Will Lotus cars make it to 2015?

Will Lotus cars make it to 2015?

Author
Discussion

1981linley

937 posts

146 months

Tuesday 10th January 2012
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Lotus need better advertising and more product placement...a few semi naked ladies draped pver the Elise, evora etc in loaded and nuts...a few more cars loaned to shows like emmerdale, the only way is Essex, made in Chelsea, desperate housewives will make them more desirable to the mainstream in a way that land rover has achieved...their build quality ain't that great but they have the cool, with it, fashion and bling factor. Lotus needs to make everyone want one. I have an evora and people love it...but have no idea how much it costs, or even where to begin to go about getting one. It looks like a super car and performs like one for the cost of a German saloon. They also need to tap into the foreign market...the monied in the USA, China and India are lapping up all things British, so exploit this.

Noe

81 posts

282 months

Monday 16th January 2012
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So with everyones discussions is it best to say they all bs?

With the malaysian government having just sold their 45%ish stake the new owner will get rid of lotus quickly (?) Especially based on the review written up by the sgp bankers whom reviewed the group.

With the lotus name it'll likely be bought for the rights etc by either chinese or indian . . .

Thats worth a bet

Shame really. Having owned many lotus and having a pristine collectors 2-11 its all sad news and due to deteriorate in January

bobo

1,702 posts

277 months

Monday 16th January 2012
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the problem now is that they will sell even less cars as a result of the uncertainty.

this is quite a major issue for anyone committed to a new purchase.


Tuna

19,930 posts

283 months

Tuesday 17th January 2012
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Noe said:
With the malaysian government having just sold their 45%ish stake the new owner will get rid of lotus quickly (?) Especially based on the review written up by the sgp bankers whom reviewed the group.
The trouble is, bankers want a sale to make a quick profit, and don't care if it makes the company un-viable in the long term. It would make sense to break up the company and sell all the bits, but what you're left with is nothing. If you're in the business of retiring early on a pile of cash, that's great. If on the other hand you want to be in business in ten year's time it's a terrible move.

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 18th January 2012
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The Maslaysian story is that the new buyer (Hicom), who sold out their share in 2000 so presumably where the party who bought Lotus in the first place, have conection to VW and Mitsubisi, so I don't see lotus tech being much use to the group in the future, so it would make ense to get some cash back, and the sale price was 50 sen (or about 10p) above the top of the price range that was being talked about last week.

xavierkx250

Original Poster:

86 posts

160 months

Thursday 2nd February 2012
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Well Lotus have finally lost the all their marbles, with the sponsorship of an LMP2 team: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97239/

Really, who the hell watches or cares about LMP2. It's a category for rich guys to have a play, not a marketing platform for a car manufacturer.

bordseye

1,972 posts

191 months

Tuesday 7th February 2012
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Lotus will only survive if there is another sugar daddy to finance their losses. The overheads of their factory at Hethel are humungous even before they throw money around on grandiose plans. And the product they make is too small volume for the price they sell it at - fewer cars even than Aston who price much more upmarket.

As an (ex) businessman with experience of running biggish factories I wouldnt go near them as an investment proposition. They are a motorised Premiership type project. They need an oligarch.

bobo

1,702 posts

277 months

Tuesday 7th February 2012
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the only thing you have said really is they require a backer with deep pockets ... frankly we knew that already.

i have absolutely no experience with running biggish factories but I have lots in making money off the people that do ie funding them and im damn sure i can see a bit of opportunity, as there was the last time it almost went tits up.

like everything else, it just needs the RIGHT people, not more of the wrong ones that have taken the co backwards (and i'm not talking DB here!). no wonder this country is fked.

bordseye said:
Lotus will only survive if there is another sugar daddy to finance their losses. The overheads of their factory at Hethel are humungous even before they throw money around on grandiose plans. And the product they make is too small volume for the price they sell it at - fewer cars even than Aston who price much more upmarket.

As an (ex) businessman with experience of running biggish factories I wouldnt go near them as an investment proposition. They are a motorised Premiership type project. They need an oligarch.

Tuna

19,930 posts

283 months

Tuesday 7th February 2012
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bobo said:
the only thing you have said really is they require a backer with deep pockets ... frankly we knew that already.
Right now they need to see the current plan through. Changing direction yet again would be such a mess. The Esprit needs to be delivered, fully developed and properly marketed.

bordseye

1,972 posts

191 months

Tuesday 7th February 2012
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bobo said:
I have lots in making money off the people that do ie funding them and im damn sure i can see a bit of opportunity, as there was the last time it almost went tits up.

like everything else, it just needs the RIGHT people, not more of the wrong ones that have taken the co backwards (and i'm not talking DB here!). no wonder this country is f+cked.
There is a world of difference between making a margin on the funding of someone's purchase of Lotus, and running Lotus succesfully afterwards.The latter is the difficult bit though the recent performance of our banks suggests that making a margin isnt that easy.

You can make cars in penny numbers if your overheads are small as they are for Morgan. And then, you can only make relatively crude and low tec cars because your low overheads dont allow anything other than that. Have a visit to Morgan and see what I mean. But Lotus dont have low overheads at Hethel and they didnt even before this current load of big company rejects came along with grandiose spending plans. That wouldnt be a knock out on its own if the turnover was there either from higher volumes or higher prices. But Lotus have neither at the moment and no serious prospect of getting either. They will struggle to sell cars at Porker prices ( the Evora shows that)because their brand isnt good enough, and they have never really tried to compete at the MX5 end of the market where the real volumes are.

The best forward strategy for Lotus would be to close Hethel, flog it off for millions for housing and open a small factory specialising in track day/ real enthusiast cars where they have a clear niche. As they currently are, how do you feel they will meet the challenge of the new Toyota and the ASlfa?

bobo

1,702 posts

277 months

Tuesday 7th February 2012
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....and that response is precisely why i don't talk 'shop' on public forums.

bordseye said:
There is a world of difference between making a margin on the funding of someone's purchase of Lotus, and running Lotus succesfully afterwards.The latter is the difficult bit though the recent performance of our banks suggests that making a margin isnt that easy.

You can make cars in penny numbers if your overheads are small as they are for Morgan. And then, you can only make relatively crude and low tec cars because your low overheads dont allow anything other than that. Have a visit to Morgan and see what I mean. But Lotus dont have low overheads at Hethel and they didnt even before this current load of big company rejects came along with grandiose spending plans. That wouldnt be a knock out on its own if the turnover was there either from higher volumes or higher prices. But Lotus have neither at the moment and no serious prospect of getting either. They will struggle to sell cars at Porker prices ( the Evora shows that)because their brand isnt good enough, and they have never really tried to compete at the MX5 end of the market where the real volumes are.

The best forward strategy for Lotus would be to close Hethel, flog it off for millions for housing and open a small factory specialising in track day/ real enthusiast cars where they have a clear niche. As they currently are, how do you feel they will meet the challenge of the new Toyota and the ASlfa?

Tuna

19,930 posts

283 months

Tuesday 7th February 2012
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bordseye said:
The best forward strategy for Lotus would be to close Hethel, flog it off for millions for housing and open a small factory specialising in track day/ real enthusiast cars where they have a clear niche. As they currently are, how do you feel they will meet the challenge of the new Toyota and the ASlfa?
The best strategy for Lotus is not to have global plans, to retreat to an easily attacked niche (see Ginetta, Caterham et. al.) and to act more like Morgan? That's Lotus cars (1100 employees, turnover ~£150 million) should act like Morgan (170 employees, turnover £30 million)?

Maybe it's me, but it seems this is what's wrong with British industry.

RYH64E

7,960 posts

243 months

Saturday 11th February 2012
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I've got an S1 Elise, for me it represents the best of the traditional Lotus ethos - light weight, excellent handling, good fun, reasonable price. You can forgive the rattles, variable panel fit, complete lack of creature comforts because it is very good at what it does.

I don't understand why Lotus want to walk away from a successful niche and take on Porsche, Ferrari et al in a far more demanding market sector competing for customers who have very high expectations of quality and service that Lotus are going to struggle to fulfill. Better surely to concentrate on the weekend fun car sector and make cars like the Atom, or the LCC Rocket (which I would buy in an instant), even the venerable old Caterham (ditched in a previous attempt from Lotus to move upmarket), Ginetta, etc.

If you compare sales of the Elise with the cars that preceded it (Espirit, Elan, Excel) you can see where Lotus have been successful, and it isn't at the top end of the sports car market.

Hedgerley

620 posts

267 months

Saturday 11th February 2012
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There is no doubt that Lotus does what it does extremely well and we are all fans. But business is business and the plain fact is that Lotus Cars has been loss making for over 15 years occupying what is in fact a niche market. If it wasn't for the engineering division Lotus would have gone to the wall years ago.

Proton have stated they bought Lotus for their engineering prowess and to some degree they indulged Lotus in allowing it to continue making sports cars, but only by writing off huge debts and re-financing the company several times. For that they should be applauded.

In the cold light of day DRB-Hicom are now looking at Lotus and thinking, these guys need another £500m over the next few years to complete Bahar's plan and its by no means certain he can pull it off and return Lotus to profitability. That's a big ask and its no wonder DRB have hinted they are looking for buyers.

In his first two years Bahar has delivered exactly what he said he would and many of us hope he is given the chance to prove himself. I sincerely hope he succeeds, either as part of DRB, another benevolent owner or even under his own steam if he gets the finance (from his mate Lopez perhaps)

The bottom line (and that's what matters in business) is that Lotus could not carry on doing more of the same. It has do something different and DB seems to have the best shot.

doggydave

329 posts

174 months

Saturday 11th February 2012
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RYH64E said:
I don't understand why Lotus want to walk away from a successful niche and take on Porsche, Ferrari et al in a far more demanding market sector competing for customers who have very high expectations of quality and service that Lotus are going to struggle to fulfill. Better surely to concentrate on the weekend fun car sector and make cars like the Atom, or the LCC Rocket (which I would buy in an instant), even the venerable old Caterham (ditched in a previous attempt from Lotus to move upmarket), Ginetta, etc.
I agree with most of this, but if they do this the cars will have to be cheaper. Nearly 30k for the 1.6 Elise is too much.

I don't think that 16 years of losses can be regarded as successful mind you.

Lotus are in a very difficult position in the market and it seems to be strangling them. If they are too expensive then prospective owners will look elsewhere. I don't know what they can do to rectify the perception people have of the brand. It will take years to change these attitudes and an excellent product.

The quality issues around the Evora have only highlighted the reasons why people go elsewhere.

bertie

8,545 posts

283 months

Monday 13th February 2012
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Tuna said:
... Lotus cars (1100 employees, turnover ~£150 million) .........Morgan (170 employees, turnover £30 million)
What are the annual production volumes of Lotus & Morgan?

If the above figures are right then factor in the volumes and you may have your answer as to why Morgan makes money and Lotus doesn't.

odyssey2200

18,650 posts

208 months

Monday 13th February 2012
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Not sure if this has already been posted


http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/201...


Who would but lotyus?
Where would they move it (if they decided to)?
Would the new owners want to continuw with the new repositioning of the brand?


Monkey boy 1

2,063 posts

230 months

Tuesday 14th February 2012
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bertie said:
What are the annual production volumes of Lotus & Morgan?

If the above figures are right then factor in the volumes and you may have your answer as to why Morgan makes money and Lotus doesn't.
The Base spec 1.6 Morgan is still more expencive than the 1.6 Elise and peope whinge about the cost of a Lotus ?

bertie

8,545 posts

283 months

Tuesday 14th February 2012
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Monkey boy 1 said:
bertie said:
What are the annual production volumes of Lotus & Morgan?

If the above figures are right then factor in the volumes and you may have your answer as to why Morgan makes money and Lotus doesn't.
The Base spec 1.6 Morgan is still more expencive than the 1.6 Elise and peope whinge about the cost of a Lotus ?
No, that's my point.

Morgan are making fewer cars which are more hand built but there is less labour per car than Lotus.

Captain Muppet

8,540 posts

264 months

Tuesday 14th February 2012
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bertie said:
No, that's my point.

Morgan are making fewer cars which are more hand built but there is less labour per car than Lotus.
Don't forget that a large proportion of the workforce at Lotus are working on third party engineering projects, and not building cars.

You are trying to make your point with incomplete data.