Lotus MULE Paddles Gearbox!
Sep 3, 2011 | 03:00 PM
#1
Thread Starter
| Teamspeed Senior Member
Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 318
From: Italy
Lotus MULE Paddles Gearbox! Hi guys, today i busted two Lotus during some testing. I thought " Ok two nice Lotus.. " but as i went closer... they had the paddles gearbox!! It was an Elise and an Evora. I've found out that the Evora has the IPS, but they told me they were testing the gearbox, so what could it be? The Elise with the paddles should be presented at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show. What do you think guys about the Evora? Video coming soon!!
Lotus Elise Mule with Paddle Gearbox Testing! - YouTube
Lotus Elise Mule with Paddle Gearbox Testing! - YouTube
Last edited by marchettino; Sep 3, 2011 at 03:02 PM.
Sep 4, 2011 | 08:14 PM
#2
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 152
From: NSW Australia
Interesting - probably there to mainly help fuel economy? Unless they think that lightning gear changes are going to help those silly Toyota engines?! :P
Honestly, I think they need to either go in-house or find someone else, 'cause those Toy engines just don't highlight the fact these are sports cars...
The new 1.6 EcoBoost from Ford might be a good starting point? :P
Honestly, I think they need to either go in-house or find someone else, 'cause those Toy engines just don't highlight the fact these are sports cars...
The new 1.6 EcoBoost from Ford might be a good starting point? :P
Sep 5, 2011 | 12:24 AM
#6
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 3,264
Considering Lotus management has been on a bend to destroy the company and position it for a sale to another group, that's not especially surprising. I'm sure that entirely pointless project will burn through at least a couple million they don't have. 
Sep 5, 2011 | 08:52 AM
#7
Teamspeed Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 317
From: London, UK
that would scare me
lotus reliability
id think id have to get new model after left it for a year for them to iron out the early adopter kinks in the paddle system
the smg on the bmw im running now had the same issues early on ..and that was BMW
lotus reliability
id think id have to get new model after left it for a year for them to iron out the early adopter kinks in the paddle system
the smg on the bmw im running now had the same issues early on ..and that was BMW
Sep 7, 2011 | 10:14 PM
#9
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Joined: May 2010
Posts: 779
From: PA, USA
Seems like the horn and the LCD in the dash cluster are the common points of failure, but those aren't as bad as major mechanical failures common in other sports cars.
Last time Lotus has real transmission issues (that I know of) was the Esprit, and that was a Renault transmission, not a Lotus one.
And the original SMG on the M3 was a disaster. Everyone I know that had one got at best 50k miles from it. We've come a long way since then!
Sep 20, 2011 | 10:19 AM
#10
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Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 748
What's wrong with Lotus reliability? I've seen Elises get over 100k miles without any major failures.
Seems like the horn and the LCD in the dash cluster are the common points of failure, but those aren't as bad as major mechanical failures common in other sports cars.
Last time Lotus has real transmission issues (that I know of) was the Esprit, and that was a Renault transmission, not a Lotus one.
And the original SMG on the M3 was a disaster. Everyone I know that had one got at best 50k miles from it. We've come a long way since then!
Seems like the horn and the LCD in the dash cluster are the common points of failure, but those aren't as bad as major mechanical failures common in other sports cars.
Last time Lotus has real transmission issues (that I know of) was the Esprit, and that was a Renault transmission, not a Lotus one.
And the original SMG on the M3 was a disaster. Everyone I know that had one got at best 50k miles from it. We've come a long way since then!
Are you talking about the E46 M3? I had one and the SMG, while not the smoothest, was pretty robust.
The first SMG's were in Euro E36's. Also, they put them in non-M cars in '04. These SMG systems were not the same as the ones in the E46 M3's.
