Lotus CEO - lighter, faster Evora, weight loss strategy

[otolith]

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/simplif...

autocar said:

At the Geneva motor show next March, Lotus will have a heavily revised version of the Evora featuring changes inside and out, about 15 per cent more power and less weight"

autocar said:

"To aid this drive towards efficiency, Gales has set up a so-called Lightweight Lab, a large room in which all the components of a disassembled Elise, Exige and Evora are laid out on trestles.

The weight and cost of every piece are labelled, and in recent days no fewer than 800 staff have toured the room, suggesting an amazing 1140 ideas for reducing those figures. It’s not yet clear how much weight can be saved per car, but 50kg seems well within reach, while cost reductions are believed to be running at about 10 per cent per car.

autocar said:

Lotus was last in the news with an announcement of 300 redundancies from a workforce of 1200, but Gales believes that following this “very regrettable” event, the company is now correctly configured for recovery.

“When I arrived six months ago we had 1200 people making 1200 cars a year,” says Gales. “We could not have survived like that. Now we are 900 people, and this year we will make around 2000 cars. Next year the figure should be 3000 cars, then 3000 for several more years. This will change the equation completely.”

Looks like he's got the right ideas - pity he doesn't have the budget Bahar pissed up the wall.

[otolith]

The idea of a Lotus branded SUV makes me nauseous, but they want one for the same reason Porsche did. If it means the rest of the cars don't have to be watered down into quick commuters, it's an evil worth tolerating.