Goodwood - updates and info

[Kingslim]

For those Interested in the front plate mount.

 

[Chris2409]

Managed to get a Friday ticket last night so have visited the stand today. My August build is now an October build (12th July deposit, V6 Manual) with likely a November delivery.

Asked about the black rubber strip on the bonnet and was told it was added later in the design to minimise wind noise.

Had a look at the number plate mount, there's a standard bracket that screws into the top of the bottom part of the bumper, then from there a country specific plate screws on for the correct size number plate. For the UK this is pretty much the full size which means you won't be able to put a shorter number plate on without modifying/changing the bracket.

Also had a look at the key, it is big, similar size to the new premium BMW keys, but thicker, thickness of the current ford keyless keys. Got a picture of it with my ford key for reference.

Spoke to Stewart about the driving academy, those who have booked will be getting an email hopefully next week with more details about the events. Does feel premium though.

Sorry but any idea on what the further detail is around the driving academy? Hopefully not more delays!

 

[Emirahep]

Hi Tom,
Pleasure to meet you today.

I was also told that my build was moved from June to August so delivery's now September, rather frustrating when hearing it from the customer service desk at the front,the lady could not give an explanation why...

However, the famous Scott Walker was also there and I asked the same question,to which he gave a very in depth and actually meaningful response,but not only that-i actually felt like a valued customer ,Scott single handedly made me feel like my business was wanted and why this was worth it(he really didn't have to sell it to me but still,he does...)

And this is the key fundamental difference I have found between a veteran in the business like Scott and generic Customer service-honestly,every response I've had from CS equates up to the stern face ,Computer says no,couldn't care less about your delay response I got from the person dealing with customer inquiries today.

Compare that to the 10 minutes Scott gave to me explaining the ins and outs and all the difficulties they've had over the past year and the efforts he's gone to and the rest of the team and essentially making himself approachable (when he shouldn't have to at that level quite frankly,that's what CS are for).

The Top guys care,they've done a great job with the Emira,my hat off to them.

The CS front-could do with some sense of ownership imo,engage with the customers ,have that level of enthusiasm your peers do.

If someone spoke to the CS desk amd not having reasons for the delays explained instead of a Key enthusiast like Scott today,it could be a very different story being told.

Can you share more on what the myriad of issues are that are causing the delays ? Thx

 

[Joel]

Sorry but any idea on what the further detail is around the driving academy? Hopefully not more delays!

Spoke to Stewart as I was asking for more detail on the agenda for the day. He pointed to a lady he had just been talking to who apparently was composing just that the last couple of weeks. He said to expect more details about what to expect on the day to be emailed to those registered already, sometime in the next week or two

 

[Chris2409]

Spoke to Stewart as I was asking for more detail on the agenda for the day. He pointed to a lady he had just been talking to who apparently was composing just that the last couple of weeks. He said to expect more details about what to expect on the day to be emailed to those registered already, sometime in the next week or two

Ok, cool, thanks!

 

[Emirahep]

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.

Thanks for all the info Tom

 

[Davebeats]

Probably a silly question to ask, but anyone in attendance can you ask if any of the GT4 parts will be available for the Emira?

Specifically spoiler/wing

 

[kitkat]

For those Interested in the front plate mount.

Looks like it's drilled into bumper then.

 

[haaaake]

Thanks again @TomE for the excellent info and photos!

 

[haaaake]

Probably a silly question to ask, but anyone in attendance can you ask if any of the GT4 parts will be available for the Emira?

Specifically spoiler/wing

Yeah and how about the Ohlins TTX

 

[Dommo]

My information from Goodwood today (sorry for any that have been covered already)

- I'm July 11th Deposit, original delivery was August but now told October completion, November delivery and apparently I'm car 700.

- Seats - seemed comfortable and reasonably supportive. Plenty of headroom - I'm 5' 11'' and there was loads of room above. I was told the seats at Goodwood were pre-production. The Ice Grey ones were VERY saggy and 'bottom shaped' which wasn't great

- The redline - appeared to me to be 6800 only in track mode and 6000 in other modes. I asked about it but the Lotus guy in the car didn't even know and told me it was 6000 as that was what was showing on the dash (in Tour mode)!! I kindly suggested that he might be wrong and asked him to put the car 'Track mode and this raised the RMP to 6800, which he seemed surprised about!!

- The Lotus Team - All very friendly and helpful and Kevin was very helpful and even took my phone number so he could ring to let me know when they would be starting the cars later in the day so I wouldn't miss the close up sound.

- The exhaust sound - To me, for a 22 reg car with all the restrictions on emissions, was very good. Not fantastic but very good given the parameters. I have a 2 minute video of it running and revving up close-by but I'm not sure how to upload a lengthy video. If anyone wants to see it and can advise me how to upload it then I'm happy to do so!

- Delays - I'm told are not for certain parts but for sporadical supplies of all parts. I was also told that they will continue to build the cars even with some missing parts, providing the missing parts can be added once they arrive and obviously before they are delivered to customers!!

- Paint and colours - For me, I'm glad I chose blue and it is still my preferred choice having seen, yellow, red and Nimbus today. I very nearly changed to yellow but having seen it in the flesh now, I think it's a bit mustardy for a non-metallic paint. I would add though that all of the colours looked nice.

- Infotainment - I got to play with it for some time and it seemed very nice to use, not laggy at all, plenty of modes, plenty of info and good resolution.

- Pedal placement - Felt perfect and ideal for heel and toe

- Gearbox - Notchy but tight (can't think of a better way of explaining it, sorry!) Basically, you either get it in gear and it feels prefect, or occasionally it doesn't engage properly. Obviously I didn't drive the car but when doing it statically for about a minute I managed to (not) engage 3rd and 4th gear at least 4 times. I'll caveat that it 'felt' like it didn't engage but is hard to say for definite as the car wasn't running but I'm 95% sure it didn't engage.

- Number Plate - No real comments on this but as a few have asked about it I took a couple of close up pictures for reference so if anyone want to see them just let me know.

- Build quality - Seemed generally very good and as they were pre-production cars it would be hard to fully critique. A couple of points of reference were, the paint quality seemed to vary on each car (some more 'orange peel' than others), the engine cover 'Lotus' lettering was, in my opinion, poorly finished and there was a seal on one of the door windows that seemed to be catching and misaligned. Also see the note regarding the seats above.

I hope that helps for anyone who couldn't/can't get to Goodwood to see for themselves.

Here are some of the close up pictures I took. I’m sure they will not all be helpful but as we all have different queries that are quite specific, I added them all anyway. The standout and most relevant ones to my original post are the dodgy rubber on the window, the rubber in the bonnet gap - which I doubt you'd ever notice without someone pointing it out and the number plate bracket.

I'll also try and upload the exhaust vid I took in due course, for those interested in a close up through the rev range.

 

[DrD]

This Magma Emira had quite a large wheel gap. Bit disappointing really.

 

[emiraspain]

This Magma Emira had quite a large wheel gap. Bit disappointing really.View attachment 6874

ive gone magma, i dont see much wrong with that, not having seen the latest UK pot holes.. haha

 

[digilotus]

So there’s still no Dark Verdant, no silver wheels, no red leather.

Fortunately we got to see privacy glass and Nimbus though!

Can’t Lotus drive a DV car with silver wheels down to Goodwood for a day?

 

[99Problems]

This is the front bracket without the number plate adapters (that are region specific)...

View attachment 6856

God I hope that can be left off if requested... plenty of us in the US don't use a front plate for esthetic reasons, never mind blocking all that air flow that's supposed to be cooling things...

 

[TomE]

Has anyone seen or heard about an outbox V6 that has been complete even Pre production?

Yes, I saw 6-8 in the production hall at Hethel in January - all validation cars. There was one in the visitor centre during a recent factory tour too.

 

[TomE]

So there’s still no Dark Verdant, no silver wheels, no red leather.

Fortunately we got to see privacy glass and Nimbus though!

Can’t Lotus drive a DV car with silver wheels down to Goodwood for a day?

Apparently it's "not as popular a colour as the others" - well it certainly won't be if you never show anyone what it looks like in real life!

 

[TomE]

God I hope that can be left off if requested... plenty of us in the US don't use a front plate for esthetic reasons, never mind blocking all that air flow that's supposed to be cooling things...

For US cars it's a dealer fitted item, as some states don't require it. You'll have to persuade your dealer not to fit it if you live in a state where it's mandatory.

 

[digilotus]

Apparently it's "not as popular a colour as the others" - well it certainly won't be if you never show anyone what it looks like in real life!

Silver wheels are definitely popular so where are they!

 

[Cachaco131]

For US cars it's a dealer fitted item, as some states don't require it. You'll have to persuade your dealer not to fit it if you live in a state where it's mandatory.

All respectable CA dealers are generally friendly and ask first.