📓 Journals Hethel Yellow Emira in Bavaria

[schorsch]

Hi Schorsch,

are the Goodyear tyres "winter legal" in Germany?

The tire does not have the "snow-mountain" symbol, which would make it a legal winter tyre. However, my understanding is that in Germany it is legal to drive with such tires in the winter as long as the weather conditions are fine.

 

[schorsch]

Today I took my Emira out with my GPS timing gear (by QStarz). Before you get too excited, I didn't perform any acceleration runs because my car isn't run in yet (has 880 km on the clock now). I did capture various speeds at various rpms in all gears (GPS and Tacho speeds) in km/h. For those who love numbers, here you are:

gear	meter	2000 rpm	3000 rpm	4000 rpm
1	GPS	19	29	37
	Tacho	19	29	39
2	GPS	35	52	70
	Tacho	36	54	71
3	GPS	47	71	94
	Tacho	49	72	97
4	GPS	61	92	123
	Tacho	63	94	126
5	GPS	79	120	161
	Tacho	82	123	165
6	GPS	90	136	181
	Tacho	93	139	186

It was not so easy to read the numbers correctly at the exact rpm. I think all values may be off by 1 km/h in either direction.
In addition, just for fun I did a 0 .. 100 km/h acceleration test with a gentle launch and with max 4000 rpm in each gear. Took about 7 seconds. So thats the performance you get while running you your car ;-).
Lastly, I did a break test from 100 km/h .. 0. Full emergancy break resulted in 2.48s break time. Not sure what distance that was as my GPS meter doesn't show that, but it felt like a decent breaking experience. Crazy that performance EVs can do 0..100 acceleration that is even quicker.
For context. Weather conditions: Dry street, 2 °C. Tires were somewhat cold.

 

[schorsch]

News from my side: I have completed the run in period and have just done the first oil change after around 2200km.
I was doing the oil change at Lotus Haese in Wiesbaden as I couldn't get an appointment with my actual Lotus dealer (Komotec) on time.
What was a bit of a surprise is that the service guy ask me why I am doing an oil change now, and whether I want to do it for the sake of "having a good feel" / the feel on the safe side. He was suggesting that the oil change isn't really needed these days in modern engines.
Anyways, I wanted to do the oil change and was drive 250km to get there, so I did it. Service was quick and well. Price was fine too. I paid EUR 285 in total including 6.5 liter 0W40 oil (no more specifics were provided) and oil filter. For comparison, I paid EUR 330 two weeks earlier for my Ford S-Max family car for the same amount of oil.
I did explicitly ask whether new firmware/software updates from Lotus are available (especially due to the wind screen wiper issue) and the answer was a clear: NO.
Today I read that a customer with Komotec got an update there the same day. Rather disappointing given that my closest dealer is a 2h drive away.

 

[hml_xy]

Could be that the latest software hasn't been installed on the Emira that got an update at Komotec. Some very early cars got an update after being shipped to the dealer as far as I know and maybe the one you heard about didn't have it yet.

 

[schorsch]

I want to share another "interesting" experience I had with my Emira yesterday.
I was doing a 1.000km in a day journey (doing my oil change as described above, connected with a business trip).
On my way back home in the evening I was cruising on the Autobahn (my cruising speed is around 200+ km/h if traffic allows) and all was fine. All the sudden, at a speed of about 180 km/h, the car cut off power abruptly and went into a kind of limp mode. I pressed the clutch and moved over to the right lane as quickly as possible and could only drive at about 1500 rpm and the car wasn't accelerating anymore. After having switched down some gears (as the revs decreased), the engine turned off and I came to a still stand right at a dangerous Exit of the Autobahn.
I tried to restart the engine a couple of times, but not success. Then I looked at the fuel display and saw that there was a remaining range of 20km shown (I was actually about to visit a fuel station that was 3 km away when this all happened). I thought that the fuel can't be the issue as I had already driven that car down to 0 km range and could still drive for some kms without an issue.
I tried to start the car for a few more times, but at some point the head-lights turned off and the only thing that was really working anymore were the hazard lights (luckily at least).
Some minutes later a police car stopped by and wanted to help. They tried to tow me away as I was standing at a dangerous place and the exit was nearby. When I tried to mount the towing hook, I realized that the mount is covered with a cover that I couldn't be removed without nippers (which the police officer luckily had). When starting to tow my car, I realized that the parking brake was still engaged and couldn't be released anymore as the electronics were somehow dysfunctional - so we stopped the towing exercise.
Some while later my brother in law arrived (he luckily lives nearby and I called him) with some fuel. After filling 5 liters of fuel into the car, it started immediately again with no issues since.
So, I have learned a few things:

• have nitters in the car to remove the tow hook mount cover if needed
• don't trust the range shown in the car too much
• turn off the auto parking brake feature
• the cars tank can fit exactly 60 liter of fuel (the manual states 58 liter)

In the end I arrived back home at midnight after 1.000km in my Emira in one day. I have now hit the 3.000 km mark and will do some more spirited driving and GPS runs once he weather improves.

 

[schorsch]

Could be that the latest software hasn't been installed on the Emira that got an update at Komotec. Some very early cars got an update after being shipped to the dealer as far as I know and maybe the one you heard about didn't have it yet.

Good point. But my car has the windscreen wiper issue - and it seems fixed with the other car.

 

[emirahl]

Hi Schorsch,
thanks for your detailed information as usual. Very much appreciated. Keep it up. It is a pleasure to read.
Can you give some experience about the consumption driving "typical German Autobahn speed", between 180 km/h and 250 km/h.
I guess the range goes down to 250 - 300 km only.

 

[hml_xy]

Hi Schorsch,
thanks for your detailed information as usual. Very much appreciated. Keep it up. It is a pleasure to read.
Can you give some experience about the consumption driving "typical German Autobahn speed", between 180 km/h and 250 km/h.
I guess the range goes down to 250 - 300 km only.

In my experience the range is much lower if you drive at that speed. 160km - 200km maybe.

 

[schorsch]

In my experience the range is much lower if you drive at that speed. 160km - 200km maybe.

If you drive 180 km/h the fuel consumption is at around 18 l/100km - depending on conditions. This would be a range of appr. 300 km. I haven't tested the fuel consumption of you really drive fast (250 km/h). But I guess it will be around 25-30 l/100km. The range should be around 200 km then.

 

[schorsch]

Today I put my GPS device (QStarz 6000s) into my Emira and did some measurements.

First the conditions:
Sunny, 12 °C
my car has Touring suspension - completely stock
I was alone in the car (I weigh 105 kg) and the tank was filled at about 20%.
Tire pressure front: 2.2 bar
Tire pressure rear: 2.4 bar

1st Test: 0..100 km/h
I tried to launch the car properly about 5 times and the best time I got was 4.7s. The other times ranged from 4.9s to 5.3s.
It is really hard to launch the car properly from the standstill. If you release the clutch too softly, the GPS logger will already start the measurement while you're only rolling slowly. I also noticed that I had to initiate the change to 2nd gear at around 5.5k rpm already - otherwise I'd risk running to the rev limiter.
Maybe with some more skills and practice one can get down to 4.5s but I doubt the 4.3s quoted by Lotus are possible with my car - maybe on a prepared drag strip.
I tried different driving modes, but no real difference, even in Track mode.
After a couple attempts my clutch started smelling ugly and I then stopped to not stress the car too much.
For comparison, my Evora S with the Komotec 460 kit (Auto transmission and 445 HP) did this in 4.2s


2nd Test: 100..200 km/h
I tried a couple of times on different parts of the Autobahn - both starting from 2nd and 3rd gear. In both cases I got times around 11.2 - 11.3 seconds.
The pull felt smooth and reasonably fast. With the sound of the car it definitely feels faster than it is.
For comparison, my Evora S with the Komotec 460 kit (Auto transmission and 445 HP) did this in 10.3s

3rd Test: Highspeed run - v_max attempt
I have some good Autobahnen nearby and hence drive very fast (250+ km/h) with my car rather often. The car feels pretty stable at high speeds - definitely miles better and safer than my Evora S.
Today I achieved the highest speed so far.
On a long straight the speedo showed 293 km/h and the GPS speed was 288 km/h. Not too bad. I couldn't pull longer due to traffic, but the car may go 2-3 km/h faster, but that's it. Pretty much why Lotus claims.
Once you switch to 6th gear the car is not pulling a lot anymore. In 5th gear, it feels alright (up to 260 km/h).
For comparison, in my Evora S with the Komotec 460 kit (Auto transmission and 445 HP) I managed 275 km/h on the speedo and it wasn't pulling much more. Also in the Evora I didn't wanna go any faster - it felt very scary due to the super nervous steering. I guess the main reason for the Evora not going faster was the transmission.
All in all the Emira feels alright on the Autobahn, but is definitely not a cruiser, mainly due to the noise.

Hope you guys find this useful. Happy to share more experiences in the future.

 

[hml_xy]

@schorsch Thanks for your detailed testing again, I haven't done as precise measurements but would say I can confirm the numbers from my (less precise, iphone app only) tests.

Regarding the fuel consumption, what would lower the range further at 250km/h would be the reality of braking down all the time due to traffic and then accelerating back up to speed. Real life driving at that speed for a long distance is hard to achieve and slowing down+accelerating definitely impacts the fuel consumption.

For the brits out there: 25L/100km equals approx 9.5mpg.

 

[dgrace]

Thank you for the real-world testing! Great data!