Australian Atom - are we getting close?

[wisp]

[quote="xr_ated"]
Anyone heard any news on when the Atom will be road legal in OZ?

IMG haven't updated their web site for a while.  Does that mean things have stalled again for an Australian Atom?
[/quote]

Good question. There's also been no promotion of the product on this side of the ditch in almost four years as well. IMO that's pretty poor considering they are road legal here. The last car sold in NZ was in November of 2006.

[CapsicumDreams]

Hi Todd,

I hope since you removed the communication bottleneck betwixt the factory & Australian clients that OWI apparently was, that you are getting the appropriate constant feedback from the factory as enthusiastically promised during distributor changeover. I'm also impressed that IMG have passed the pull-test. All credit due.

[aatom83]

well ive decided to give purchasing an atom in australia a miss for numerous reason. financial as well as usage reasons.
i am however moving to the uk and will buy a 2nd hand one which is going to save me a ton of money as well as give me far more tracks to use it on.
so long australia, good luck.

[apollyon25]

and just like that... YET another Australian sale dies...

[Todka]

[quote="CapsicumDreams"]
Hi Todd,

I hope since you removed the communication bottleneck betwixt the factory & Australian clients that OWI apparently was, that you are getting the appropriate constant feedback from the factory as enthusiastically promised during distributor changeover. I'm also impressed that IMG have passed the pull-test. All credit due.
[/quote]


Angus, I'm sorry for you that you never succeeded in getting atoms into Australia. Really that would have been a great outcome for all of us who have waited so long. 

I'm surprised you think I managed to change Ariels distributor. I can easily guess why the change was made, but you would have to speak with Simon to know for sure. If you think I managed to do this your barking up the wrong tree. That said, I am happy with the change and feel if the Atom is going to get sorted, IMG have the best chance of accomplishing the job. 

IMG operate differently to how you did. Direct personal communication as opposed to a web forum. If you want to know how things are going, just call and ask.

I bought a Lotus Exige last year and am enjoying that quite a bit, so personally I don't mind the wait as long as activity is underway and progress is being made, which from what I can see, the project is moving forwards. The pull test was completed some time ago with little fuss. 

Are you also waiting for an Atom, or did you throw in the towel?

Regards,
Todd

[xr_ated]

I would be interested to know who IMG are communicating with.  I have emailed them a couple of times since they took over the project and every time I have been told that they would keep me informed as to what was going on.  Yet no one appears to know when the Atom will arrive in Australia.

[apollyon25]

Wisp and I both have the same opinion of Australia/NZ agents... Split them up... have a NZ agent and an Australian agent.
Sell some more cars into NZ whilst the Australian agent faffs around dealing with the BS of getting them road legal in Oz.


Actually I think the most viable method, is to buy one, send it to someone in NZ, we (Atom owning/driving/road-legalness) will look after it on your behalf for the prescribed period, then you can freight it across... The other alternative is to buy one for your retirement. Assuming of course you are currently only 16 and the retirement age increases to beyond 70.

A road legal Atom in Australia... That's as likely as, well, a REALLY unlikely thing.

Just save yourself the trouble and move to an Atom friendly country...

[OWI]

I just dropped by the forums out of interest.

For the record (for what it's worth), we didn't make any money on your car, Jared, or on any other NZ Atoms due to the high costs in promoting and supporting the car there. Yes, you had to do some of the legwork in getting the car on the road but we - as you said - waived our fee and, of course, had set up everything with the LVVTA to allow it to happen in the first place. And for the record, our commission from Ariel was not $8k but 8% of the UK invoice price. If you'd purchased it from the UK direct it would have cost you the same (or more, as we had found the best deals for shipping, insurance, compliance, etc).

In spite of not being in New Zealand we gave owners extensive support when people had trouble - for instance, we paid for a complete set of racing rod ends for customer when they had problems with the teflon bearings and for another, when his car broke down on its maiden drive from Auckland to Wellington, we paid for the repair, bought him a second hand car to drive home in and paid for his car to be shipped to Wellington. Cost to us - just under $2k. The problem? A $15 relay had died in the switchbox. For another customer we waived both our fee and gave him our commission when he suffered significant exchange rate changes due to a factory delay.

The crash at Pukekohe - by a driver who a) couldn't afford to buy one and b) completely ignored my instructions from the passenger seat (he was trying to impress me with his driving skills) - meant that we lost our demonstrator. Rather than throw good money after bad to fix it, we sold the car to a Victorian who ended up spending tens of thousands of dollars modifying it as a self-built car for road use.

We stopped doing NZ shows because everyone loved seeing the car at the show but no one ever bought from a show. As it routinely cost $5k to do a show (more than we made on a car) we stopped doing them. (When you keep hitting your head against a brick wall, stop.)

We were completely open with all of NZ customers about being in Australia. We tried a number of times to arrange for a NZ dealer but this failed. If you can do a better job, you're welcome to ask Ariel to let you do just that.

As for Australian compliance, we did not have in-house compliance expertise but used Evotive who are highly experienced and have excellent contacts within DOTARS. I believe that IMG are in a similar position - they outsource their compliance expertise.  Besides, the problem was not knowing what to do to make the car compliant - we had known for a couple of years what needed to be done.  

I hope that IMG can get the car on the road, but they face the same significant problems that we did. I'm glad to be spending my time and money elsewhere.

All the best,
Andrew

[apollyon25]

Regardless of all of this Andrew, the frustration Wisp and I have, is not with you, OWI or the new distributors.
It is simply with the attitude of "lets chase the 'bigger' but still non-compliant Australian market, and ignore the available one in NZ".

And no-one has ever actually noted WHAT or WHY the Atom isn't able (yet) to be compliant...
Given the large proportion of engineering people on here, its an ignored resource.

[OWI]

Australia is a good market for the Atom precisely because the ADRs make it difficult and expensive to get interesting cars in (which is why the Australian high volume vehicle manufacturers pressured the Aus government to force low volume importers and manufacturers to also meet the ADRs - it's protectionism). In NZ there are a large number of alternatives which are available at a comparable or lower price, making the Atom's landed price (combined with its impractical nature) largely unpalatable. After hundreds of test drives, countless shows and many track days, I can tell you that there is no pot of gold waiting for the next NZ distributor. I understand your desire for more Atoms in NZ - believe me that I shared it for a very long time - but I'm not going to fund it out of my own pocket. Besides, the way I see the world, if you Jared see a problem (such as a lack of NZ distributor) you have two choices - 1) fix it yourself or 2) decide not to (and stop complaining).

As for Australian compliance, we had full transparency with the waiting list members on the difficulties in the project. The problem was not a lack of engineering talent or viable technical solutions.

[Alec]

[quote="apollyon25"]
And no-one has ever actually noted WHAT or WHY the Atom isn't able (yet) to be compliant...
Given the large proportion of engineering people on here, its an ignored resource.


[/quote]

[quote="OWI"]
As for Australian compliance, we had full transparency with the waiting list members on the difficulties in the project. The problem was not a lack of engineering talent or viable technical solutions.
[/quote]

If you had full transparency of the difficulties in compliance with your waiting list members, then why couldn't you have done the same on here with Atom owners?

You never know, someone may just have come up with an idea to help, given the combined knowledge on here regarding the Atom and the various backgrounds of owners. If not, then nothing would have been lost, but if something helpful was suggested, then the benefits could have been enormous.

[OWI]

It sounds reasonable, Alec, but the ADRs are highly specific and as I said before, we had engineering solutions and no shortage of technical expertise.

[xr_ated]

So why don't we have an Atom in Oz?

[Bruce Fielding]

My neighbour (whose surname is Miller) works for BBC worldwide and tells me that someone on the waiting list is very senior on Australian Top Gear... if that's not leverage, what is?

[OWI]

[quote="xr_ated"]
So why don't we have an Atom in Oz?
[/quote]

There are a number of reasons but IMO the key one is that the tight focus and low risk approach that Simon used, to his great credit, to build a profitable car business amidst the wreckage of the global low volume car industry prevented him from giving the support to a side project like Australian compliance that it needs to succeed. That's not to say that IMG are in the same situation - Simon was busy with car development the entire time we were involved in the project - we started when the Atom 2 was announced, then there was the US Atom project and then the Atom 3 project. When we left Simon was wondering what project was going to fill his time in the void of developing the 3 - I suppose the 500 filled some of that, but now he might have more resources to dedicate to Aus compliance without risking core activities.

In retrospect I can't be angry with Simon for that - if he was someone that took risks and lacked focus (by doing non-core projects such as Aus compliance when there were core projects that needed his time) he wouldn't have a car company at all - he'd be broke like everyone else and the Atom wouldn't exist. It's fair to say, however, that if I'd known that we weren't going to get much in the way of support from the factory, I would have approached this project differently or not taken it on at all. Live and learn.