Lotus Eletre

[Jacques]

I too have had a chinese girlfriend long ago Very beautiful, sweet and nice person, but have nothing to do with business china and their and their states violation of copyright and moral and ethics.

No, I stand by my statement.

It's crap, have always been crap and will be. Their business honor is based on keeping up appearances, not quality and commitment to environment and quality and own design. Maybe in 30 years.

Even if they suddenly change their mind, I'll not buy it.

It's not made by enthusiasts to enrich your enjoyment of driving a sportscar with a pedigree, but strongly led by a Money hungry board of shareholders.

And if Lotus goes to be  a chinese Company, I'll not buy one of their cars. I'll stick to the old ones

In northern china are enormous areas of open surface coal digging, and as they empty the areas, they leave everything chaotic and does not close their giant diggings and sites. So huge Black clouds of coal dust blows South, directly poluting plants, animals and people in millions, even in big Towns (by china standard). That is just one example of their moral and ethics in business.

Chinese have a very long tradition of bribing and to obtain permission (in your lifetime), one have to pay off a lot of people etc. It's the accepted way of doing Things, and everyone knows it. If, on the other hand, it get's out in the open, all hell breaks Loose, and people get big time jailing, dissapears, etc. It's about face.

My Brother imports Photo gear from China, and it's basically crap. But as the West deploys more and more production to china et al, people in the West Loose income and cannot sustain to buy quality. So it becomes an evil circle.

A friend of mine reports their fake furnitures and watches etc. on a daily basis to the relevant authorities.

Another friend tried to import their crappy motorcycles, and showed me how bad they are made.

In national Danish tv, there's been a programme about how dangerous their modern cars are.

On many accations there are programmes about how they build their industry and how they enslave their population, seperated from their families, and with almost no salary, while polouting to the extreme.

On many occations the population in Denmark, have been warned of their fake copycat medicine.

No, I am not naive, more a realist.

Btw. I agree on the statement, that a competitor to the MX-5 would suit Lotus better.

Diesel - they are so toxic and at least here in Scandiinavia there is an ongoing political debate, as to make private diesel cars illegal to run. Only a strong industry and lots of Money in the pockets, are saving the diesel cars in Scandinavia (as a daily private city-driving car).

More and more people are looking into an alternative to diesel, as many of the small popular Family cars with a turbo diesel, or even with bot compressor and turbo, are breaking Down as they cannot drive small short trips in Towns. Ducumented on numerous occations in tv, mags etc.

 

Kind regards,

Jacques.

[Stephan90]

On 30 June 2015 9:11:23 am, Jacques said:

No, I am not naive, more a realist.

I think the word you are looking for is bigot.

If you want we can debate here what China has done wrong in the past and what it does wrong now. I think right after that we should start with Germany and how you shouldn't buy a Porsche because during the war Porsche was building tanks for the nazis.

I agree with you that I wouldn't buy a Chinese sports car. That however is due to the fact that they have only started building cars a few years ago. The MG6 you can buy in the UK has a safety rating of 4 out of 5 stars, is cheap and actually not that bad according to reviews.

Of course you wouldn't be able to understand this because to you in a country of 1.2 billion people, there is only one kind of person, the typical Chinese.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I'm pretty much with Jacques on this. People have short memories. This is still the same Communist state of old. Comparison with Germany is interesting: the Nazi regime was defeated 70 years ago and replaced by a true democracy. Since then it has risen from the ashes to be a successful, pioneering and peaceful country. Had the Communists not crushed the pro-democracy movement in 1989 (Tiananmen Square and all that), maybe China would have followed, but no, self-interest by those in power again won the day.

There's plenty of mega wealthy Chinese businessmen nowadays, but how can that be in a Communist state? And do the Communist rulers still live in 2 bed high-rise flats with a 10 year waiting list for a shit car? I doubt it. The whole ethos of Communism concerns equality, yet there can be few countries where the difference between the haves and the have-nots is more extreme.

To be honest it has always made my skin crawl to see successive Western political and business leaders going cap-in-hand to the Chinese Junta during the past 20 years or so. "We know you're a one Party state and have abysmal human rights records and are killing the world with your pollution, but we'd love you to invest in our country/company and can we make our products for peanuts in your country and grab a share of your own market whilst we're at it?"

Let's face it there is pretty much nothing that Communist China has invented that anyone in the West is interested in buying. It's just a crappier version of our own stuff. It's only a pipe-dream, but I would love it if the West just stopped buying Chinese-made products until a full free-speech democracy was declared, then we'd really see the Junta's true colours.

They need us a whole lot more than we need them.

As for MG? Haha: that fiasco with the dim-witted drunken Phoenix Consortium was a classic bit of Chinese business!

[Stephan90]

Again, I'm not here to discuss Chinese politics, so I will try and steer clear of that. The only 'communist' thing in the 'Communist' party is in its name. That should be pretty obvious by now. The Chinese are some of the most materialistic people I have ever met.

I find it amusing that you are worried about the gap between the rich and the poor when some of us on here are driving cars that are worth more than a big part of the population has in their bank accounts. Please, get real. And even among us, how many have a private jet? Or a penthouse in the Shard? Exactly.

I have to applaud the Chinese society for the speed at which it is bringing wealth to its people. The average Chinese (where I lived) can afford a mobile phone, a laptop, an electric scooter, etc. All this was unimaginable just a few years ago.

On 30 June 2015 9:23:26 pm, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Let's face it there is pretty much nothing that Communist China has invented that anyone in the West is interested in buying. It's just a crappier version of our own stuff. 

Again pretty amusing... The Chinese space station is supposed to launch in 2020. An undertaking that is now too expensive for the US which is why they have to collaborate with Russia. The fastest supercomputer in the world is located in China. Since 2008 the number of supercomputers in the Top500 in China has increased from 12 to 61. At the same time the Top500 supercomputers in the USA have decreased from 258 to 231.

Japan used to be known for its cheap knock off copy cat products. Have you checked where your engine is from?

[Stephan90]

I think you seem under the impression that there are no human rights or regulations in China. The company I used to work for produced its machines in China (which was where I was working) and the workers had excellent working conditions. We also checked (announced and unannounced visits on site) every single supplier for their working conditions and would not do any business with any company that would not adhere to our very strict standards for worker well being.

Regarding the crap quality. We all know how successful English cars have been right? British engineering quality led to the success of British Leyland, Morris, Rover (Chinese now), Austin, etc.

On 30 June 2015 9:11:23 am, Jacques said:

It's not made by enthusiasts to enrich your enjoyment of driving a sportscar with a pedigree, but strongly led by a Money hungry board of shareholders.

Just to remind you as well, Lotus is owned by DRB-HICOM. One of Malaysia's biggest engineering firms led by a money hungry board of directors who serve the shareholders.

To re-iterate my point:

I would not buy a Lotus SUV (or any SUV for that matter) regardless where it was made.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

On 30 June 2015 9:41:45 pm, MrStephens said:

Again, I'm not here to discuss Chinese politics, so I will try and steer clear of that. The only 'communist' thing in the 'Communist' party is in its name. That should be pretty obvious by now. The Chinese are some of the most materialistic people I have ever met.

I find it amusing that you are worried about the gap between the rich and the poor when some of us on here are driving cars that are worth more than a big part of the population has in their bank accounts. Please, get real. And even among us, how many have a private jet? Or a penthouse in the Shard? Exactly.

I have to applaud the Chinese society for the speed at which it is bringing wealth to its people. The average Chinese (where I lived) can afford a mobile phone, a laptop, an electric scooter, etc. All this was unimaginable just a few years ago

Again pretty amusing... The Chinese space station is supposed to launch in 2020. An undertaking that is now too expensive for the US which is why they have to collaborate with Russia. The fastest supercomputer in the world is located in China. Since 2008 the number of supercomputers in the Top500 in China has increased from 12 to 61. At the same time the Top500 supercomputers in the USA have decreased from 258 to 231.

Japan used to be known for its cheap knock off copy cat products. Have you checked where your engine is from?

My post/opinion is based entirely on politics, so I can't steer clear of that when discussing China, I'm afraid. It's very black and white for me: I believe in free speech and true democracy. After all these years, China still has neither. That's my problem with China.

[Mark Blanchard]

On 30 June 2015 9:23:26 pm, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

I would love it if the West just stopped buying Chinese-made products until a full free-speech democracy was declared, then we'd really see the Junta's true colours.

The UK Government wouldn't like that, it's no good for our GDP.  Cheap Chinese products are keeping our inflation low, so the BOE can put interest rates at near zero.  That makes borrowing cheaper, so we taking out more loans and buy more Chinese stuff.

[Jacques]

To me, at least, China is politics to the extreme. China is WHO knows WHO and what can they do for each other. So is a chinese diesel Lotus, which ultimately would support a regime I cannot support muself, if possible.

China politics have very very Little to do with their population in general. It's two different things.

That is exactly a major point.

My ex-girlfriend was from Shanghai, and she was and is very afraid of going back to china even on vacation to visit her Family, because she left/fled, when china was even more closed than today, and her leaving was seen by the chinese leadership to be a public failure of the chinese society, and they really wanted to crush any of that, and keep Things silent. China does not forget.

I think that it's a road to failure, when a regime wants to control 1.367.820.000 (2014) people. In 1980 they were 980.750.000 people. That is an extreme growth in population and takes it's toll on ressources, which can of course, be seen as a partial explanation for the way they execute their politics and production.

Yes, of course there are Companies, WHO may be very aware of what they make and how they do it. It would be very strange if there weren't at least some WHO get's inspired by the rest of the World, or at least some countries, WHO tries to produce at a more bearable level.

I think the lead to former germany and British production is not entirely holding Water (but of course this is just small talk), as times wre rather different in those ages. Britain raided lots of ressources (like many other countries incl. Denmark) and while some of it generated a rise in wealth in general population, most of those fortunes were on the hands of very rich familes, WHO spent vast fortunes on Building some rather extreme real estate and went hunting and so on. Coal cities were pitch Black and people took what they could to make aliving, sometimes sacrificing their health.

Likewise America after World war II changed their production from war material, to cars and everything steel, for the household etc. They expanded their cities to big sleeping Towns spread around even bigger cities, demanding that everyone had to have fuel consuming car. Quality was sometimes so so, as long as they could sell sell sell. Likewise with polution.

I think the same could be said about many countries. After WWII the optimism set in and ressources were not looked at. SImply not interesting. The perfect consumer buying and throwing away started it's race.

I think that have been proved to be an untollerable way of doing Things. But a huge very poor country like China used to be, cannot afford or at least in short terms, cannot afford to be environmental friendly , they just have to produce a lot fast. I think they did, and created this specific awareness in inther countries population.

But what I think they should have done and do today, is aim much higher. And they had the chance to do this, with the slowly rising awareness and demand of the general chinese population.

While I agree that today there is a middle class expanding in China, behind them is a vast majority of poor people eho will not benefit very much of these economincal zones like Shenzhen that is an off-spring of the 1978 economical reforms that Deng Xiaoping started. Do I need to remind that in a few years after 1949, between 30 and 40 million people died from starvation (ironically they called it "The Great Leap Forward), and the chinese super hard government was very well aware of that happening, and saw it as a needed evil. Or they just did not care.

And that is my point with this Whole talk, that in my humble view, China has expanded sxplosively in a very short time, but this have a downside - polution and quality. Like I mentioned, I agree, that there are forfront runners. But not as a nation. It's simply too expensive. Now, today, china are so afraid of being seen as a tiger economy that has stagnated, so they still build big new cities, that no one lives in. Streets, big housing Blocks, shops, the lot, standing empty like ghost Towns. We saw that in for example Spain too, but at a much smaller scale.

Being such an enourmous country, with so many people also makes you havea very big responsability, adn I think that China did not and do not live up to that seriously.

I agree that many Companies from the West invested in chinese production to gain even more outcome for themselves, their friends and shareholders... That is also a part of the tragic story. Need, greed and morality does seldom go hand in hand, or at least one on them takes over. Guess which.

I'll never buy a chinese Lotus, I avoid chinese products in general, though that is really hard or not doable. Not to "punish" the chinese population, but because the circumstances under which all this takes place, is in my opinion, not human.

Look at Tibet, the Worlds most peaceful country. Invaded by the chinese, killes, slaughtered, dissapered, exterminated, bred away, burnt Down, castrated. And does the West oppose the chinese doings? no, because of production of goods for our markets. I think there will always be greedy soulless prople WHO abuse the system to the last drop of blood, but in my view, china should have used their famous historical working discipline and ressources to build a far more sustainable china and production, while they could. I think that they have passed on that 25 years ago.

No, I don't have a uniform view on the chinese population. I just divide china in the people and the system. The later being the crap one, like i mentioned in my former posts.

No offence to anyone here or elsewhere meant of course.

I just cannot clap my hands and suport a regime that kills their own and other countries population. Oh yes, I know. That is likewise other Places.
 How many did China kill of their own? How many did Elena and her husband kill in Romania? How many did the soviet kill of their own population? I am married to a woman WHO grew up in a comunist country, and she hated it. Everything about communism. Always tried to hide Things, always followed by the secret police and so on. I think China have adopted the western free economy to their own understanding, which in theory may be all good, but in real life is not so good. Eg. what I wrote earlier. I am sure we all know some by now.

That is not in those dark years up to WW I or WWII. But today and recently.

I can tell from my own experience having traveled more than 25  tiems in East European countries during the past more than 20 years, that regimes may very well look just fine on the durface, but reality is a totally different thing.

Some of my good friends are from Tibet and Nepal, and I hear a lot of stories about what the chinese regime do to them today. They just don't care. And the same in production.

No, not buyinga  chinese car. Nor a chinese Lotus.

 

It's fine by me if they can make a super advanced spacestation in 2020 ebfore every one else. I don't have a problem with that. But I do have a problem, when this is made before their population is well taken care of, with a fair living standard, whatever that is.

 

In all friendliness, I would like to ask Mr Stephens, on what he bases his statement of me being selfrightious (sorry for my English, I am not native English speaking, so something can get lost in translation    ), and how he can know that I am looking upon the huge chinese population as a uniform mass?

I don't want to be personal here, as I find it a bit inappropriate and out of the debate. I am sure you are a very nice person and I think in reality, we share a lot of the same thoughts, as I think much is lost in writing on a forum, instead of face to face talking. I sallute you sir, for having a nice debate.

I am certainly not rich, and I don't feel the need to, as I think there are far more interesting matters to use my short time on, while I acknowledge the real poor people in this World. I cannot save them. It's not up to me, but I can stand by my Word, and help where I can. Eg out of many is that I quit my former job in a big bank headquater, working in the Electronic stock Exchange, because I found it to be deeply inhuman and a threat to economy and Peace and the benefit to the general public. I for example gave up eating meat, because it simply consumes too many ressources on this planet, with everyone eating to eat meat. Contrary to modern economical zones in China, I bicycle every day. So I walk my talk.

 

All the best (for the chinese people too),

Jacques.

[Jacques]

I can add, that my german frinds, are very sad and very sorry for the past that their forecommers did. Even today. My country have been at war with Germany so many times, lost many countrymen and a lot of land, and we do not forget the past. But we learn to live with it, and not blame the present people for the past. Like it's been said by others, Germany changed direction long ago. So I have a German car and do not see it as a problem or being a hypocrite. The problem with China, as I see it at least, is that they in a wide understanding, continue to do what they did. Suppression and a production that exploits, no matter the cost to the planet and all and everything WHO lives here. I believe that China was a very developed country in the 14'th Century, but slowly fell during the 16'th Century and onwards.

Me buying a chinese diesel Lotus, if it would come to exist, will not happen.

And A diesel? No way.

I rest my case

 

Cheers,

Jacques.

[comem47]

Political feelings aside, if the US market figures into the bottom line the SUV thing will be an utter fiasco. As I mentioned before, the dealers are far too scattered in the US for a vehicle designed for soccer moms. It's one thing to travel 500-1000 miles for service on a "toy" vehicle, quite another for a daily driver . Maybe the UK can support a lightweight Land Rover, but count the US out. Too much competition with zillions of dealers for the standard weight vehicles. The vehicle is a bit of an oxymoron too (function counts much more over weight once you select this type of vehicle) .I don't see choosing an SUV to bring to an autocross over something better suited for the purpose at a far cheaper price too methinks.  Another case of Bahaha-ism?.  Drugs. (If someone is leaning in that direction Porsche is well established with service centers available in spades.) Lotus was able to exist in the US as a niche sports car and forgive the sparse service centers only because of the dedication of rabid Lotus faithful . Expecting to get new people in substantial numbers into the fold with such a sparse network won't work. The sales figures will be lower numbers than past sports cars numbers clustered around the few existing dealers. Not the sales volume $ they need.

[ramjet]

Maybe they will sort a deal with the engine/gearbox supplier as a service option?

[NedaSay]

Well JMG stated that the SUV will be China made and bound, Europe may get it, if it is  a success in China, the North America is very unlikely to get it, besides the car will not be NHTSA compliant so the US is very unlikely to ever see the car.

[Jacques]

hmm, maybe the suv-thing is a bit out of date on "old" markets? Maybe one should think of another "new" type of car to bring into the market? Or at least one that have not existed for years, but have just proven tobe the NeXT sales-thing.

Porsche had at least the right timing with their cayenne thing. Now completely unsellable in Denmark (yes, I know, a miniature market).

Diesel pobably won't cut it, so a servicable hybrid of some kind, maybe will have bigger chances?

In a Scandinavian market a soccer-mum car probably won't do either, as people are employed until late, and school systems and after school systems are designed to take car of that task.

A new focus Group of potential buyers?

At least china maybe will be? (and other asian countries).

 

cheers,

Jacques.

[auRouge]

SUV's are going through a metamorphosis and becoming new cars if you look at where it started... For me the first "Sports" Utility was the X5... That was huge! A German Range Rover per say.. Not as good off road but (here we go) maybe a tiny bit better in town. The SUV doesn't have to be big.

When I was a kid it was all about Estate cars. The Volvo 740 Estate and Mondeo Estate... In simple terms these have now been added to by the XC60 and Kuga, Estate Cars on stilts. Same engine with a 4 wheel drive system that in most cases is 2 wheel drive most of the time.

So Lotus in my interpretation is basically just creating an everyday car for the masses to make money and not trying to be the next Range Rover HSE or BMW X5.

Politics aside (I don't agree with the way they do business, neither do I agree with Dubai being built out of modern day slavery (sold a dream and then passports removed) when they had/have the money to pay properly) but think Lotus are right to go for a high volume car in the China where it's cheap to build and sell in number Lotus could only dream about in Europe. JMG is taking Lotus to the biggest market in the world..

[jonwat]

Article in this week's topgear.com/uk says the Lotus SUV "will be the most agile"

[NedaSay]

New rendering from Car magazine.

 

 

Gaahhh I can't help it, that one look like a Peugeot 208 in hiking shoes. Not a good thing in my book.

Looks more Sport activity vehicle 4x2 or AWD than Sport utility vehicle 4x4. I really hope it really is an SUV with at least AWD or 4WD cause 4x2 would pretty much mean a FWD vehicle and  Lotus should probably steer clear from that.

Edited July 29, 2015 by NedaSay

[DaveC72]

"we hear it will share a footprint with the Porsche Macan but will sit lower and wider"

Eh?!

So, not the same foorprint then...it being wider and all...

[NedaSay]

^^^Same segment as the Porsche Maccan, which also means Range Rover Evoque, Audi Q3/Q5, Mercedes GLA, BMW X3, Jaguar F-Pace lexus NX...

 

So that thing better have very strong credentials: VVA with reinforced composites bits (à la BMW carbon core) . A completely reworked 1.8l 4 cyl definitely with the Edelbroke supercharger to generate a lot more torque in the lower range, new 6 speed auto as standard (my choice would still be the AISIN 8 speed though) manual as option (Because China first) The car needs a very intelligent diff sourced from either Land Rover, Honda (super AWD) or Lexus (because Toyota connection) The best would be complete torque vectoring but that's just me dreaming...

Edited July 29, 2015 by NedaSay

[dodgey_rog]

So its going to look nothing like this then;

CAR magazine scoops new Lotus 4x4

"Our new artist's impression shows how the new family Lotus could look"

What a load of b*ll*cks!

[DaveC72]

On 30 July 2015 2:01:44 am, NedaSay said:

^^^Same segment as the Porsche Maccan, which also means Range Rover Evoque, Audi Q3/Q5, Mercedes GLA, BMW X3, Jaguar F-Pace lexus NX...

Ah, thank you.  That makes more sense.

[NedaSay]

JMG said that they are in the final process of choosing one of the two design they have now. I hope they don't look much like this. Also I'm sort of hoping for Lotus to get a preview of this car in Shanghai next year in concept form with their range extender tech, that would make a very cool demonstrator for Lotus engineering division.

[Barrykearley]

That's looks nice to me......

I am on the third can of scrumpy jack though....... But I'd think it would still look good to me in the morning

[mdw]

Very "hot wheels" toy car like.  

[910Esprit]

Ha ha - look at its mouth nose & eyes!  The front end is s****e

[Barrykearley]

Smilie ???