Is it futile to compare the Emira with Porsche 718/Boxter/Caymen

[Evotion]

I wonder how many new deposits Lotus have received since the reviews were published.? That's the benchmark, if there's lots coming in then they have achieved their goal. If it's stalled I'd be expecting a b@@@@@cking from Geely.

Well, the old adage is that "All NEWS IS GOOD NEWS" in terms of awareness.

I'd expect those that were already sitting on the fence to highly consider dropping off. You might see those who were in it to flip the car for £10+ get a bit nervous.

Remember this was still not a full production car and, in one case, tyres were wrong, and the situation was wrong. Not excuses; facts.

I just have a suspicion that within a month, when the finished car is given more mileage, that everyone will start getting excited with it.

 

[wallstbear]

Honestly, I am getting very close to being annoyed/tired/numb at the comparison with Porsche at this point.

Porsches are becoming the VWs of sports cars (well, they are also literally owned by VW or vice versa, and literally evolved from a friggin' beetle). Everyone and their grandma has one.

Plus they are just not very attractive in my eyes as I am not into half melted beetles.

 

[Tonyshepp]

Honestly, I am getting very close to being annoyed/tired/numb at the comparison with Porsche at this point.

Porsches are becoming the VWs of sports cars (well, they are also literally owned by VW or vice versa, and literally evolved from a friggin' beetle). Everyone and their grandma has one.

Plus they are just not very attractive in my eyes as I am not into half melted beetles.

Can we start to compare against used Aston's, Ferraris etc yet

 

[wallstbear]

Can we start to compare against used Aston's, Ferraris etc yet

It's about time.

 

[Leonard]

It's about time.

Come on then you start us off

 

[wallstbear]

Come on then you start us off

I wish I was in a position to do that... but the best car I had laid my hands on was an SL55 w/ 490hp (0-100 in 4.5s despite the V8). The Emira seems to be a winner then. Not to mention you will never be caught with a vertically stuck roof.

 

[Toomanyloti]

yes matey is flippin boring

I just see all those Porker chaps sat on the fence waiting to slag the Lotus off because its not a Porsche.

Cats and Dogs in my experience I just dont see the customer crossover unless they think like i do and would look at each in isolation as I see no reason to compare

I'm not sure they need Porsche owners to buy a Lotus. if you really are a Porsche fellow then you will buy one...apart from the problem of actually buying a Porsche. We are off to order two more next week as the lead times are so long. Stealer said if we took em in now we would get more than we paid for em

My Mate has a GTS and its nice but regardless of driving either I would have the Emira first.

PS I moaned to lotus about the seats in the blue emira which made the rounds through the dealers. Said they were nothing like production. I have 18 way adjustables in the Taycan and they are hands down the worst part of the car and the worst seats of their type I ever sat in. 13 stone slim just under 6ft so pretty average sized....

 

[daniel heald]

Lotus clearly had the GTS 4.0 in mind as a direct competitor for the V6 FE and the 2.0 for the i4 FE. All credit to them for setting a clear (and challenging) target. They haven’t beaten Porsche overall, but that wasn’t realistic.

What they appear to have done is get close enough to cause a lot of people to think hard about what they want from a sportscar and whether the Emira or Cayman ticks more of their individual criteria. If that gets more people to do test drives that’s great. If it gets more people to even consider the Emira, that’s great too. That’s part of what “the other sportscar” means.

When they launched the Evora they pitched it between the (2009) Cayman and base 911. It beat the Cayman in ECOTY but cost more, but it was cheaper than a 911 and had +2 seating. What became apparent was trying to pitch it between two competitors (whilst superficially a clever move) confused a lot of people about what to compare it against. This time they’ve got clear competitors in their sights.

Putting the engine aside for a moment. The thing i struggle with most is the luggage space in the Emira. The Cayman has has been clearly stated as the benchmark for the Emira. Knowing this why oh why have less luggage space? Why make what there is overly hot and or less accesible. I drive a Vantage and sticking soft bags behind the seats is ok, hard ones are less easy and or take longer to juggle into position.

 

[switchlanez]

The last few posts reminded me of something I thought of in the shower yesterday and subsequently forgot to mention it here. Does “THE other sports car” mean they are accepting to be number 2 (akin to Avis’s “we try harder” slogan) or are they saying THE other main sports car? If the former, then it’s kind of sad because they’ve set themselves up to be number 2 from the start. If the latter, then IMO we should expect a higher performing vehicle which it seems to have missed the mark.

Not the mainstream but contrarian sports car. A different mix of strengths--which infers a unique set of weaknesses--not seen on other sports cars. Those strengths/weaknesses average out to be just as good as mainstream on balance. But because of its unique mix, it stands alone as "the [only] other" alternative. Not #1 vs #2, but also #1 in a parallel dimension or multiverse lol (just as good in different ways).

 

[CarGuy07]

Putting the engine aside for a moment. The thing i struggle with most is the luggage space in the Emira. The Cayman has has been clearly stated as the benchmark for the Emira. Knowing this why oh why have less luggage space? Why make what there is overly hot and or less accesible. I drive a Vantage and sticking soft bags behind the seats is ok, hard ones are less easy and or take longer to juggle into position.

Boggles the mind that they had a competitor in mind and came up short. God I wanted to love the Emira and be blown away by it. Was at local Porsche dealer yesterday for service and inquired about a GTS 4.0 or GT4. 12-18 months out with ADM. I know someone that can get me either at MSRP so depending on how the Emira test drives, I have a backup option. We’ll see how things go. Thinking European Delivery and then Experience Center in LA with a Porsche isn’t shabby at all.

 

[ksegg]

Never really cared for comparisons. Always just got what I like and go with it.

At the end of the day, I just want a Lotus Emira, because it fits exactly what I want in a weekend toy.

 

[Nova]

Boggles the mind that they had a competitor in mind and came up short. God I wanted to love the Emira and be blown away by it. Was at local Porsche dealer yesterday for service and inquired about a GTS 4.0 or GT4. 12-18 months out with ADM. I know someone that can get me either at MSRP so depending on how the Emira test drives, I have a backup option. We’ll see how things go. Thinking European Delivery and then Experience Center in LA with a Porsche isn’t shabby at all.

Boggles the mind? Should Samsung stop making phones if they can't topple the iPhone on every single performance metric?

 

[Nova]

Putting the engine aside for a moment. The thing i struggle with most is the luggage space in the Emira. The Cayman has has been clearly stated as the benchmark for the Emira. Knowing this why oh why have less luggage space? Why make what there is overly hot and or less accesible. I drive a Vantage and sticking soft bags behind the seats is ok, hard ones are less easy and or take longer to juggle into position.

Really? The one thing you struggle the *MOST* for a 2-door mid-engine sports car is luggage space?

 

[Nova]

I don't think any derivative of the V6 will 'beat' any Cayman.
A beefed up DCT AMG has a decent chance to match the GT4 in every department but sound.

In what sense?

 

[CarGuy07]

Boggles the mind? Should Samsung stop making phones if they can't topple the iPhone on every single performance metric?

Huh? Your question makes no sense. Samsung and Apple are the two largest phone makers in the world and you have two choices: Android or iOs. In this case, Lotus is a tiny, tiny maker vs Porsche. If they wanted to be in contention, they should be very focused do well in most, if not all categories. There’s a reason why Samsung is so popular and it’s not because their phones fall short on all aspects.

I’ll turn it around and ask you this: what performance metrics does the Emira win in? I never said they should win all out (although it would be nice if it did), but based on everything we have seen so far, they’ve come up short on most things. Your response implies that Emira wins in most metrics (not all, but most).

 

[Nova]

Huh? Your question makes no sense. Samsung and Apple are the two largest phone makers in the world and you have two choices: Android or iOs. In this case, Lotus is a tiny, tiny maker vs Porsche. If they wanted to be in contention, they should be very focused do well in most, if not all categories. There’s a reason why Samsung is so popular and it’s not because their phones fall short on all aspects.

I’ll turn it around and ask you this: what performance metrics does the Emira win in? I never said they should win all out (although it would be nice if it did), but based on everything we have seen so far, they’ve come up short on most things. Your response implies that Emira wins in most metrics (not all, but most).

I don't see how you can read that implication into what I wrote and I didn't write "not all, but most"; I don't know where you got that.

The point here is that Emira doesn't have to beat Cayman on any performance metric for it to be a success or for it to be chosen over the Cayman by some set of buyers. If you are not in that set of buyers, that's perfectly fine, but it shouldn't boggle your mind that Lotus offers a different design/performance/features/price mix than the Cayman.

 

[FederGigant]

Boggles the mind that they had a competitor in mind and came up short. God I wanted to love the Emira and be blown away by it. Was at local Porsche dealer yesterday for service and inquired about a GTS 4.0 or GT4. 12-18 months out with ADM. I know someone that can get me either at MSRP so depending on how the Emira test drives, I have a backup option. We’ll see how things go. Thinking European Delivery and then Experience Center in LA with a Porsche isn’t shabby at all.

What you and all the others don't seem to take into consideration regarding the Cayman is that if you have close to two years of lead time, you probably won't get one, because they won't be built that long anymore. At least that's what I guess. They claimed that the Cayman and Boxster will be fully electric from the next generation onwards and that this will happen in 2024. At this point the Cayman will be 8 years old which seems like a realistic product cycle (gen 1 was built for 8 years and gen 2 for 3 years, because gen 3 builds up on that).

 

[CarGuy07]

What you and all the others don't seem to take into consideration regarding the Cayman is that if you have close to two years of lead time, you probably won't get one, because they won't be built that long anymore. At least that's what I guess. They claimed that the Cayman and Boxster will be fully electric from the next generation onwards and that this will happen in 2024. At this point the Cayman will be 8 years old which seems like a realistic product cycle (gen 1 was built for 8 years and gen 2 for 3 years, because gen 3 builds up on that).

Dealers don’t know when they’ll stop production on the 718. BMW recently announced they will continue making certain models longer than expected (or was it Porsche?) so others might follow. One dealer in SoCal told me they have an allocation for GTS 4.0 in September. GTS isn’t hard to get, GT4 is. I feel that inventory will increase by end of year. Anyway, We’ll see how test drive goes with Emira. I am in no way needing another car; I just would like another.

 

[Hedge]

Can we start to compare against used Aston's, Ferraris etc yet

I already did!
Aston Vantage c.2016 seems to be the V6 natural competition. Beauty and character over modern performance and dynamic ability. I would also compare to an Evora 400, but that beats the Emira on performance and possibly driving dynamics.

It’s still a very special car though, given there are so few of those others I mentioned actually built.

The i4 *may* make it a competitor for the Caymans. If tuned it may even make it a competitor or better than the GT4…or may not.

 

[switchlanez]

Emira doesn't need to beat Cayman in performance metrics. Just needs to be on par or even sub-par in some but within striking distance. Emira's ace in the hole isn't magazine racing but emotional appeal. This is where the argument gets subjective and muddied.

People buy sports cars on emotional appeal, a smaller niche buy for track utility. Granted part of that emotional appeal is based on performance but not always 100%. More like a form/function split ratio which varies per person. I imagine Porsche buyers care >50% for function, Emira buyers care >50% for form (except Porsche diehards who think the looks of Cayman > Emira). My guess on what mainstream buyers care more about? Form aka vanity which includes rarity where Emira also wins. So long as it also performs with competence. Then there's the subset of geeks (us) who care about driver engagement. Emira [I hope] should satisfy us but we, once Lotus's main target customer, are now a small subset of the larger superset of casual sports car buyers who don't care for driving feel. Brand awareness and prestige will weigh in Porsche's favor to ultimately win overall. That's where Lotus can't out-Porsche a Porsche. But the real victory is how much market share Emira steals away. It doesn't need a majority. A mental tug of war between form vs function will be fought internally by customers in showroom floors around the world.

Emira objectively and subjectively seems ready for showtime. The main showstopper holding back its full potential? Marketing. By extension, that includes a limited dealer network which hurts brand awareness. Won't even blip on the average Joe/ordinary Jane's radars if they've never heard of it. Lotus needs to pull an Esprit or Elise on this one (both eras predate my generation). How? Appearances in culturally relevant movies like James Bond or Pretty Woman. (In both, form mattered over function.) Being in the next arc of MCU films might do. Like that R8 showstopper moment in Iron Man but appealing to the current generation of sports car buyers. Or maybe the next hit reality show on streaming platforms with cast members who have millions of IG follows. Which leads to my next point...

A crucial area marketing should get savvy on: Web 2.0 marketing. Maybe the GT-R was born into it, then BRZ/FR-S/GR 86, Huracan, the Z, BMW has strong footing, and C8 is still knocking it out of the park (rap song "Adderall (Corvette Corvette)" unintentionally became a TikTok challenge because the C8 gained relevance among Gen Z and millennials). Then there are the endless YouTube content creators with their car builds, many with C8s. GM smartly embraced this by inviting a YouTuber (Emelia Hartford, C8 modding chick) to the filming of its Z06 announcement "documentary" (edited to mimic the drama of a documentary). If Lotus could embrace mod culture, form partnerships with aftermarket fabricators like GM has done (to the point of offering aftermarket parts as options on the C8's official Build & Price site), and be accessible to Web 2.0 "influencers," it would have a hit.

Anyway, I'm starting to merge game theory into marketing and should stop. I doubt Lotus has endless tranches of capital to devise GM or Porsche levels of marketing strategy. In which case success can't be manufactured but needs to be organic. It needs to go viral like how the Elise got carried. By "carried" I mean OP (overpowered in gaming) by a glitch, hack, or imbalance in the system that intrinsically grants a woefully unfair advantage. Elise was an abnormal genius of pure handling talent and lightness that didn't exist elsewhere. I think Esprit had that to some extent but its wedge styling nailed the industry with perfect timing. Can anyone think of similar scenarios playing out for Emira? I think its path to success would mimic something closer to the Esprit formula, sort of an Esprit 2.0.

#ForTheGamers