought, but i may be wrong, that the main companies who have variable pricing are those who sell the raw materials, but further down the chain, well they all just have to eat it for a while until they re-negotiate. The power companies in the UK went out of business for this very reason, they could not "eat it".
I doubt if a parts supplier can suddenly or on a monthly basis or whatever, increase prices, irrelevant of the CIP or PPI and as these costs have only risen over the last 3 4 5 months, then I don't think Lotus are struggling yet in terms of the FE cars, but further down the line for sure they will raise their prices as they see their suppliers doing the same.
I guess it would be interesting to know which group of customers the video was sent to? I didnt get it due to an internal error at Lotus, but did customers who have only paid the 1st deposit get the email for example? If they did, then I would say he is in that case committing to all FE customers to keep the price fixed.
I still believe that this car is "almost" a loss leader for Lotus. I dont think Geely expected to make much if any money here. Its a long term plan and they will, I am sure, make quite a bit of money on the chinese made EV's, just as Aston do and Porsche do(not chinese made). The Emira is to get the name out there again, stronger, more internationally, an on going expensive marketing campaign if you like, but far from a cash cow, even with the large order book.
This is what I believe at least....