Quick U.S. Update

[TomE]

I wish it was first come first serve but unfortunately it can be confirmed that it 100% is not the case outside of your line at the dealership (as long as THEY aren’t playing tricks). For example the NA market under Lotus USA has mid August depositors who have confirmed FE builds while mid-July depositors at my dealer are looking at 2023 base edition at best and might get pushed to 2024. IMO it’s shameful that Lotus allocated this way rather than treating all customers fairly.

Remember that Lotus don't and can't control how the dealers operate on key aspects of this. For example, they allocate Dealer 1 a block of 20 cars for 2022 and Dealer 2 gets 10. Dealer 1 took 10 deposits in July 2021 after reveal then another 30 during the roadshow in December. Dealer 2 took 2 deposits after the reveal, none at the roadshows because the car didn't go to them, then 15 in January. 8 of Dealer 2's January people will get FEs and get them sooner than Dealer 1's 10 of 30 who placed roadshow deposits, and 20 of the Dealer 1 folks won't even get an FE despite putting deposit down before Dealer 2's January ones. This assumes the lines just work as expected, without any markup-related line jumping or "favours".

This all looks really unfair to customers, and it is. But it's a fault of the system in the US and Lotus has very limited means to change that right now.

 

[TomE]

What's odd is this kind of thing is new to me.

When I went to order my 2020 M2 Comp, it was actually not planned. I was just going for a random drive on a Saturday morning, got lost, and saw a BMW dealership in the middle of nowhere.

Now, you'd have to understand that I spend all of 2018-2019 trying to find a BMW dealer with an allocation for an M2 but no such luck. No dealers even had any "in stock" as it was mostly an "order only" car.

So when I walked in, I nonchalantly asked if they happened to have an allocation for an M2 Comp, and - to my stunned surprise - they said they did. I immediately put down a deposit, did the paperwork, (had a nice lunch; they ordered me lunch, on them), and 6 months later, a brand new M2 Comp (which I got for MSRP) in my spec showed up.

THAT is how ordering a car SHOULD be. No fuss, no drama, just a lovely overall experience.

This whole nepotism/favortism, high ADMs, waiting for an eternity - when the hell did this nonsense start to take place?

It's absolutely unacceptable.

That's how things work in a normal market, pre-Covid, with a car already in production and where demand isn't five times the supply (and a dose of luck to find a dealer with allocation they hadn't sold).

There are many of the US Lotus dealers who committed to selling at MSRP and are sticking by that. In normal circumstances (and people did pre-Covid) you could vote with your feet, shop around, cancel your deposit and go to another dealer to get a car at MSRP or better. When demand significantly outstrips supply, dealers behave differently. Sadly for the Emira, if you cancel and move you'll add 12-18 months to your deliver date. Some dealers are taking advantage of that. It's not fair, but they can do it and get away with it. It's not unique to Lotus.

 

[DF_Toronto]

Remember that Lotus don't and can't control how the dealers operate on key aspects of this. For example, they allocate Dealer 1 a block of 20 cars for 2022 and Dealer 2 gets 10. Dealer 1 took 10 deposits in July 2021 after reveal then another 30 during the roadshow in December. Dealer 2 took 2 deposits after the reveal, none at the roadshows because the car didn't go to them, then 15 in January. 8 of Dealer 2's January people will get FEs and get them sooner than Dealer 1's 10 of 30 who placed roadshow deposits, and 20 of the Dealer 1 folks won't even get an FE despite putting deposit down before Dealer 2's January ones. This assumes the lines just work as expected, without any markup-related line jumping or "favours".

This all looks really unfair to customers, and it is. But it's a fault of the system in the US and Lotus has very limited means to change that right now.

I guess I just don't understand why they couldn't offer FE's in NA to the first 700 customers to place their deposits in NA etc. If 300 pass on it then offer to those 701-1000. Still doesn't make sense to me but I guess it's something to do with the arrangements which are a bit confusing to me.

 

[TomE]

Because Lotus in the US doesn’t sell to the end customer, they sell to the dealers.

 

[ksegg]

That's how things work in a normal market, pre-Covid, with a car already in production and where demand isn't five times the supply (and a dose of luck to find a dealer with allocation they hadn't sold).

There are many of the US Lotus dealers who committed to selling at MSRP and are sticking by that. In normal circumstances (and people did pre-Covid) you could vote with your feet, shop around, cancel your deposit and go to another dealer to get a car at MSRP or better. When demand significantly outstrips supply, dealers behave differently. Sadly for the Emira, if you cancel and move you'll add 12-18 months to your deliver date. Some dealers are taking advantage of that. It's not fair, but they can do it and get away with it. It's not unique to Lotus.

Totally understand. And I'm not blaming Lotus for any wrong-doing - this is the first time they've done something like this, and I get that they need time to not just ramp up production, but finish building the facilities themselves, plus sort out the business ops end of things. Lots of work to do for sure.

I'll be keeping my deposit and my place in line. I think I'm overall frustrated with the entirety of how broken the supply chain is, globally.

We're 2+ years into the pandemic, and I haven't seen that much progress with resolving any major sections of it.

 

[TomE]

I know what you mean. It’s not just affecting cars, it’s most things. It’s going to take 1-2 years for supply chains to stabilise. Interesting article on some of the factors involved:

Good Luck Trying to Fix the Supply Chain Crisis

The system of getting things from A to B is broken. Fixing it will involve rethinking how pretty much everything moves.

www.wired.com

 

[DF_Toronto]

Because Lotus in the US doesn’t sell to the end customer, they sell to the dealers.

Thanks Tom, don’t mean to frustrate you . I guess they can’t but what I’m saying would be if the dealer submitted 16 deposits to Lotus that were in the first 700, that would be their allocation. Appreciate you responding to everything once again despite being so repetitive.

 

[eclat2emira]

I work in a business where there is a two year lead time from hitting market… when the pandemic hit and everything started to lockdown, manufactures started to plan for the worse and cut back everything. So things hitting the market now was based off the info at hand in the beginning of the pandemic.

No one could have predicted how fast everything bounced back. That two year delay still exists… thus the delay to recover, but now there is built up demand. To grow responsibly you want to always have more demand than supply… Something Porsche knows and intentionally practices. It pisses off customers in the process, but it sustains your business.

Now look on the flip side… Peloton, they forecasted wrong and assumed their demand would continue and had increased supply. Well reality was people are going back to gyms and not working out from home anymore leaving them with diminishing demand… ending up laying off 2500 employees, founder stepping down as the head and on they are on the verge of selling The company.

Which scenario would you rather be?

It’s all a huge gamble… better to be safe rather than sorry.

Most people in this Amazon next day delivery era assume things are just made as fast… reality is that there is huge behind the scenes planning happening in the background that some people have no clue happens.

Couldn't agree more. I know that is of no comfort to anyone (everone?) waiting longer than they'd like for their Emira but I'm sure no-one wants Lotus to bet the farm on high sustained demand?

Putting on a second shift must be a huge decision for them and a bit of a gamble, but then they risk leaking orders if people have to wait too long, catch 22.

Will need a sustained, expertly executed PR programme to keep demand up at current levels; the test reviews and ongoing tests will be part of that, then it will be creative features, teasers about new editions, GT4 stories and launch, then upgrade options.

All of which I am really looking forward to!

 

[Eagle7]

Congrats! that’s great news!
I’m #14 and Bellevue told me that my order to Lotus will be factory accepted late March/early April with a November delivery. Did they give you a delivery eta?

No not yet. My sales guy said he'd be contacting me next week with all the details.

 

[TomE]

I work in a business where there is a two year lead time from hitting market… when the pandemic hit and everything started to lockdown, manufactures started to plan for the worse and cut back everything. So things hitting the market now was based off the info at hand in the beginning of the pandemic.

No one could have predicted how fast everything bounced back. That two year delay still exists… thus the delay to recover, but now there is built up demand. To grow responsibly you want to always have more demand than supply… Something Porsche knows and intentionally practices. It pisses off customers in the process, but it sustains your business.

Now look on the flip side… Peloton, they forecasted wrong and assumed their demand would continue and had increased supply. Well reality was people are going back to gyms and not working out from home anymore leaving them with diminishing demand… ending up laying off 2500 employees, founder stepping down as the head and on they are on the verge of selling The company.

Which scenario would you rather be?

It’s all a huge gamble… better to be safe rather than sorry.

Most people in this Amazon next day delivery era assume things are just made as fast… reality is that there is huge behind the scenes planning happening in the background that some people have no clue happens.

This is spot on. Automakers were hard hit but many other industries were also affected by the scenario of turning the taps off at the start of the pandemic and now struggling to get the flow going again. In a lot of cases their suppliers ramped down so much that it'll take a year or two to get back to how things were.

Remember Lotus sold about 1,500-1,700 cars per year globally pre-pandemic. Then took that number of Emira deposits in 3 DAYS at Goodwood. That kind of scaling up is immense, even when you planned on 5,000 per year and had acceleration plans to get to 15,000. If Lotus deliver 3,500 Emiras in 2022 starting from June and then 10,000 in 2023 that'll be more than twice the number of Evoras sold in its 12 YEARS of production.

 

[TomE]

Thanks Tom, don’t mean to frustrate you . I guess they can’t but what I’m saying would be if the dealer submitted 16 deposits to Lotus that were in the first 700, that would be their allocation. Appreciate you responding to everything once again despite being so repetitive.

No worries, I know it's frustrating for all of us. It's also frustrating for Lotus, who would like to change the relationship with dealers and customers in the US but are hampered by contracts and legislation, as well as there own bandwidth to make those changes alongside everything else they are doing.

We've seen them change the UK retailing model over the last 12 months and I expect we'll see changes in the US too, but it'll probably take them 2 years to achieve. I expect it'll be geared around the ramp up of the new range of EVs and we won't see much until 2023 other than several new dealers being added in 2022. It would be interesting to know what style of contracts those new dealers will have, if it is part of paving the way for a new operating model.

 

[virtualmacho]

Easy fix: Bring the US back into the Empire.

 

[Skymira]

Easy fix: Bring the US back into the Empire.

The direction things are going in here right now I'm not sure the "empire" would want us LoL!

 

[SlavaUkraini]

For fucks sake, my dealer just messaged me saying they have a FE available now but its at a 15K ADM. They can go fuck themselves

 

[TXEMIRA]

For fucks sake, my dealer just messaged me saying they have a FE available now but its at a 15K ADM. They can go fuck themselves

#ForThePopcorn name names here.

 

[PaulP]

For fucks sake, my dealer just messaged me saying they have a FE available now but its at a 15K ADM. They can go fuck themselves

Good for you. I personally would be pissed off every time I drove a car I got ripped off on like that.

 

[Pegasi]

For fucks sake, my dealer just messaged me saying they have a FE available now but its at a 15K ADM. They can go fuck themselves

Can you stay in line for a base?

So a bigger question, at what point can people in Base Camp ditch their deposits with their dealer and just buy from any Lotus dealer in the country? I guess that will be when the backlog is cleared which may be 2024.

I am not sure I would pay 15K for an FE. I am not knocking the FE but why do they think it's worth 15K more? Do they just think people will pay so that they don't have to wait for a base? It's not like it's a Z06 or something.

 

[TXEMIRA]

Can you stay in line for a base?

So a bigger question, at what point can people in Base Camp ditch their deposits with their dealer and just buy from any Lotus dealer in the country? I guess that will be when the backlog is cleared which may be 2024.

I am not sure I would pay 15K for an FE. I am not knocking the FE but why do they think it's worth 15K more? Do they just think people will pay so that they don't have to wait for a base? It's not like it's a Z06 or something.

Exactly. Pay the $1,500 shipping. Done.

 

[ksegg]

Ahhh ADM. The thing that made me hate Porsche!

 

[SlavaUkraini]

#ForThePopcorn name names here.

Lotus of Glenview