RE: Is Lotus in proper bother this time?

[ajprice]

[BOBBY G]

CooperS said:

Japveesix said:

It doesn't help that their proposed new range of 4 or 5 cars to fit all areas of the market all look almost exactely the same....


Hardly innovative design there

But they do look great especially the Elise... shame nothing has been said since the launch which seemed to happen a year ago..... some special ed's later we're still waiting.

I listened to him this morning, he is covering while Chris is on Holiday. He is pretty good. Maybe he has been focusing more on his radio show than running Lotus?

[anonymous-user]

OK, it was a ballsey move to move Lotus Upmarket, after all, for £50K to £65K, you could buy a 911, or a Boxster, or a S/H V8 vantage, or a GTR, or a Audi TT RS and some change (same for a 370z), or a Merc SLK, a very lightly used Audi R8, a S/H lambo, or any number of performance saloons! It's a pretty dam crowded part of the market.


Or, Lotus could have developed a cutting edge "eco sportscar". Say £30k all, in, less than 1tonne, with a 180bhp 1.4 turbo engine. Fast and it would do 50mpg. Think Mk1 Elise re-imagined for 2012.

NAH, who'd want one of those in 2012 now that petrol is approaching £1.50 a litre..........

[groomi]

norfolkscooby said:

ajprice said:

This is up there with Britney's haircut for batst crazy. Lotus have lost it!

What we need to do is get the designers on the same disco biscuits as Bahar & the PR team, can you imagine what would be designed?

A fleet of five new models which can be developed, engineered and put into production in five years...






...oh

[ajprice]

Autoblog have made a serious post about it and Proton/Lotus/Genii. Scroll down, press Show Press Release... There he is!!!

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/04/11/lotus-reveals-t...

[norfolkscooby]

groomi said:

norfolkscooby said:

ajprice said:

This is up there with Britney's haircut for batst crazy. Lotus have lost it!

What we need to do is get the designers on the same disco biscuits as Bahar & the PR team, can you imagine what would be designed?

A fleet of five new models which can be developed, engineered and put into production in five years...






...oh

[LoftyD]

Now that all eyes are on Lotus, I'm just left hoping it will be more than coincidence that some (sensible) good news will
follow from the company regarding real, imminent progress and indeed products...

[b0rk]

sunsurfer said:

A modular build system that leads to 4 different sports and super cars makes perfect sense and should lead to some stunning new cars and a long term future.
The modular sports car is exactly what McLaren are doing...

A modular system is the way forward for low volume manufacturing but TBH Lotus started to late in productising other cars off the architecture as back in 2008 when the Evora was launched Lotus had a 5 year plan to develop a undefined range off architecture. All that seems to have happened is the 5 year plan has shifted back 3 years and now spans 6 years so a 9 year plan.. TBH trying to drag a platform out over 9 years is too long, particularly when the platform was being demonstrated to trade buyers long before the first car.
The McLaren plan of 3 cars in 5 years fully funded at development for supposedly somewhere around £1bn mark is much more realistic, sadly.

BarnatosGhost said:

Where would Lotus get the money to develop a good SUV?

Lotus already did in concept form as long ago as 2006, based on the same architecture as the Evora.

Lotus have expertise to develop great products and make great products they just don't have the funding to actually deliver them.

[peter450]

Max_Torque said:

OK, it was a ballsey move to move Lotus Upmarket, after all, for £50K to £65K, you could buy a 911, or a Boxster, or a S/H V8 vantage, or a GTR, or a Audi TT RS and some change (same for a 370z), or a Merc SLK, a very lightly used Audi R8, a S/H lambo, or any number of performance saloons! It's a pretty dam crowded part of the market.


Or, Lotus could have developed a cutting edge "eco sportscar". Say £30k all, in, less than 1tonne, with a 180bhp 1.4 turbo engine. Fast and it would do 50mpg. Think Mk1 Elise re-imagined for 2012.

NAH, who'd want one of those in 2012 now that petrol is approaching £1.50 a litre..........

Well i dont know about the 50MPG, and 180 hp if that is realistically do-able, but the current 1.6 should have been S/C i'm pretty sure they would have got around 35 to 40 MPG and 170hp, which would have given proper performance

The fact is the current 1.6 Elise is i think the worst seller in the range, despite being the cheapest, because no one really wants to spend 30k on a slow lotus, every second hand Elise going from the nearly new last of the lines R's to the prev 1.8 135hp yota's to the 15+ year old K series cars is quicker than the 1.6 and all are cheaper.

No wonder there not selling any new ones, i'm pretty sure if Porches refreshed 2012 Base version of the Boxter was slower than the original 2.5 of a decade + ago, it would not find many sales either, since everyone would be buying 2.7's and 2.9's

You have to noticably improve the product to get people buying it, the Elise 1.6 has been a total disaster because it's offers next to no improvements over prev entry level toyotas, and with everyone else's sports car's going faster, has in effect taken a big backward step by going slower

But this is a moot point now, And the change in ownership is what is going to make or break lotus's chances, since Lotus was dependant on there new cars and investment to survive, but the sales freefall seen over the past year has hardly helped with that situation and i think that by not doing some simple things to the current range like having a performance competive Elise base car, to keep sales at least ticking over, the companies prospects are now looking worse as a result

[ajprice]

They'll be fine once they start selling the £110k Esprit and £75k Elan next year, I mean, what else have they been doing for the last 18 months http://www.botbnews.com/2010/10/paris-motor-show-t...

After all these disguised prototypes we've been seeing in testing and around the Nurburgring, they must be showing the production cars soon... oh hang on...

[wildman0609]

ajprice said:

After all these disguised prototypes we've been seeing in testing and around the Nurburgring,

the first prototype got written off a couple weeks ago at hethel.

[Ecosseven]

peter450 said:

Max_Torque said:

OK, it was a ballsey move to move Lotus Upmarket, after all, for £50K to £65K, you could buy a 911, or a Boxster, or a S/H V8 vantage, or a GTR, or a Audi TT RS and some change (same for a 370z), or a Merc SLK, a very lightly used Audi R8, a S/H lambo, or any number of performance saloons! It's a pretty dam crowded part of the market.


Or, Lotus could have developed a cutting edge "eco sportscar". Say £30k all, in, less than 1tonne, with a 180bhp 1.4 turbo engine. Fast and it would do 50mpg. Think Mk1 Elise re-imagined for 2012.

NAH, who'd want one of those in 2012 now that petrol is approaching £1.50 a litre..........

Well i dont know about the 50MPG, and 180 hp if that is realistically do-able, but the current 1.6 should have been S/C i'm pretty sure they would have got around 35 to 40 MPG and 170hp, which would have given proper performance

The fact is the current 1.6 Elise is i think the worst seller in the range, despite being the cheapest, because no one really wants to spend 30k on a slow lotus, every second hand Elise going from the nearly new last of the lines R's to the prev 1.8 135hp yota's to the 15+ year old K series cars is quicker than the 1.6 and all are cheaper.

No wonder there not selling any new ones, i'm pretty sure if Porches refreshed 2012 Base version of the Boxter was slower than the original 2.5 of a decade + ago, it would not find many sales either, since everyone would be buying 2.7's and 2.9's

You have to noticably improve the product to get people buying it, the Elise 1.6 has been a total disaster because it's offers next to no improvements over prev entry level toyotas, and with everyone else's sports car's going faster, has in effect taken a big backward step by going slower

But this is a moot point now, And the change in ownership is what is going to make or break lotus's chances, since Lotus was dependant on there new cars and investment to survive, but the sales freefall seen over the past year has hardly helped with that situation and i think that by not doing some simple things to the current range like having a performance competive Elise base car, to keep sales at least ticking over, the companies prospects are now looking worse as a result

Spot on! The current Elise may be a good car but it's too expensive and too slow, particularly when you considered it's the same basic ar they launched in 2001.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Here is Lotus' future; there is nothing else,



I believe it will work. If they ever get on and build some cars.

[anonymous-user]

180bhp from a 1.4 turbo is totally doable (1.4TFSI anyone ;-), and if they pay attention to the aeroload and do a decent job in drag reduction, then 50mpg would also be doable.

A 180bhp turbo engine, which also could also knock out 260Nm of torque would make a Mk1 elise a quick car.

Whilst the world is currently focused on going faster and faster, in 2 or 3 years (which is how long the program would take to do), when fuel is maybe >£1.75, having a 3.0 litre engine in your "sportscar" is going to seem frankly unacceptable.


Lotus is about lightness, inteligent design and material usage. If they applied this to an "eco" sportscar they could have a niche all to themselves (well, and the scoob/toyo BRZ obviously).

Why be an also ran in a big crowded market when you can be the leading player in your own market?

[peter450]

Max_Torque said:

180bhp from a 1.4 turbo is totally doable (1.4TFSI anyone ;-), and if they pay attention to the aeroload and do a decent job in drag reduction, then 50mpg would also be doable.

A 180bhp turbo engine, which also could also knock out 260Nm of torque would make a Mk1 elise a quick car.

Whilst the world is currently focused on going faster and faster, in 2 or 3 years (which is how long the program would take to do), when fuel is maybe >£1.75, having a 3.0 litre engine in your "sportscar" is going to seem frankly unacceptable.


Lotus is about lightness, inteligent design and material usage. If they applied this to an "eco" sportscar they could have a niche all to themselves (well, and the scoob/toyo BRZ obviously).

Why be an also ran in a big crowded market when you can be the leading player in your own market?

They are the leading player in there market and have been for 15+ years, people just dont buy enough/they dont make enough from, those kind of cars to support a company of lotus's size

The current plan is the right one IMO, as somebody earlier up the thread said, they can do it, they just need to build some cars

[carl_w]

DeadMeat_UK said:

snotrag said:

What they need is someone who actually knows a bit about running a car company to buy them - strip all the crap out, get rid of the rubbish, tone it down, slow down, and develop ONE, good, well engineered, well priced car. Then start actually selling some.

Isn't that what they did when they built the first Elise?

I wonder if they could have survived if that's all they did - and kept it to it's original values? I don't know enough about the profit/loss they made on the Elise line to even predict an answer.

Indeed. And wasn't it Romano Artioli (who named the Elise after his granddaughter)? And it did so well he had to sell up to Proton...

[carl_w]

torres del paine said:

Might be a stupid question but why is the Evora such a failure. Isn't it supposed to be sublime in the critical handling/ride department? A difficult trick to pull off. And wasn't there a much-needed supercharged version?

I was quite tempted to replace my Z4MC with one, despite the mundane Toyota engine. I thought, "it's made by Lotus, surely it must be several hundred kilos lighter than my lardy 1490kg BMW". But it's not, it's 1430kg

[Altstetten]

I Like Lotus.
I have never owned one, but I did an experience day at Hethel last year and had a factory tour and met some old hands and they all seemed like committed, decent, enthusiastic people.
Although it's all a bit childish, this facebook thing seems like pretty bad news to me. Almost like the culture of the place is collapsing. Can you image what the atmosphere is like in a place where people think it is okay to publish that?
On top of the recent Swizz Beats & Mansory news that has had well-wishers looking for excuses, this seems bad.
Everyone has worked out that there is rivalry between Lotus and Caterham, what with the Malaysian background, F1, staff poaching and everything. But it seems tacky and borderline pathetic to air it like this.
What has it come down to - Lotus blaming a company that started off as one of its dealers (who took on the model it abandoned as it went upmarket) for its problems?
All very sad.

[leef44]

Did I miss the news somewhere between Francis Maude finally being forced to resign and taking up the post as Lotus PR Director?

[NGK210]

From evo.co.uk:
"evo understands that rather than being ‘on leave’, Bahar is currently travelling in the Middle East on business, and will be returing to Hethel next week before attending the Beijing Motor Show."