Future of Lotus

[Frickin_idiot]

1 hour ago, Bibs said:

That said...

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2023-07-19/sportscar-maker-to-cut-200-jobs-amid-heavy-losses

Don’t read too much into thatZ I’ve worked at several companies that over staff initially only to reduce headcount after production settles down.

[Rambo]

7 hours ago, Frickin_idiot said:

Don’t read too much into that.

I would. And d. That's a large percentage of the total workforce.

Surely they're still in the process of ramping up production?

[Bibs]

I think it's single figures nowadays and this could be office/admin staff, not production. 

[exeterjeep]

They need more folks to deal with customer services / communications etc.

[Kimbers]

Living round the corner I think I heard it's engineering staff and those taken on to ramp up production and it's support network who, now it's all set up and running, are now surplus to requirements. However 200 is a large number and it's bound to have an effect on morale when everything seemed to be going so swimmingly.

Look. Personally as an Industry guy myself I have to point something out.

They should never EVER have stopped building the current models before bringing out the new. There has been a massive hole in their income stream because they cancelled all the old models in one foul swoop and then failed to produce the new one for a huge amount of time, in terms of income for a large company. Even 3 months would have been too long but when you are talking double digit months its disasterous.

And now you have the situation where basically they are a one model company. Can Emira sales alone bring in enough income to even pay the wages of the hugely expanded work force here and aborad?

Oh I know that "The new SUV" is coming out but it's always going to be a low volume model at the price it is. It's not going to do anything than be icing on the cake. I'm sorry but getting rid of the Elise & Exige as stepping stones to the Emira just didn't make any sense.

I'll make mention here that this is my own thoughts on the matter as my Dad is fully supportive of Lotus and it's team and hasn't said a word to me even if he knew anything which I doubt! 

[CocoPops]

I fully agree.

Killing the 3 successful models WAY ahead of Emira delivery made ZERO sense to me back then, and even less so now.

Disastemira for sure!

I had a message from a previous contact...
"glad to leave the toxic madness"
"did everything I could to ensure Lotus attended Goodwood FoS as senior execs wanted to cancel"

etc etc

[cor]

just a question,

 

how important is Lotus Hethel forGeely,

is it only branding and a bit of engineering??

[hamza]

13 minutes ago, Kimbers said:

Oh I know that "The new SUV" is coming out but it's always going to be a low volume model at the price it is. It's not going to do anything than be icing on the cake. I'm sorry but getting rid of the Elise & Exige as stepping stones to the Emira just didn't make any sense.

I thought that the Eletra was supposed to be the cash cow.

I know its expensive but so are Range Rovers and those seem to sell by the bucket load and Porsche sell far more Macan's and Cayennes than they do Caymans or 911s.

If the Eletra doesn't do for Lotus what the Cayenne did for Porsche then Lotus is going to be in real trouble. A fading motorsport heritage, a single sports car and a lineup of electric SUVs and saloons?

Maybe if the brand was strong enough that would be enough to sell a load of EVs to the Asian market?

[Kimbers]

8 minutes ago, hamza said:

 

I know its expensive but so are Range Rovers and those seem to sell by the bucket load and Porsche sell far more Macan's and Cayennes than they do Caymans or 911s.

But Range Rover have Engines whether ICE, Hybrid or PHEV. Lotus only went with the EV which is a limited market at this time.

[Bibs]

24 minutes ago, cor said:

how important is Lotus Hethel forGeely,

They've commited that it will always be used for Sports Car production and the proof of that pudding is the £100m investment there over the last couple of years. 

13 minutes ago, hamza said:

Maybe if the brand was strong enough that would be enough to sell a load of EVs to the Asian market?

It's a Geely company, Lotus is just one of their brands over there and Geely do know what they're doing. They've spent $1bn on the factory in Wuhan just to build Lotus 'Lifestyle' cars and they wouldn't have done that without a solid plan of course.

[hamza]

2 minutes ago, Kimbers said:

But Range Rover have Engines whether ICE, Hybrid or PHEV. Lotus only went with the EV which is a limited market at this time.

Good point.

Tesla sell a fair few Model X and Ys also though. 

[Kimbers]

Model X £74,000, Model Y from £44,000

You could have 3 model Y for one Lotus EV.

I'm not saying its not a good car, it's just not a cash cow that people think, I suspect.

[Bibs]

Well, 2. The Eletre starts at £89.5k. 

https://www.lotuscars.com/en-GB/eletre

[Bruss]

2 hours ago, Bibs said:

They've commited that it will always be used for Sports Car production and the proof of that pudding is the £100m investment there over the last couple of years. 

It's a Geely company, Lotus is just one of their brands over there and Geely do know what they're doing. They've spent $1bn on the factory in Wuhan just to build Lotus 'Lifestyle' cars and they wouldn't have done that without a solid plan of course.

Losing 141 million a year makes the 100 million investment peanuts.

Positive cash flow is required to sustain the plant.

 

 

 

[Bibs]

That's what Geely are for. If I remember rightly, they invested something like $8bn into Volvo, they have deep pockets, patience and faith in the plan.

[CocoPops]

1 hour ago, Bibs said:

Well, 2. The Eletre starts at £89.5k. 

https://www.lotuscars.com/en-GB/eletre

Just for shits and giggles... I spec'd up an Electre to £160k OTR

[Bibs]

A Range Rover...

[Andyww]

2 hours ago, Bibs said:

It's a Geely company, Lotus is just one of their brands over there and Geely do know what they're doing. They've spent $1bn on the factory in Wuhan just to build Lotus 'Lifestyle' cars and they wouldn't have done that without a solid plan of course.

Not sure they do know what they are doing. They have been following every other large Chinese company heading into the forthcoming abyss which is the evaporation of the Chinese market. Most of the unfolding disaster in the Chinese economy is masked by false reporting.

The EV market in the rest of Asia is also disappearing, after an initial flourish. There has been huge publicity about buyers who feel ripped off as they were sold an EV on the basis it would be cheap to run but they are actually far more expensive to run in many Asian countries which have their own oil supply, hence cheap oil, and dont have any government incentives for EV.

The Japanese on the other hand, DO know what they are doing in Asia and they have in the main announced they are continuing ICE production in full, for the Asia market. 

 

[DDubya]

They could save a bit and close the London 'Brand' presence. About as viable as the last one!

[Bibs]

They've not even opened it yet and I think they're hoping to sell a lot of 'lifestyle' cars out of there. 

[pete]

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2023-07-19/sportscar-maker-to-cut-200-jobs-amid-heavy-losses

[webfoot]

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/lotus-says-its-type-133-four-door-saloon-finished

[exeterjeep]

On 20/07/2023 at 10:26, Kimbers said:

Living round the corner I think I heard it's engineering staff and those taken on to ramp up production and it's support network who, now it's all set up and running, are now surplus to requirements. However 200 is a large number and it's bound to have an effect on morale when everything seemed to be going so swimmingly.

And they can make way for a new appointment.....

https://www.am-online.com/news/people-news/2023/08/02/lotus-appoints-conor-horne-as-uk-and-ireland-commercial-director

Lotus has appointed Conor Horne as commercial director of UK and Ireland....

Prior to joining Lotus, Conor was at Volvo, where he was responsible for launching and growing the organisation’s direct-to-consumer sales offering, as well managing Volvo’s recent move to agency sales in the UK.

[DarrylV8]

Assume Conor has good client communication skills and is able to communicate this to the Lotus leadership team. Maybe customers will be given progress updates for their new cars without having to bug the hell out of customer service team

[exeterjeep]

UK Lotus registrations from SMMT for July,  101.

this year so far, that's a total of  768.