e.GO Life first edition faces production delay

Initially, the manufacturer announced that all 3,300 pre-orders of the e.GO Life First Edition should be delivered by the end of the year. However, due to further delays, this schedule cannot be met either: Now only 600 deliveries are planned for 2019.

In further vehicle tests, which went beyond the legally required tests for road approval, “small tolerance deviations” occurred, as the company reports. Although these are not safety-critical, they could lead to “functional problems”. The necessary changes can currently only be implemented with prototype tools, and the suppliers also had to adapt their equipment and facilities accordingly.

Due to this renewed delay and the switch to prototype tools, the e.GO Life First Edition can only be delivered in smaller initial quantities than originally planned. The announcement states that e.GO Mobile AG expects to “deliver about 600 e.GO Life First Editions by the end of the year”. The delivery of the remaining e.GO Life First Edition will take place “promptly at the beginning of next year”.

Compared to the pre-orderers the enterprise went more into the detail. In a Mail, which is available electrive.net, e.GO mobile does not call the problem, but probably the production ramp-up desired. In September, 50 vehicles are to be delivered, then 50 vehicles per week starting from October. If we include a production break in December around Christmas, we reach our number of 600 vehicles. However, e.GO Mobile did not mention what quantities it expects to deliver from January onwards in order to deliver the remaining 2,700 vehicles “promptly”.

In the mail, the company also apologised to some pre-orderers for the lack of communication and the resulting frustration because the deadline cannot be met. “If the tests revealed a situation with which we were not satisfied, we usually found a solution very quickly. However, it was not always possible to predict how quickly this new solution could be implemented with the respective suppliers and partners in series production and in compliance with the regulations,” writes e.GO Mobile. “For the time being, we decided against active communication, as this could have been understood as a reproach to the respective suppliers, but this would have been neither justified nor intended.”

In addition, the company announced that it was planning a roadshow at selected locations throughout Germany this year, “in order to increase the number of test drives and shorten your journey”. Plans include “Berlin, Hamburg, Münster or Frankfurt, for example”.

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