People also forget, (especially the butt-hurt Evora types) that the Emira was designed to be a £59,999 car, and that was the MSRP (obviously it would cost Lotus less than that to make it). That was its design target and budget. The Evora was almost twice as expensive, without the nice interior or amenities the Emira has. The only reason the Emira First Edition costs what it does is because it's bundled with virtually all the options, but it was not designed to be a $100k car. If it had been designed to be a $100k car, it would have undoubtedly been lighter and more powerful.
Designing for and building carbon fiber parts is more expensive. If the Emira had been designed with carbon fiber body panels, rear hatch and seats, it would have been lighter like the Evora, but also a lot more expensive like the Evora. They wanted the Emira to appeal to a broader segment of the marketplace, and they nailed it. It was not designed for the Evora crowd, the traffic-light drag race crowd, the crowd that wants to "smoke" every other car on the road, or the guys whose self esteem is directly proportional to the amount of horsepower their car has. It's a true British Sports Car, not a "mine is bigger than yours" car.
For Lotus to achieve what they have with the Emira is actually quite an achievement for them, especially considering the incredible amount of disruption the covid debacle caused, in addition to the supply chain crisis and inflation. They went all-in just to make the Emira, but unfortunately at the expense of everything else; organization, communication, etc. Now if they can get it together in those other areas, they'll be the Lotus they need to be and we all want them to be.