The Lotus –Price- Effect?

[Ruediger]

According to Bemani `s WS:

Turbocharger - Kit for Celica ST 205 (285 PS ) = 2180 CHF

SC-Kit Toyota for Corolla TS ( 272 PS / 262 Nm )= 9990 CHF

SC-Kit for Toyota-Elise(263 PS/ 250 Nm) = 16900 CHF

I know the Elise Kit must be somehow different than the Corolla-Kit shown in their WS. E.g. intercooler-system which will need a fan for the Elise
But that much ?

Ruediger

PS
The SC shown there seems to be a Roots-type blower (without internal compression)

I would prefer to have a Lysholm- type compressor though 10 psi boost may be feasible with last generation of Eaton blowers, too. Reason: I hope that the better efficiency of the Lysholm will reduce heat load. Do you agree?

[Mean TT]

This is the type of thing that is getting to me. We are all aware that the Elise uses common components from Toyota engines. The intercoolers used in the Elise are smaller and less expensive than some of the large front mount intercoolers used in the Celica Kits. Also, some of the Kits include a brand new ECU. The "elise" effect has definatly inflated prices. Remember you can get a complete turbo kit for the Celica GTS for 3700 dollars. Installed it comes in at 5K. But shift knobs for the Celica are sheaper too, so it seems to include everything. Last night the car in front of me payed 10 dollars for parking. I had to pay 20. Why? Because he was in a BMW, and I was in a Lotus.

[NtflBlueLiz]

I think the Lotus effect is understandable in many ways:

- Fewer cars to spread the cost - really more expensive to develop. Even though the engine itself is the same as the Celica GTS and most of the components are the same, someone still has to develop it, test it, etc, etc so there is a higher cost inspite of being the same as a Celica's engine.

- Look at the thread about income distribuition and put yourself on the guys shoes: over 50% of the people buying the car are reporting an income above 100K, try that on the Celica GTS and see what kind of income distribution you get, why wouldn't they try to get more for it? I would! This is just life and commerce.

Flame suit on!

[Ruediger]

Lotus effect shakes off dirt

The lotus - a flowering wetland plant native to Asia - may not, at first glance, be of interest to the nanotechnologist. But researchers at German chemical company BASF are developing a spray-on coating that mimics the way lotus leaves repel water droplets and particles of dirt.
More:
http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/1/11/5/1

[MattG]

MeanTT, you really need to understand the impact volume has on manufacturing costs. You see, the more you build of something, the less it costs of each. Not only that, but a company's overhead costs are pretty much the same - same website design costs, same inventory and shipping costs, same R&D costs, same salary costs. So for companies selling products for low volume cars like the Elise, the profit per item needs to be greater since there are fewer being sold. Things are going to cost more, get used to it. If you can't accept this, you should really consider buying a different, high volume car because this is a fact of economics that will not change. If you feel strongly enough that things can be sold for less, then you've identified a business opportunity I encourage you to pursue.

[Mean TT]

Originally Posted by MattG

MeanTT, you really need to understand the impact volume has on manufacturing costs. You see, the more you build of something, the less it costs of each. Not only that, but a company's overhead costs are pretty much the same - same website design costs, same inventory and shipping costs, same R&D costs, same salary costs. So for companies selling products for low volume cars like the Elise, the profit per item needs to be greater since there are fewer being sold. Things are going to cost more, get used to it. If you can't accept this, you should really consider buying a different, high volume car because this is a fact of economics that will not change. If you feel strongly enough that things can be sold for less, then you've identified a business opportunity I encourage you to pursue.

I know matt, we are all familiar with the economics of scale, and I agree that you do have a relevant point. My issue is a value comparison. What extra value does the money buy you? I know that all of these things, and even the car itself is a luxery. But a lot of things I have taken issue with are things I think are close to price discrimination. As you are familiar with, you can't charge a certain population a different price based on race, or gendar. While it might be a stretch, the same thing is happening here. As part of the Lotus club, we receive an artificial increase in the price of everything, including parking!

I think in the future there will be many more options available, and prices will be much more reasonable. I have the utmost respect for people developing products for our cars, but we all should ask what value is being added to parts that cost twice what the might for other cars. It is not the materials, and not the fitment in some cases. It is because there is a discriminating monopoly, where 1 company can set the price for everyone and charge each person a price in which they can maximize their profits per unit, not profits for the marketplace.

I am aware that much of this is to be expected, however it is still dicouraging to me, and at a future time and place, I will give the details of some of the "interesting" facts that I ran into during my efforts to have my car turbocharged. It became very very clear to me that I was being manipulated because of the application.

We all will end up buying what we want and the market will bear what it will, but that doesn't mean taht doesn't meat that it is working efficiently for the consumer.

Lets not forget that this drivetrain has been put into countless Celicas and Corollas as well as Matrixs, and a lot of people have discovered already how to develop more power of this engine. The limits are already out there. I am only trying to say that currently we have no way to influence manufacturers besides refusing to buy products. We have no alternative to turn towards.

[MattG]

Originally Posted by Mean TT

My issue is a value comparison. What extra value does the money buy you?

Ah. I see, and agree that there is indeed a value disparity here. Many Elise parts are not good values compared to comparable parts for other cars. However, you do have things like the Quicksilver exhaust which is comparable in price to what I paid for an MR2 exhaust years ago.

But a lot of things I have taken issue with are things I think are close to price discrimination. As you are familiar with, you can't charge a certain population a different price based on race, or gendar. While it might be a stretch, the same thing is happening here. As part of the Lotus club, we receive an artificial increase in the price of everything, including parking!

I don't doubt that some of that is taking place. A good extreme example of that in the marketplace would be Tubi exhausts for Ferraris.

I have the utmost respect for people developing products for our cars, but we all should ask what value is being added to parts that cost twice what the might for other cars. It is not the materials, and not the fitment in some cases. It is because there is a discriminating monopoly, where 1 company can set the price for everyone and charge each person a price in which they can maximize their profits per unit, not profits for the marketplace.

Again, while I'm sure that is *part* of what's setting the cost, there is more to it than that, and that's the low volume aspect of this work.

I am only trying to say that currently we have no way to influence manufacturers besides refusing to buy products. We have no alternative to turn towards.

In an entrepreneurial (thank goodness for spell checker) society, a situation such as this creates a need that will be filled and the market will achieve balance. I do believe that your typical Elise customer is coming from similar or lesser priced vehicles and thus will be more value conscious. Companies that recognize this (and there are some already) will do well. I think the ones that will have the hardest time with this are the dealers.

[jeff8875]

well a little birdy told me I should wait a few months and something cheaper may be coming on the market

[BrettP]

Originally Posted by MattG

MeanTT, you really need to understand the impact volume has on manufacturing costs. You see, the more you build of something, the less it costs of each. Not only that, but a company's overhead costs are pretty much the same - same website design costs, same inventory and shipping costs, same R&D costs, same salary costs. So for companies selling products for low volume cars like the Elise, the profit per item needs to be greater since there are fewer being sold. Things are going to cost more, get used to it. If you can't accept this, you should really consider buying a different, high volume car because this is a fact of economics that will not change. If you feel strongly enough that things can be sold for less, then you've identified a business opportunity I encourage you to pursue.

One of the best posts I have seen recently on this board. Volume creates lower costs for manufacturing, which in turn lowers retail pricing for the consumer. Plain and simple. Case in point is my 321 stainless steel manifolds for our turbo kits. To keep quality very high I need to make them locally, which costs me 3 times what it would if I sent them overseas to China and made 500 of them. Unfortunately out of that 500 I would need to send back 150 as they would be unacceptable in quality and fit and finish. So my only choice is to pay the much higher price and keep control of the quality by being able to visit my fabricator myself. This translates to a higher consumer retail price, but it ensures that I am selling a quality product.

One has to realize that there are approx 1500 Lotus Elise's in this country at present. If i manage somehow to grab a 5% market share with my product then that would give me a total of 75 turbo edition cars. If by some miracle I can get 10% of you guys to go the turbo route than now I have 150 sales. Wow......that is not a lot of sales and why we make parts for Evo's, Wrx's, 350z's and soon Lamborghinni's and Porsche's.

A big part of our expense which a few people on this board do not seem to understand is the development time and money of our system. I have spent the last 3 months designing, fabricating, and testing a package that is so thorough that Lotus dealers want to offer it. This level of engineering and thoroughness does not come at a bargain price, but at what we consider a reasonable price for our product.

At the end of the day we are trying to offer you guys a kit that Lotus themselves would be hard pressed to produce in the time that we have. They seem to be content with slapping on a TRD supercharger and giving you guys 30 horsepower.... We are trying to go them one better and make this upgrade a serious performance car and one that is capable of holding it's own against cars costing 4 times the money.

Anyway I am confident that anyone who visits my shop, or my dealers and drives the turbo edition will quickly change their mind about what we have produced, and thoughts of supercharging will go out the window. Full boost at 2600rpm's, 14mph quicker than stock in the 1/4 mile and a sound to seek out tunnels for! All of that with enough flexibilty to lug the car in 6th gear at 1500rpm's and pull strongly to redline is the icing on the cake. I look forward to my customers getting their cars in April and posting their feelings on this board about the transformation that we have worked on the Elise.

[evomind]

first off brett, i would like to commend ur efforts on the fabrication of the turbo kit for the elise. even though u usually dont address my posts, thats ok....
i said from the beginning you and anyone else will charge whatever you think you can get. most of the rationale among tuners for high dollar cars, ferrari, bmw, lotus, etc, is that anyone who can afford the car can certainly afford 4k for an exhaust....no bull****, no excuse, THAT is the economy of scale were talking about here.
dont get me wrong, its a free enterprise, free market. and please, before i get people telling me how economics work, ill let u know im an accountant by trade. so i have pretty good concept of how things work here. whether its high volume, low volume, u and anybody else will charge whatever you think u can get for for any given product....whatever the market will bear is the simplest, purest way to put it. and right now u have earned the right of being the only game in town.

that said, i agree that items produced in mass quantities will be cheaper to produce per unit than low volume items....no kidding. i think we all understand that. that is where some people around here and i take a different turn. it seems that certain people around here think the 2zz engine is "different" or "special" because its in a lotus elise. many of those people have never had the experience of finding a tuner and going through the process of custom fitting parts to a car. someone around here it seems has given the impression that turbo'ing and tuning a 2zz has never been done before and everything has been done from scratch and any r&d that has been done is exclusive to the federal lotus elise and ONLY the federal elise. thats the impression i get. well, the 2zz is NOT low volume, and the elise is NOT the only car your hawking your product to.
also, the r&d u did and the labor for making a quality manifold is the same kind of work you have done for the EVO. manifolds are expensive, the better ones are hand made one at a time. i KNOW this. u fabricated parts, u molded parts, u measured, u tested, and on and on. i guess they sold 100k EVO's last year? no....its a pretty low volume car. but again, its not the only 2.0 dsm engine, and when the evo came out there were many tuners ready to go....i can count 10 good evo tuners off the top of my head. with many more evo tuners out there, i guess u probably will sell as many elise kits as u have evo kits...low volume vs. high volume here??
lets take another relatively low volume production car that i have first hand knowledge of....the mustang cobra.
how many '99 cobras did they make? 3200?? while the car was still under factory warranty u could get a complete supercharger kit from vortech for around 4k dollars. anyone who is familiar with these cars knows that kit WILL NOT fit a mustang gt, nor will it fit any other cobra EXCEPT a '99 mustang cobra..
am i to believe vortech didnt test the kit? that they did shoddy craftsmanship? and i think we'll agree fabricating a s/c kit is a little harder because u have to get ur pullies all lined up just so, etc..

what do the cars have in common???? well the EVO's generally use a garrets aftermarket stainless steel dual ballbearing turbo. in fact many cars use that aftermarket turbo. vortech uses the same supercharger in the cobra as they do for many other cars too. injectors, fuel pumps, etc are all stuff that is bought from performance shops. the difference is the piping, the intercooler size, the boost, and the tuning to some degree. the difference is mostly in piping and sizing.

some people are under the impression you have started from scratch with this turbo kit, and im just pointing out that making a turbo kit for the elise is not as "exclusive" as you lead people to believe. your using a garrets ss/dbb turbo right? the 2zz has been around. tuners know what works for it and what doesnt, generally speaking. what IS special is the fabricating u have done. and it looks good.

i dont have a problem with your price, thats not my point here. charge what u want, the market will tell you if its fair.
my problem is dont try to tell me how exclusive or special the 2zz engine is.
you know who david buschur is, brett? u know what he tells everyone?
"i dont tune cars, i tune engines..." our 2zz is the same 2zz in the toyota. get over it folks, its the truth.
you have been all over the celica boards with this kit....and then u come back here and tell us how low volume it is, and the 2zz is so exclusive...who ya crappin???....ALL these custom kits are low volume, gimme a break.....charge what ya want, thats up to u, but dont piss on me and tell me its rain.

[Ruediger]

Originally Posted by evomind

Charge what ya want, thats up to u, but dont piss on me and tell me its rain.

[MattG]

Wow, you guys are harsh. As a mechanical engineer, I design and procure custom fabricated parts for my business, and deal first hand with this issue and can sympathize with FF's predicament. Customers have a certain expectation of price, not realizing the quantities necessary to attain that price. FF's sales estimate of 75 units is a good number to work with here (if you assume that's an annual sales qty). Buying 75 of each part now would give them their best price for that qty...problem is having to pay for it. As an accountant, I'm sure you're aware of the impact cash flow has on a company's bottom line and ultimate survival. I don't know the inner workings of FF, but would guess they're only ordering these custom parts in quantities based on what they'd expect to sell in a few months.

You may be right that the volumes for this kit may be the same as kits for other cars ("ALL these custom kits are low volume"), I really don't know and prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt in this case. The real truth will emerge if/when a competing turbo system for the Elise hit the market; that will help the price stabilize at the true market value, whatever that may be.

[evomind]

ur just about right on, mattg.....and i appreciate ff's efforts too, but i also want to point out that ALL custom tuning shops face the same "predicament." no matter what engine ur tuning for.

[etypeiii]

The issue I see with the low cost turbo kit camp is that they claim there is very little R & D involved since it's a 2ZZ.

Thus, if this is true (and I admit I don't know one way or the other):

Just go buy the Toyota kit and bolt it on, and save $5000.

If you can't do that, why not? If it is a minimal effort to adapt it, do it and undercut FF by $1000s of dollars. Calculate how much time and money it does take to adapt it, and divide by est. kits you will sell.

This is not a rhetorical question or an attempt to slam one side. Realistically, if the low cost turbo kit camp is right, this should be possible. This is the essence of the argument to me.



DLY

[evomind]

speaking for myself, the price isnt my main point.....i could write ff a check today.
the point, as ive beaten to death, is that the lotus elise may be a low volume car, the 2zz is not....tuners tune engines, not cars. i guess i would have more respect for ff if they would just come out and say something like, "hey, were the only guys around who have a kit RIGHT NOW, and were charging a premium for that.." instead of trying to sell me how exclusive the 2zz is or how producing a turbo kit for it is any different than producing it for any car they have done...the EVO case in point.

theoretically, u could buy the trd kit and have a tuner shop fabricate and fit the parts. u will run into a problem because lotus uses a different ecu box than toyota, and as the tuning itself would work, the connection to it would not.
the shop that has done a lot of work for me in the past is looking very forward to me bringing my car in and having them build a custom kit.....they do this every day, its what they do. im just not sure i want to dump a ton of money into the car that i will never see back.
i may do it, i may not.....i might buy bretts kit, i dont know....but right now i dont like the fact that i have to use one of his predetermined installers...the place i would want to use is AMS...they do this stuff every day, have on site fabricators etc..they have done A LOT of work b4, including a turbo kit for my evo...its my money, i want who i want doing the install.....when was the last time the mechanic at the lotus dealer hopped up a 2zz?
never.

[NtflBlueLiz]

Originally Posted by evomind

.....when was the last time the mechanic at the lotus dealer hopped up a 2zz?
never.

I agree with this one point you make.

[Mean TT]

I agree with EVOMIND. As I did my research for a custom turbo application, I can tell you that the prices were much more in line with some of our expectations. These companis will advertise when they feel the time is right. Again, the market will bear what it will, and we all know and understand this.

As I said, there is no market pressure to reduce the inefficiencies of a manufacturer. The real custom work here was fitting and packaging. That is quite a feat, and nothing to take away from it, however, no motors were blown in this project, no turbos were starved from lack of oil. No rods were bent or head gaskets blown (thankfully).

I am curious about the installation centers as well. How were they chosen. Were trips made across the country, as well as into Europe to meet with people at different shops? I am sure that there are legitimate reasons for only assigning certain centers to install a kit for the reflection on the manufacturer. No one wants a poor installation to reflect on the pieces of the kit. However, it begs a larger question. Consider this:

Do you think that most people who would be interested in these kits would be educated about the possible risks of a turbo, as well as the reputation of an installation center? If the answer to this is yes, and a person understands what they are risking shouldn't they be allowed to choose where to go, if for no other reason becasue they want to decide the people they trust instead of having that decided for them?
If the answer is no, and people are not well educated, then this issue is less important. However it allows a much higher price as these people are probably less aware of the price of competing options.

I can sympathise with the situation of FF. However, there will be other options out there for us, and for 10K, I might want to keep 5K invested and spend the 5K on a perhaps less visceral, but more economical performance enhancing option which is in the works by a few other companies.

Of course the fact that I am now living in California means that eventually I will have to register my plates to the state of California. The entire CARB fiasco is a joke, and in my oopinion consists of legalized extortion for all aftermarket developers, and opens the opportunity to ticket a huge population of drivers, to raise money for a state that is 8 million in debt.

[Stan]

You make some mighty persuasive points Evomind.... I have noticed Forcedfeds prescence on the Celica boards.

[BrettP]

Originally Posted by Stan

You make some mighty persuasive points Evomind.... I have noticed Forcedfeds prescence on the Celica boards.

Yes we are on the Celica boards as our cams we have developed for the 2ZZ motor are a top priority for us. It seems as though currently there is not a lot of options for the 2ZZ guys who would like an intake and an exhaust cam for their car. As for a turbo kit for the Celica, the only pieces that would be retained from our Lotus kit are the Unichip, Spark Plugs, Injectors and Turbo! So that means we would need to fabricate a new system and then see if we can manufacture it off shore to keep the price down. That way the price would be lower, but so would the quality. Quality is a word I see less on those boards, with cheap being a greater deciding factor for purchase.


As I said from the beginning, if you do not like our pricing buy someone elses turbo package. Our pricing is not for everyone and contrary to what some people think we are most definately not making a good margin on this product. We just love the car and it works as our halo project, not as our main source of income for our company. Otherwise our doors would be shut in a month if we had to rely on this one project sustaining our business.

[SweetDaddyD]

Why is everyone on the board jocking the turbo's so hard while complaining about the price, and totally ignoring everyones favorite low cost turbo alternative - NOS? Ohhhh, there is a big lore around Nitrous, it's gonna kill your motor, blah blah. Yeah, I've had friends blow their motors on squeeze (150 shot on a probe, and it held up through several full bottles!). And I've had em that have been juicing them (50, 75, and 100 shots) forever and they are still going.

It should be no problem to safely run a 75 shot squeeze on these motors, and there are plenty of progressive control options now to not have the harsh on/off that many of you may be accustomed to. The only issue that may come into play is if Lotus has significantly advanced the timing of the motors over Toyota's specs to get their extra couple ponies. Since the gain is not that radical, I wouldn't think that to be a major issue.