RE: Lotus Finally Gets Government Cash

[Twincam16]

pits said:

I can only wish them good luck, but as a small business I do find this slightly annoying, I mean Lotus are owned by a large, safe and stable company and lets face it if they went through someone will be in the wings to buy it asap.

Personally I would much rather the £10 million is divided up and invested into smaller business as either paying a bank debt off, or just a pure cash injection, Lotus wont proper up our economy they aren't owned by a British company, the money isn't really going back to the country/area, maybe that is just me but I feel £10 million hasn't been wasted, but hasn't been used to its full potential

Not quite. Proton aren't doing brilliantly outside of its domestic markets. They're in the black, but only just.

I get the feeling lately that Lotus are also trying to make themselves as independent as possible with regards to engineering, so they no longer have to buy in engines. That way, they could be sold to anyone with minimum disruption. Toyota could be interested, as could Renault.

Also, remember that Lotus as an engineering concern is more important to the UK economy than the car production side. Car companies come from all over the world to Lotus to make the cars perform, handle and drive better and more efficiently without recourse to cumbersom hybrid technology. As an asset in international car development, it's essential.

[Frimley111R]

RTH said:

Frimley111R said:

TBH the overall market is far far bigger these days and Lotus is a tiny player. 4,500 isn't many at all. You have to put aside the 'old world' cars as the new ones will be on a totally different level.

Globalisation was never successful for Lotus in the past owing to a huge number of factors, not least quality, staff with the right skills, the knowledge to do this successfully etc. Totally different now.

Where is the evidence that it is all totally different now?
Currently sadly Lotus are having great difficulty finding customers in the sort of volume they need to get in to the black ( and I say this with regret as someone who has continuously owned at least one Lotus since 1975 and currently own an Esprit)

If you look on Pistonheads own classified there are 76 Evoras for sale the new cars are £70,000 the 2010 cars even with as low as 11000 miles 30 of them are under £40,000 several are £35,000, that is an awful lot of money to lose in little over a year.

The market tells the story about whether a product is successful.......And the plan from here is for a range vastly more expensive to buy. You cannot ever switch on reputations overnight.
I think they are pursuing a very high risk policy on vast borrowings. The company will survive there will always be someone to pick up the pieces. The brand and the history is highly regarded by the dedicated enthusiast. But they have no track record for high end luxury cars in the sort of numbers they say they will need. Emerging markets like China India etc those buyers are far more likely to want to be associated with established top end cars like Mercedes BMW and Porsche. What the new management are doing is a very large punt. I certainly do not want to see them go down, but am fearful this is the wrong strategy.

Some of your points are currently valid but it is niaive to think that thw world isn't vastly more affluent than it was in the past decades from a global perspective.

You can't switch repuations overnight of course but Lotus build attractive, fast and good handling cars. Its a good start. Although not the same markets look how far VW took SEAT and Skoda for example. We've seen a lot of brands rising and there's little reason to asssume Lotus won't. Its got a much better start point than many others. Don't forget too that Jaguar, AM, Bentley and Rolls all produced farily uncompetitive cars not that long ago too.

Finally, there isn't a strategy choice. Its do this and go for it 100% or die. The old 'enthusiast market was never enough.

[Donkey62]

oh deary me as a vetern Lotus owner i can see this money pee'd away before anyone benefits from this investment.

[Si_man306]

What the world needs right now are cars which are cheap to run, cheap to build and low-emissions/ high mpg (to avoid all the costs the governments will be ramping up over the next few years). People tend to buy cars based on those facts but moreso perhaps on the fact that that car is fun to drive.

Lotus are great at making these types of cars! With the elise they had it SO right. I think that platform has indeed come to the end of it's natural life but why up the game into completely different territory? The new cars on offer look gorgeous but I wouldn't aspire to owning one (at that price even I would be tempted away by other, more reputable marques). Lotus has always been the underdog and the elise/ exige platform was the ultimate (for me) underdogs car. When I finally got my hands on an exige I wouldn't have swapped it for any of the offered exotica, even if I had the money.

It'll be interesting to see how it pans out, and the best of luck to them but a £10 million injection of cash? I doubt that'll reach further than a posh dealership which they'll have to be building to compete with porsche etc.

[Twincam16]

Si_man306 said:

What the world needs right now are cars which are cheap to run, cheap to build and low-emissions/ high mpg (to avoid all the costs the governments will be ramping up over the next few years). People tend to buy cars based on those facts but moreso perhaps on the fact that that car is fun to drive.

Lotus are great at making these types of cars! With the elise they had it SO right. I think that platform has indeed come to the end of it's natural life but why up the game into completely different territory? The new cars on offer look gorgeous but I wouldn't aspire to owning one (at that price even I would be tempted away by other, more reputable marques). Lotus has always been the underdog and the elise/ exige platform was the ultimate (for me) underdogs car. When I finally got my hands on an exige I wouldn't have swapped it for any of the offered exotica, even if I had the money.

It'll be interesting to see how it pans out, and the best of luck to them but a £10 million injection of cash? I doubt that'll reach further than a posh dealership which they'll have to be building to compete with porsche etc.

Perhaps so, but sales of the Elise have been falling for a while and it's no longer the meal ticket it once was. It seems that, in a repeat of the '80s, a new generation of coupe-bodied hot-hatches are the first port of call for affordable performance, and MX5 aside it seems people don't want two-seaters in the volumes they once did.

However, what Lotus is very good at is engineering peoples' cars to be light, economical and high-performance, so an injection of cash at Lotus isn't just about their own cars, but their capacity to engineer other marques.

[Si_man306]

Twincam16 said:

Perhaps so, but sales of the Elise have been falling for a while and it's no longer the meal ticket it once was. It seems that, in a repeat of the '80s, a new generation of coupe-bodied hot-hatches are the first port of call for affordable performance, and MX5 aside it seems people don't want two-seaters in the volumes they once did.

However, what Lotus is very good at is engineering peoples' cars to be light, economical and high-performance, so an injection of cash at Lotus isn't just about their own cars, but their capacity to engineer other marques.

Very true. I am aware that a lot of their cash comes from engineering other marques.

I think a lot of the loss in elise sales are due to the watering-down of the concept (to please the US market mainly) and the upping of the price.

Ideally, it would be good to have a bare-bones 'for the masses' car as well as brand-topping headline grabbers.

[Twincam16]

Si_man306 said:

Twincam16 said:

Perhaps so, but sales of the Elise have been falling for a while and it's no longer the meal ticket it once was. It seems that, in a repeat of the '80s, a new generation of coupe-bodied hot-hatches are the first port of call for affordable performance, and MX5 aside it seems people don't want two-seaters in the volumes they once did.

However, what Lotus is very good at is engineering peoples' cars to be light, economical and high-performance, so an injection of cash at Lotus isn't just about their own cars, but their capacity to engineer other marques.

Very true. I am aware that a lot of their cash comes from engineering other marques.

I think a lot of the loss in elise sales are due to the watering-down of the concept (to please the US market mainly) and the upping of the price.

Ideally, it would be good to have a bare-bones 'for the masses' car as well as brand-topping headline grabbers.

I see where you're coming from, but an Elise is part of the new lineup.

I'm not convinced the Elise concept has become as watered-down as you suggest - there are no reports suggesting it's lost its mojo. What it has got is more expensive - it's about £10k more than it was when it was launched, and yet it's effectively the same car.