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Elise Delivery News!

7K views 82 replies 27 participants last post by  xxxotic 
#1 ·
I just finished reading a letter from John English about the Elise delivery times. He stated the shipping of cars will start the week of July 12th. They may not be in order due to the LSS issue. There will be nearly 250 US Spec cars built in July, and August will see most of these make it to our shores.

The next allocation will happen in the coming weeks. We should know how many cars the dealers get for the last part of 2004.

I believe Lotus is on the right track. They are making significant changes to get better, faster, and more accurate information to us (dealers) so in turn we can pass it along to you. :clap:

The wait for some of you is nearly over.
 
#3 ·
Just for clarification: Is this saying that a total of 250 will be built by the end of July from the time they started, or 250 will be built in July alone?

If they could build 250/month at this time, that would sound like excellent news!

Thanks for passing the information to us.
 
#7 ·
To add one more data point, the serial number of my car is nearly half of the 250 number, and it has been built and the ship will dock less than two weeks...

Tim Mullen
 
#9 ·
ah, more grist for the speculation mill. lets see...40 cars built for US per week at 40 dealers. i can do that math. so if the allocations go the way they are in MY mind a buyer sitting on #44 should anticipate a car in 44 weeks. of course they are to increase production. some of you need to drop off the list. NOW!!!!
 
#10 ·
But don't speculate too far out. 41 per week.. or even 42 may be a good number for July.. and we know August is kind of a bad month because of the HOLIDAYS....so you will lose some steam then, but I know the plan is by September to have ramped up quite a bit. Otherwise... this is going to be maddening.

And what we also don't know... is the difference at a large dealer vs a smaller dealer.

Average for dealers is 5 cars per month

41x4.3=176 cars per month /37 dealers = 4.75 cars per dealer.

Perhaps some dealers may get as low as 2...and some as high as 6 or 7???? Pure speculation. I have no idea how their allocation is done.
 
#11 ·
So if all the numbers are correct, and without including an increase, that would mean:

250 cars built by end of July
414 cars built by end of August
578 cars built by end of September

Being #19 at a relatively high volume dealer, a car built in September (for October delivery) is my new estimate. Sounds like there's still hope for a car before winter! :)
 
#13 ·
all i can do is speculate :)

any better idea what significant ramp up means? 80 per month for US? then i could start hoping for 20something weeks. that would be a whole lot less depressing! i suspect that in about 2 weeks the depression quotient is going to skyrocket when all you bums start bragging about how sweet your cars are. at least this bodes well for a few elises to show up at LOG in birmingham...and i might get some sympathetic individual to let me ride as a passenger. woe is me. or to put that in vernacular of the producers...no way out. no way out...
 
#14 ·
The original plan was to get around 2200 cars (or more) for the US market in a 12 month period. I think I have also read 2500.

There was also a report from English about ramping up that number if I recall correctly.

If it only 2200 the projected build for 12 months, that would be 184 cars per month, which is only a slight tick up from present build rates. On the other hand, the first month could be considered a very low build rate, and so may August, so perhaps the higher rates towards the end will partially just compensate for that. I don't know.

I know I have heard the words like "it will REALLY ramp up in September" and more than once. That seems to me to indicate more than small incremental bump.
 
#16 ·
Lotus has said August would see a significant increase in cars to the US.

Sorry guys, I don't have any specific numbers.

Lotus will be getting new systems to help us (Dealers) get more info in a more timely fashion. I can hardly wait.
 
#18 ·
_JD_ said:
Being a semi-low lister (#12), this reminds me of watching the construction of a spankin' new student union/sports complex in college during my senior year .
Exactly! :) I had heard about this new computer system, online dealer deal for a while... and when is it going to be done? AFTER MY CAR GETS HERE!! Oh well. :)
 
#19 · (Edited)
DDuncan said:
I just finished reading a letter from John English about the Elise delivery times. He stated the shipping of cars will start the week of July 12th. They may not be in order due to the LSS issue. There will be nearly 250 US Spec cars built in July, and August will see most of these make it to our shores.

The next allocation will happen in the coming weeks. We should know how many cars the dealers get for the last part of 2004.



Thanks for that post, so it looks like no customer cars will be delivered until August. Even if the ship leaves say July 15th it won't hit the US ports until the last week of July. If this info above is true it looks like no cars will be delivered until August. Wow yet another delay. The only reason I said that is because I have heard from several folks that mid July was the delivery date for the first customer cars.

Mitch
 
#20 ·
i interpretted his post as shipping of the first US cars to the dealers...not from the UK to the US. maybe i am too optimistic
 
#25 ·
Shipped from Lotus to Dealers. NOT UK to US. Good God man, don't make it worse...

Some customer cars will hit before dealer demos due to LSS delay.
To bad for us dealers in that case.

Remember Happy Gilmore, "go to your happy place"
 
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