Future of Lotus

[Ekku]

4 hours ago, C8RKH said:

And by people who mostly drive and applaud German quality built cars whilst steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that said cars often languish in the bottom quartile for reliability, and quietly change the subject when you mention their part in Dieselgate and other illegal practices.

It seems that Brand snobbery, clever marketing and perception is the key, not reality. Or is it just the old east v west rivalry? Either, I agree with you that it is time to move on.

 

 

From my point of view as one time owner of so called "dieselgate" car I can comment that I did not suffer that at all. I got the car with the promised power&consumtion figures and had no problems with Mot, so I had nothing to complain about. 

Reliability issue is bit more complicated. For the people who often change New car main issue is absence of minor problems, which require workshop visit during the warranty period.

People like me who generally drives from 150 to 350 thousand miles before changing the new or newer car, more important proof of quality is the durability of the engine, gearbox and other expensive components. Small problems which can be solved withinh first 100 thousand miles are not that important. 

Every brand and models seems to have it own problems areas. Mercedes it was air suspension, in this current ride Phaeton it is the wheel bearings. They seem to last only about 60 thousand each before making noise. 

I have not heard much negative comments about chinese Volvos.

 

[Bibs]

https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/volvo-geely-form-stand-alone-engine-business

Quote

Volvo Cars and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group plan to carve out their engine operations and merge them into a stand-alone unit.

The new business will develop next-generation hybrid powertrains and internal combustion engines for group brands such as Volvo, Lotus, Lynk & CO and Geely Auto as well as third parties, according to a release.

Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson said the move helps further accelerate the Swedish automaker’s push to have battery-driven cars account for half of its global sales by 2025.

“Volvo has taken another decisive step toward electrification by adjusting its business structure,” Samuelsson told Automotive News Europe.

The  merger should provide lower-cost access to the powertrains that are expected to account for the other 50 percent of the company’s sales in the mid-2020s, he said.

"Because half of our cars will be hybrids [by 2025], we are securing the necessary resources to further develop [them],” Samuelsson said.

When asked how much Volvo stands to save Samuelsson said. "We haven't quantified it, but it will be huge. We are at least doubling the Volvo volume and that alone results in a significant cost savings."

Volvo sold more than 640,000 vehicles globally last year and aims to boost that volume to 800,000 by 2020.

With Volvo’s 2018 sales, Geely Group, which also includes UK-based taxi maker LEVC and Malaysian automaker Proton, had a worldwide volume of 2 million vehicles last year. “That will continue to grow rapidly in the future,” Samuelsson predicted.

Volvo says that what might be even more important than the merger's potential savings is that the move safeguards the company’s development resources, particularly engineers who would have seen their budgets squeezed as Volvo prioritizes full-electric drivetrains over hybrid and traditional powertrains.

“It’s likely they would not have gotten the resources they need to maintain their high level of competency in that area. With this change we avoid this,” Samuelsson said.

The new business is expected to be made up of approximately 3,000 employees from Volvo Cars and about 5,000 from Geely’s combustion engine operations.

The functions that will be part of the new company will include r&d, procurement, manufacturing, IT and finance.

No layoffs are anticipated because of the merger, Volvo said. Samuelsson said job losses might have been unavoidable if Volvo and Geely had waited to make the change.

“We have an advantage by doing this very fundamental restructuring very early because the market for combustion engines will not grow in the future," he said. “We are doing exactly the right thing, which is utilizing synergies. That's what you do when you are dealing with a shrinking market."

Volvo and Geely still need to negotiate the changes with their unions and get approvals from competition authorities to form the business, which will become a unit of the overall holding company.

 

[C8RKH]

Very positive. Geely appear to be very well run and are making some positive decisions.

[NedaSay]

Agreed the powers that be at Volvo and Geely do know what they are doing. Even with an event horizon darkening somewhat in the short to medium term in mainland China, there have been no knee-jerk reaction, just adjustment made and profit warning issued in a timely manner, long term goals remain achievable using the current plan and decision like these make so much sense.

[Loquacious Lew]

I think the largest issues in dealing with Chinese goods is not the lack of quality.  As previous posters have already said, you can get what you pay for from Chinese (and Taiwanese) manufacturing.  If you want goods that excel, they will cost more.  If you want cheap, they will oblige.

I rather think a greater danger in dealing with Chinese entities is intellectual property theft.  That's the more usual scenario in a "wild east meets wild west"  manufacturing joint venture.  Quality is scalable in Chinese manufacturing. You get what you pay for, and so do they plus they get your design and feature sets.  This is an ongoing issue and maybe the only area where I  see eye to eye with our (otherwise humiliating and feckless) current administration.   China is frequently  predatory as respects intellectual property.  Of course with Geely, that's off the table since they purchased Lotus' expertise outright and have nothing to hide in that regard.  Chinese manufactured Lotus parts are likely to be every bit as good as top Japanese and Korean quality and that should be quite acceptable. 

[comem47]

As a Radio Amateur who is forced to use Chinese vacuum tubes I can tell you the standard quality yield is horrible out of the box. You pay extra for post mfg quality testing to sort. Unfortunately nobody else makes tubes these days so the incentive is low without competition. The US vendor I go through has a a good warranty and excellent service to compensate for the lower %. (they advance replace and pay shipping both ways). Once sorted they are fine, but the delay in sorting out the defects is annoying.

 

 

[C8RKH]

I'm no expert on tubes but basically the last US made ones were in around 1988. That's 31 years ago. The current new tubes are descended are they not from the ones made back in the space race days by Russia, in Russian and Chinese factories. Since about 1990 there has been no real tube development or enhancements and any volume need there was (remember these used to be made in their billions) is long gone. Rather than bemoan the crap quality maybe you should celebrate the diversity of Chinese manufacturing that means you can still buy something that is in effect 30 years out of date, and at a reasonable price.

Looking at it that way puts it into a different context, no? I hope in 20 years time some Chinese company is still making spare parts to keep my Evora on the road lol....

[comem47]

The subject of my post was related to quality control. The Russian (Svetlana) and US manufacturers had a handle on that. The Chinese don't seem to care. Yes, it's good someone still makes tubes, but that doesn't mean I should celebrate their lack of concern over quality control. They should follow the Japanese quality ethic and we all win. Quality should no be an option. If it costs more to implement  so be it. Luckily the vast majority of tubes are still available in NOS stockpiles, but no so much the power amplifier tubes. (both audio and RF.)  Would you buy a Lotus that keeps having engine meltdowns and multiple trailer-ed trips back to a distant dealer to hopefully fix? (fingers crossed)

[C8RKH]

Many people would and have, on here, argued that is their experience of Lotus cars lol. My own dealer is a 120 mile round trip.

It was not so long ago all you heard about was "Jap crap". Now they are benchmark for quality. Lol, funny how things / peoples perception change.

Anyway, I'll get back on topic and based on my Geely Volvo I think the future of Lotus is in sound hands.

[NedaSay]

Geely products leave not much to be desired already, early reviews on their western offering point to perceived quality level higher than Kia/Hyundai current offering in terms of fit and finish ; plastic quality not being exactly Volvo' spec but assembly being very high. This is not surprising knowing that All cars are partly engineered by CEVT in Sweden by a sino-swedish team. Lotus recently appointed a procurement manager based at CEVT in Gotenburg.

Mutualising the legacy ICE is going to push the envelop even further, this is no bad thing for Lotus.

[KAS-118]

News article about Lotus using Volvo engines https://www.insidercarnews.com/lotus-switching-to-volvo-engines/

[Bravo73]

“It’s actually only partly accurate to say Lotus will be using Volvo engines. The plan really calls for Volvo Cars and Geely to merge their internal combustion engine operations into one unit, then Lotus will draw off those combined resources.”

ie old news. 

[Sport220]

Will the new logo be used on the badges for upcoming models only? I'm yet to see pictures of a car wearing the new logo

[The Pits]

Long may they remain the case!
 

In the unlikely event that I buy the next ‘attainable’ Lotus sports car I will be swapping the badge for the one of the ‘old’ ones asap!

[TLF News]

Lotus named as "Luxury Brand of the Year" at annual Luxury Briefing Awards

[C8RKH]

I don't want a luxury car from Lotus  I have a Geely S90 for that.

However, nice to see Lotus and the brand getting positive press and accolades. Long may it continue and that 130, gosh it looks good from that angle! 😍

[ramjet]

Well you could look at it as:

If you can afford an Evija, it's a luxury.

[Likuid]

I don't think they necessarily mean luxury like Rolls Royce. The Evija or any current Lotus is hardly luxurious on the inside.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Likuid

[C8RKH]

56 minutes ago, ramjet said:

Well you could look at it as:

If you can afford an Evija, it's a luxury.

Not to the people who can really afford them. It will be just another trinket in the garage (said like Farage!)

28 minutes ago, Likuid said:

I don't think they necessarily mean luxury like Rolls Royce. The Evija or any current Lotus is hardly luxurious on the inside.

So what you're saying is it's not luxury but skanky? Bit like a new pair of £400 Armani jeans that are cut with a knife then thrown in a cement mixer with 50kg pebbles to make them look chic luxury?

[electro_boy]

I think in this instance "luxury" must mean "high end"?

As my understanding of luxury in a car sense means lots big comfy seats, leather everywhere, gadgets galore, high end materials and top end fit and finishing.

The Evija fits the high end materials, fit and finishing but I wouldn't say its going to be comfortable or full of gadgets?

[Ccd]

The Evija only has relevance in that it points to an electric future for Lotus.  Beyond that, it as as meaningless as all the other million dollar plus cars.  What will be FAR more interesting is the next car that Lotus will supposedly be introducing in 2020, the last car based on the Evora platform before all new Lotus cars appear.  Of that car, we have heard very little.  I expect that car to have more cues as to the direction of the company in the near future.  

If you could not tell, I am sick and tired of these Uber expensive cars.  They will be purchased by the ultra rich and spend most of their lives sitting in garages because the depreciation hit would be too great to actually drive them

[MPx]

I agree that a £2m car is a bit irrelevant to most of us, but actually disagree that they will inevitably have to sit in a display box or suffer huge depreciation or indeed that the uber rich would bother about it even if they did.  The middle east royals are well known for buying such things in bulk and then just leave them to rot once they loose interest - they're not bothered about resale value.   The McClaren F1(arguably the first hypercar) was driven as a daily by people like Rowan Atkinson and some used hard by people like Nick Mason, but their cars appreciated hugely since they bought them for less than £1m despite putting some miles on them.  IIRC the Atkinson one went for about £8m when he sold despite it being a well known rebuilt right off.  I do hope at least some of them get driven....

[Frickin_idiot]

The Evija is of importance as it gives the brand a true halo car. For a company that has been out of the mainstream for quite some time this is an important vehicle.

[The Pits]

Simple maths. 130 Evijas would be worth around 5000 Elises in terms of revenue. In terms of profit way more than that as the Elise doesn't make any profit at all currently!

[Ccd]

Actually Pitts’ response makes the most sense.  Halo cars typically are utilized to enhance the brand.  The problem for Lotus is that there are really no other cars currently that could benefit from this halo car effect.  Looked at from a revenue perspective, it makes sense (provided the car sells).