Lotus Eletre

[Barrykearley]

Love it - but I reckon the colour does more for it

[DaveC72]

Agreed.

Having seen The Pits's Exige in green, it's definitely top of my list for my next car - hopefully the Evora Targa!

 

[The Pits]

Yay the highest CofG ever seen in a Lotus!

 

[Escape]

A Macan in BRG...

I know it's hard to be original in the (small) SUV segment, but I hope they at least give it at try!

[theelanman]

Nissan duke....with out the googly eyes.....lol

[TAR]

Oh dear, that is one ugly duckling.

 

I do hope a beautiful swan will emerge.

 

[The Pits]

I don't think it's bad looking - for an SUV - which is of course a bit like saying that lady isn't bad looking for a shot putter. I like the familiar exige bits but one of the things I like most about the Exige is how low it is.

Mrs Pits is partial to an SUV. I suppose I'd rather she had a high Lotus than a high Porsche but neither company has any business making such nonsense.

What everyone seems to have forgotten is that a slow SUV is actually preferable to a fast one. Rather like a ride on the Waltzers you're soon praying for the thing to slow down in the hope that the nausea might subside!

[Mark Blanchard]

I thought it was a Porsche when I first saw it.  Looks to similar to their little Macan thing they do.

[TBD]

The much bigger challenge for Lotus in building a SUV is that these tend to be absolute Daily Drivers. This puts things like reliability, ergonomics and economy much further up on the build priorities list. Quite a big design challenge for a team that, in the past, designed cars you have to bend yourself into and that make gas station owners and dealers your best friends.

On the other hand, the experience that Lotus can gain in this certainly won't hurt in designing future Sports Cars.

[NedaSay]

Where did you get that info? Cause that is not the plan I've read about. Not what JMG has been talking about for the past year...

If they were to just rebrand an existing car (Lexus/Toyota) it would not take 4 years, would it ?! They would not need to provide a working prototype to the Chinese authority to get a production license. They would not need to package protect the car it would have been done by the OEM that initially designed and engineered the car. They would not need a new Chinese factory, they would not need Goldstar... 

They would just sign a deal with Toyota to have them build the car alongside the RAV4 at their factory in Changchun. Toyota has a joint venture with FAW in China. Neither Toyota nor FAW would like Goldstar having a look at their I.P. Lotus belongs to Proton DRB whose main partner is now Honda... Toyota supplies powertrain to Lotus but very little else and certainly not a full chassis. 

The goal for the SUV is to give Proton an "in" in China. Therefore the SUV is likely to come as a Lotus first, but should spawn a Proton version and a Goldstar version at some point in the future. 

Lotus has been hard at work, I believe, on their SUV for a while now, it is a Lotus design, using VVA construction, as they did for APX, the design that was sold to Youngman and could have become the T5 if Youngman had the means they said they had.  Lotus is likely to use their current powertrains and could use more powertrains from the same supplier, they will also tap in the pool of first tier component suppliers present in China.         

[Jack Stone]

If it's good enough for Airbus...

Proton's Chinese JV reportedly in talks with Chinese govt over licensing deal:

http://themalaysianreserve.com/new/story/proton-jv-chinese-firm-make-lotus-cars

[100th_Idiot]

Lotus have little choice if they want to sell cars in China. There are massive import duties unless you have a JV manufacturing deal in country.

[NedaSay]

There's very little in terms of news in this article actually it may even contain some inaccuracies . 

It is about the Lotus upcoming SUV it will be made in China, the sport cars will still be produced in Hethel.

Goldstar Heavy Industrial will invest up to a 1b USD in the Joint venture called Goldstar Lotus Automobile Co Ltd,

Lotus has 10% share in the JV , Proton owns 40% and Goldstar heavy Industrial has a 50%

The factory is not built yet, Goldstar is still working on the local gov to get maximum subsidies to build the factory and the Chinese Gov to get the production licence.  

Lotus have started building their final demonstration prototype which "could" be displayed in 201 as it is necessary to show a proof of concept in order to obtain the production licence.

[Frickin_idiot]

A little more news on SUV and possible Sedan.

 

http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=BDIGeneric&aid=C98EA5B0842DBB9405BBF071E1DA7651077B1B5B&tid=0D9785CC0D1E49B08896EF0E8A8E06A9&url=http%3a%2f%2fpaultan.org%2f2016%2f02%2f19%2flotus-suv-to-be-built-and-sold-outside-china-sedan-to-follow-both-under-consideration-for-proton-tun-m%2f&c=lpE7YPOMN3X8IGIWRCt9t-mMVzjJBJFnjrfFu5CsNyY&mkt=en-gb

[Jacques]

Terrible news, hope it never comes into production.

Jacques.

[fmxa]

Let's face it, the golden days of the marque are over.  No new Esprit, but rather a SUV for the Chinese market - what would Chapman think!

[Advantage]

Topics merged.  

[franjipane]

If Lotus design the thing and it's manufactured elsewhere and lotus get cash to make more stuff in hethel that's great.  Of course I've no idea if the car will be any good or not, I don't want an suv but my wife likes them, she's got an upgraded engine in her BMW suv and it's pretty nippy.   But you know, lotus seem to have done well out of selling their engineering expertise so why not make more of it. Admittedly I don't know that much about the history of the company, but it seems like while this isn't going to be the car for most members of the forum, it will probably strengthen the company, and they've clearly shown they like making light, fast cars that people here do like...

[Mark Blanchard]

Everyone's doing SUVs at the moment, even Maserati.  To me it looks a bit desperate, Lotus should stick to what its good at.

[NedaSay]

So Lotus SUV prototype is ready and vetted... Lotus sedan is next, that's not a huge surprise... it will surely be a supersaloon Rapide, Panamera, Quattroporte etc. level as there's no money to be made in the segment below without making multibillion dollars worth in investment. Lotus, Proton and Goldstar are investing slightly over 1billion USD into the SUV. I don't think Lotus will have access to the Carlton moniker... sadly  

But that saloon is still very far into the future and a lot could/may change before that. It may  never happen or maybe 8 to 12 years from now.  Proton chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad pointing the obvious they don't have the tech in house. Luckily for Lotus they can rely on their buying agreement with Toyota to provide powertrain and possibly the AWD system. Toyota group has a lot of subsidiaries and joint venture in China so there's that. Pointing the obvious again when he says that doing business in China is not easy...

The reasonning behind the saloon and SUV is the same... emulating what Porsche did some 20 years ago. I hope the Proton and DRB management have noted that nobody else was able to get it done. not Maserati whose Quattroporte and Ghibli sales are lack-luster, nor Aston Martin whose Rapid did not really deliver the sales push initially desired.

[C8RKH]

On 02/02/2016 at 22:26, 100th_Idiot said:

Lotus have little choice if they want to sell cars in China. There are massive import duties unless you have a JV manufacturing deal in country.

Maybe we should have a rule here in the UK that says the Chinese can't sell anything here unless it has xx% of local content / assmbly through a JV deal. We are such a freakin' soft spot nation....  Time to get tough.

Oh, and I'd buy the green Lotus SUV above. I would not be happy about it. But I'd buy one. But only if it was around £40k so fat chance of that happening.

[Frickin_idiot]

I back JMG's judgement on the branching out into the SUV and Sedan Market if, and only if this is in his judgement the way to go forward. The work conducted at Lotus since his takeover has been generally positive and I truly believe that Lotus have a long term future under his tenure.

Let's face facts, selling two-seater sports cars does not appear to be generating the required volumes to keep the car afloat on a sustainable footing. SUV and Four Door "practical" yet sporty cars will appeal to a wider audience.

A new Esprit would be nice, but one step at a time.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Frickin_idiot

[auRouge]

1 million cars are sold every year in the premium luxury segment, approximately half of that are SUV's*...

Not difficult to see why JMG is going in that direction to make money.

Audi Q5, BMW X3, Mercedes GLE, Jaguar F-Pace, Range Rover Evoque or Discovery, Porsche Macan (easily the best.) Masarati Levante, Volvo XC60... etc etc etc

This Lotus SUV is once again make or break time. The latter is a reality if it's not brilliant from the start. There's an article in EVO this month on the Masarati... It's in the £50k ish bracket and gets a rave review, have to say it looks stunning for a family wagon.

Lotus definitely has a chance in this still young ish category of cars as its about individuals taste,  but never has the execution of a launch been so important in Lotus's history... We all know how good they are at marketing cars to the mass market ? 

(*May edition of EVO)

 

[Jacques]

Sorry, not to sound negative, but that maserati looks like a brick on Wheels. That's ugly

Kind regards,

Jacques.

[JayEmm]

I would agree with you on that, and the vast majority of "sporty" 4x4 vehicles - most of the time people should have just bought an Estate as 99% of them never go off-road.

However, that doesn't seem to stop them selling like hot cakes! I guess as "purists" all we can hope is that the bosses see the SUV as a money maker which allows the core cars to continue.