Nope no hidden tariffs here (nor state taxes...)
as for sale numbers, honestly dont know, but Switzerland (pop about 8 million
) has 6 dealerships, and in California (pop about 38 million) their are 11, and whole of US has 43 for a population of over 300 million, the ration is in favor of switzerland
, initially Lotuses goal was to sell 10% of its production to the US
If you look at second hand offerings, as per autotrader only 36 Exige and 96 Elise cars in all of the US versus, 80 exige/192 Elise in continental europe, 22 exige/42 Elise in Switzerland (no Switzerland is not part of europe) and 71 exige/259 elise in the UK , which roughly speaking would put proportion at 80/20, so in line with Lotus sales projections
not an exact science by any means. But would tend to indicate that while the US is an important market for Lotus it is not really that big, and therefore volume pricing cannot apply in the same way as Porsche/BMW.
As a matter of interest what is the price of a new Ferrari 430 your side of the pond ? because the US is a VERY important market for them, and it would be interesting to see their pricing , in Switzerland they retail for about 250'000 $ for the coupe.
And I do think the EUR/USD/YEN will enter the equation since the chassis is paid for in euro, the motor in Yen.