USA/Canada Delivery Thread

[OneThreeOne]

Potential ships include these three:
-HÖEGH LONDON
-ARC DEFENDER
-CARMEN

All arriving into Baltimore prior to the end of the month.

 

[kitkat]

Potential ships include these three:
-HÖEGH LONDON
-ARC DEFENDER
-CARMEN

All arriving into Baltimore prior to the end of the month.

Thankfully none of these are named the Titanic.

 

[silent cilantro]

Guys, I found the ship:

 

[Pixelated]

Guys, I found the ship:

View attachment 33118

Guys, I have bad news:

 

[MIGZ]

When did the factory supposedly “punch out” these 700 cars? No one who has visited the factory (including me) has seen more than one U.S. car being produced on the line.

I saw more than one cars

 

[EZcheezy]

210 pages later... its finally happening!

 

[vcappp]

My dealer is in a NON carb state, but I live in a CARB state….

Could please anyone know how things will go in this situation? Thanks.

 

[Dr.JDK]

Sorting information out chronologically,
First azlambo reported on Sep 20th, 2023 after the factory visit:

......

2. Both the 6 cylinder Toyota and the 4 cylinder AMG engined cars are being produced simultaneously on the production line…..55% 6 cylinder and 45% 4 cylinder cars….and are being produced in that proportion according to customer orders.
No dealer “showroom” cars are being produced…..only customer-ordered cars…except for demo cars.

....

I analyzed the information and concluded:

Very thorough info. I think if we cannot see the cars this Christmas, we can at least see them Jan next year.

Let's do some preliminary calculations, if Hethel produces 40 emiras a day, 4 days a week, and from now to the end of November, there are 9 weeks left.
Scenario 1, Hethel is going to churn out as many V6 FE for the US in the next months:
total US cars produced = 40 * 4 * 9 = 1440 cars

Scenario 2, only 55% of the cars are V6:
total US cars produced = 1440 * 55% = 792 cars

So under the biggest assumption that the US production started this month (likely this week), the factory has enough capacity to produce 792 to 1440 V6 emiras from now to the end of November. If they start to ship cars to the US in smaller batches as opposed to all 700 FE1.0 in bulk, we can start to see cars at the end of October. If Lotus ships cars in bulk at the end of November, we can still expect the cars to show up at the East Coast ports before Christmas.
In the meantime, can CARB approve emira before Christmas? There are three more months left in this year. It is possible.

I also posted this:

Fellas, I am fairly confident that the FE 1.0 cars will ship to the US soon this year. First batch of the FE1.0 should arrive at Port of Baltimore, if I am not mistaken. There are three separate obstacles, 1. emission Certification (CARB and EPA), and 2. production, 3. shipping.
For Ob. 1, its progress should not block the progress of Obs. 2 and 3 because previous lotus cars sat at the port while waiting for CARB certification.
We know from several sources that the US cars are in production, 1. a fellow forum member saw and confirmed with his own ears and eyes at the factory, 2. an email from Mr. Scott at a "L brand" factory in England (don't want to get you into troubles Scott, nobody should shoot a messenger).
For shipping, it is easy. There are so many ships from England to the East coast through the Atlantic. My dealer is in Seattle, WA so the car needs to be trucked across the continental US to Seattle, worst case scenario. How long it is going to take? maritime shipping is about 2 weeks, and truck is about a week, so 3 weeks, conservative estimation. Can the very first owners get the car before Christmas? not impossible. Can we see US production cars running on roads in the US in Spring 2024 (Jan - March 2024), I think highly likely).
My guess is I will take delivery before Feb 2024, as a August 2021 FE 1.0 Depositor.

Another member MIGZ posted info on October 9th, 2023:
Key info: 40 cars per day, 4 days a week. Could crank out 700 cars in 20 days or so.

US car production is in full swing.

US cars are being produced along side other LHD , RHD and China cars.

As said before they are producing 40 cars per day across two shifts , Monday - Thursday. Not all for US Market. But could crank out 700 cars in 20 days or so , more if they wanted to add more shifts.

They have every single color to see , I’m still very happy with my choice of nimbus. Atlantic blue is a great color would be an amazing color if it were closer to purple. The white and grey are a bit bland for a car with the lines of the emira.

So as far and US delivery dates, no one would confirm but it’s clear that they are fully aware of the type approval issue and in a bit of a waiting pattern.

Based on what I saw they are running a well oiled machine at this point the factory workers are just moving along assembling cars.

Many of the teething issues have been resolved so I see the delays as a blessing given our poor dealer network would rather minimize dealer work.

I’m very happy I came and saw it with my own eyes, met the manufacturing engineer who was a prior McLaren manufacturing engineer. He was staying at the old thorn barn. Great discussion with him.

As expected pictures were not allowed.

I’m leaving happy and with a few lotus merch items I bought at the retail store.

While the latest hero is Eagle who got confirmation from Bellevue (dude when we take delivery, you gotta put your username on your side window so I can identify the hero and say hi), there are other heroes who kept information flown in for other people in the dark. Scott, Migz, azlambo, VL3X, etc...

Bingo. getting rid of my placeholder (e92 m3) now. I understand that there are 198 pages so far of information filled with pessimism, complaints, memes, and sarcasm.
Fellow members have all the right to do those given we are waiting almost 2.5 years for this car. No doubt Lotus screws us NA buyers big time. I don't have any other solutions because I don't have another car to buy at this price point, call me a sucker. But occasionally, people like @MIGZ, @azlambo, and @VL3X post insights sourced directly from the factory. Salute to those folks who give us hope in this journey.

I guess what I am trying to say is that, if the information shared by Park Place Bellevue is accurate, my previous analyses were spot on.

 

[virtualmacho]

Happy April Fool's everyone !

 

[Eagle7]

My dealer is in a NON carb state, but I live in a CARB state….

Could please anyone know how things will go in this situation? Thanks.

You'll have to find out from the DMV of your state what the procedure is to register a car that's pending CARB approval. It's already EPA approved, so that may help, otherwise you may not be able to register it and legally drive it.

 

[morphious]

I don't know, I don't think there is anything else now a days besides 50 state compliant vehicles being sold as new. I know with guns, every state is different on laws, but not sure that applies to cars?

 

[ND2021]

Guys, I found the ship:

View attachment 33118

So that are providing a garage for each car to make up for delays?

 

[Nova]

Sorting information out chronologically,
First azlambo reported on Sep 20th, 2023 after the factory visit:

I analyzed the information and concluded:

I also posted this:

Another member MIGZ posted info on October 9th, 2023:
Key info: 40 cars per day, 4 days a week. Could crank out 700 cars in 20 days or so.

While the latest hero is Eagle who got confirmation from Bellevue (dude when we take delivery, you gotta put your username on your side window so I can identify the hero and say hi), there are other heroes who kept information flown in for other people in the dark. Scott, Migz, azlambo, VL3X, etc...

I guess what I am trying to say is that, if the information shared by Park Place Bellevue is accurate, my previous analyses were spot on.

That's some good cherry picking hindsight. I am glad you turned out to be right, of course, but there was a lot of conflicting and uncertainty to the information being shared.

There is still a lot unknown about the current situation. We don't know if all 700 cars have been produced. I hope that they have, but do you trust a dealer's claim on this?

This is not a pissing contest, we are not in middle school.

 

[DerTheDer]

All we have had is hope for the last 3 years

 

[Rainier]

Potential ships include these three:
-HÖEGH LONDON
-ARC DEFENDER
-CARMEN

All arriving into Baltimore prior to the end of the month.

ARC DEFENDER

ARC DEFENDER Current position (Vehicles Carrier, IMO 9375264) - VesselFinder

ARC DEFENDER last position is 37 N, 72 W heading to Gdansk with speed of 16.8 knots. TRACK ON MAP...

www.vesselfinder.com

CARMEN

CARMEN Current position (Vehicles Carrier, IMO 9505027) - VesselFinder

CARMEN last position is 31 N, 80 W heading to Baltimore, USA with speed of 19.2 knots. TRACK ON MAP...

www.vesselfinder.com

 

[eriegz]

Has anyone checked the ship manifests today?

 

[KCMO68_510]

Has anyone checked the ship manifests today?

I wouldn’t really try until the ship is sailing. It can literally take a day after they leave.

 

[DerTheDer]

Can we get someone to fly a drone over the ship in the UK? Actually, called SCOTT our hero over at Lotus.

 

[Medic518]

That's some good cherry picking hindsight. I am glad you turned out to be right, of course, but there was a lot of conflicting and uncertainty to the information being shared.

There is still a lot unknown about the current situation. We don't know if all 700 cars have been produced. I hope that they have, but do you trust a dealer's claim on this?

This is not a pissing contest, we are not in middle school.

Quick question - do we know the allocation breakdown? Are the 700 all v6, or is there an i4 percentage in that 700? Just don't think I ever heard a version number breakdown on the US allocations.

 

[dgrace]

Quick question - do we know the allocation breakdown? Are the 700 all v6, or is there an i4 percentage in that 700? Just don't think I ever heard a version number breakdown on the US allocations.

All FE 1.0 cars were V6.