RE: Fortunes of Lotus on the up!

[DonkeyApple]

AlexHat said:

DPSFleet said:

LOTUS will be well place to go electric too, after all that's how Tesla started.

Lotus built the Tesla Roadsters (sans the battery packs) at the factory in Hethel then had them shipped to wherever Tesla had their battery factory to have the batteries fitted. Essentially the Roadster was an Elise/Exige EV.

But there is a reason why the little 2 seater was built and another reason as to why it was dropped as quickly as possible for an enormous 7 seater saloon.

Lotus know only too well that current battery tech won't allow for a viable sports car built to their company mantra.

The best they can do is to join the hybrid taxation fiddle which still doesn't fit their company profile.

Take an original Tesla and fit it with the latest, lowest energy consuming mechanics and the best batteries you can and you still have the fundamental problem that it has no mileage capability if it isn't used as a Motability shopping car.

And as for hybrids, adding batteries and a petrol engine is hardly adding lightness.

I don't see how Lotus can entertain either EV or hybrid drivetrains. The eco ICE market of requiring fewer cylinders and lighter cars may have come to them but they can't currently move away from ICE without a serious change in what batteries are or a serious change in the end product.

I suspect SUVs will hugely dominate EV sales over the coming years as they have the size to carry the batteries, the right sort of price points to pay for the batteries and don't have to handle quite as well as little sports cars.

[andy_s]

DonkeyApple said:

But there is a reason why the little 2 seater was built and another reason as to why it was dropped as quickly as possible for an enormous 7 seater saloon.

Lotus know only too well that current battery tech won't allow for a viable sports car built to their company mantra.

The best they can do is to join the hybrid taxation fiddle which still doesn't fit their company profile.

Take an original Tesla and fit it with the latest, lowest energy consuming mechanics and the best batteries you can and you still have the fundamental problem that it has no mileage capability if it isn't used as a Motability shopping car.

And as for hybrids, adding batteries and a petrol engine is hardly adding lightness.

I don't see how Lotus can entertain either EV or hybrid drivetrains. The eco ICE market of requiring fewer cylinders and lighter cars may have come to them but they can't currently move away from ICE without a serious change in what batteries are or a serious change in the end product.

I suspect SUVs will hugely dominate EV sales over the coming years as they have the size to carry the batteries, the right sort of price points to pay for the batteries and don't have to handle quite as well as little sports cars.

Think you're right on a lot of fronts, but Lotus have been flirting with hybrid for a while -

http://www.lotuscars.com/engineering/evora-414e-hy...
http://www.lotuscars.com/engineering/hybrid-and-el...
http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1035864_lotus-b...

[DonkeyApple]

amgmcqueen said:

Scoobysaurus said:

Lotus SUV - Colin Chapman will be turning in his grave

If it made money, Chapman would have built it.

Not only that, the SUV segment is the largest and easiest engineering segment for 'adding lightness'.

If Chapmen were still alive then Lotus probably wouldn't be selling little sports cars still but thousands of SUVs all to fund a racing team that still existed.

Lotus Cars existed to provide cash flow. It was never relevant what the product it sold was, just that it sold. The SUV would have been leapt upon by a brilliant engineer like Chapman who had a desire for cash like no other.

The real shame here is not that Lotus might be building an SUV as they absolutely should have done this years ago but that it isn't likely to be a lightweight, great handling, cleverly engineered take on the hideously overweight and clumsy SUV market but a cheap Chinese knockoff product to grab some cash from the booming Chinese consumer market. But, Chapman would have leapt tat that opportunity just as happily.

Lotus should have made themselves the kings of the performance SUV market. It's a big, fat, heavy and bad handling sector with massive growth that the Lotus core ethics could be so easily applied to and vast profits extracted. It was theirs to dominate. And it would have given them a product capable of carrying batteries so hedged them well against urban legislation that is going to lock Lotus products out from 70 odd% of the world's population with the money to buy a Lotus.

Lotus could have built something akin to a Bowler but I suspect it will instead produce a Geely turd of cheapness to spank Chinese mugs off with.

[DonkeyApple]

deltashad said:

I dont wear watches. I dont have a big telly.
I do have a need for a small, light 4wd with decent ground clearance, i generally only buy interesting cars.

The SUV also gives them the vital infill product for cradle to grave customer maintenance.

They have the Elise for the consumer before he has children and the Evora for the consumer after the children have grown up but they have nothing to offer the consumer during the child rearing phase.

Personally, I don't think a performance SUV needs to be 4WD unless it makes it faster on the road. If it's there so as the SUV can pretend to be a 4x4 you wouldn't want the weight.

Who wouldn't want a light weight, composite family wagon that the wife could do the school run and shopping with and that could then be flung with gusto down the country lanes?

I'd buy one for my wife. But until the Esprit arrives Lotus don't really have a product of interest to me despite how much the brand is of interest to me and how much I want to own one of their modern products.

[Hungrymc]

I've no problem with Lotus making an SUV.

But I think everyone is underestimating the resources needed to make a car that really competes against the mainstream manufacturers in the areas / attributes that most of that market want (lots of trinkets, small panel gaps, interiors with no gaps, modern drive train, 4x4 with driving modes etc).

If you compare with the cayenne, Porsche we're already strong (or perceived to be) in these areas. You also have to recognize Lotus as far smaller than other niche manufacturers that have gone the SUV route (Alfa / Maser).

The only way it works is by using the might of Geely and VOLVO to plug the gaps... As long as it's done well, that's no bad thing. But it won't be an SUV developed by a couple of hundred blokes in Norfolk.

[DonkeyApple]

I fear it may be a Geely SUV with a Lotus badge badly glued to the front. But I doubt such a product would ever leave Asia.

In the U.K. it would need to be something that genuinely sported the core values of Lotus and as you say, Lotus hardly have the resources spare. But maybe they'd be better to put the resources they do have into an SUV than a new Evora/Esprit?

[saaby93]

DonkeyApple said:

I fear it may be a Geely SUV with a Lotus badge badly glued to the front. But I doubt such a product would ever leave Asia.

In the U.K. it would need to be something that genuinely sported the core values of Lotus and as you say, Lotus hardly have the resources spare. But maybe they'd be better to put the resources they do have into an SUV than a new Evora/Esprit?

It could be like the Kia Elan, where Lotus do the design but someone else makes it and sells it, same as other manufacturers rebadge each others.

[anonymous-user]

DonkeyApple said:

cleverly engineered take on the hideously overweight and clumsy SUV market.

Sorry, but i don't agree. yes, some SUVs are indeed rather badly engine-ed, but they are now in the minority.

SUVs like those from Porsche, VW, Jaguar et-al are now extremely well engineered packages. No way, without hundreds of millions of £££ investment from Geely are Louts going to come in and knock those off the top step of the SUV ladder!

No, far better to engineer a small, fun, EV imo, where there IS a hole in the market imo.

200 miles range is now easily achievable (see Bolt, Zoe) which is more than enough in the "fun commuter" segment.

[DonkeyApple]

But I do t think I even implied anything about knocking any premium cars off their perch. And while there is a gap at the bottom for a small, fun EV there is a good reason for that and battery tech is going to retard that end of the market for some time. Sure you can build small EVs with near 200 mile ranges but that range diminishes somewhat as you put your foot down. The SUV market is the prime segment for adding lightness and having range. Plus, it's the prime segment for being able to include profit margins, something Lotus struggles with in their more traditional stomping ground. It's going to be quite some years before the driving community appreciates that they don't in reality need the one hit range they think they do at present.

[Tuna]

Max_Torque said:

Sorry, but i don't agree. yes, some SUVs are indeed rather badly engine-ed, but they are now in the minority.

SUVs like those from Porsche, VW, Jaguar et-al are now extremely well engineered packages. No way, without hundreds of millions of £££ investment from Geely are Louts going to come in and knock those off the top step of the SUV ladder!

No, far better to engineer a small, fun, EV imo, where there IS a hole in the market imo.

200 miles range is now easily achievable (see Bolt, Zoe) which is more than enough in the "fun commuter" segment.

Actually, I *think* you're wrong. The design work around the Evora was all about producing a chassis technology that could produce an incredibly rigid platform that could be profitable in small-ish production runs. They produced a concept, the APX-C (a smaller crossover car) back in 2006 exploring that and from an outsiders point of view, seem to have been continuing in that direction. They have been moving themselves into a position where they can tool up for a new layout very quickly and still make it at a sane price - the problem historically being that they were too stretched to even get the first model out, never mind create additional lines.

So a very rigid, punchy SUV is mechanically well within their sights. The difference between them and the mainstream SUV manufacturers is that they don't have the resources to produce the same kind of interior as you'd see in a Cayenne. Specifically, acres of moulded dashboard and clever multi-layered plastics are hard and expensive to tool up for and make next to no economic sense unless your initial production run is in the tens of thousands.

However, they are able to produce pretty nice interiors on their own terms these days, and the whole point of an SUV is that it's a bit utilitarian. So it's possible, if they play their cards right that they could just engineer out the stuff that they can't compete with and come up with a smart and quite different solution to SUV design.

This is the 2006 Crossover concept:



From what has been previously posted on Pistonheads, the SUV production pre-dates Geely getting involved, and the partnership is with a Chinese company that produces lightweight commercial vehicles (aka busses). So whether that means Lotus production technology would be involved or it's purely a badge exercise is not at all obvious.

Edited by Tuna on Sunday 20th August 12:57

[Hungrymc]

I genuinely think that there is some huge underestimation of what it takes and costs to make a well rounded mainstream or premium car. You won't compete with the mainstream OEMs without there manufacturing strength and sales figures. And you won't compete with the premium OEMs without a good chunk of the above plus huge resources to highly develop details that aren't even really on the radar in an Elise/Exige/Evora.

There is an opportunity in the Geely group. Volvo have very competant SUVs and with smart hybrid power trains. That's surely where you start? It's not completely out of the Lotus ways of working (Toyota power trains have served them well) Could even use some Volvo resources to plug gaps.

Or are people thinking Lotus re-define the SUV? What price point do you think that would come in at? How many millions does a car like an Evoque cost to develop even when it's on a shared platform....?

[andy_s]

Hungrymc said:

Or are people thinking Lotus re-define the SUV? What price point do you think that would come in at? How many millions does a car like an Evoque cost to develop even when it's on a shared platform....?

Agreed re Volvo, a great opportunity.

A Defender type veh is missing, but that wouldn't fit the Eastern compact mid-level SUV market - if that's what you're aiming for (biggest mkt).
If a bit more Macan-beating is the aim then you have to beat it on style, performance and reliability at least to get a foot in the door.
If you want to go out on a limb then a Bowleresque type project would be fun, but not a big seller.

There'll be an S and R version shortly afterwards anyway, of whatever it ends up being...!

[saaby93]

Hungrymc said:

Or are people thinking Lotus re-define the SUV? What price point do you think that would come in at? How many millions does a car like an Evoque cost to develop even when it's on a shared platform....?

Uh oh
Does anyone think Evoque should have been a Lotus name anyway
Lotus Evoque

[Tuna]

Hungrymc said:

I genuinely think that there is some huge underestimation of what it takes and costs to make a well rounded mainstream or premium car. You won't compete with the mainstream OEMs without there manufacturing strength and sales figures. And you won't compete with the premium OEMs without a good chunk of the above plus huge resources to highly develop details that aren't even really on the radar in an Elise/Exige/Evora.

Hasn't that always been the equation with Lotus though? An immense part of the cost and complexity of making a mainstream car is producing the tooling that has to stand up to a 10 year / 1 million vehicle production run. The original Lotus injection fibreglass bodywork got round the cost of tooling up for steel panels by making it possible for the rig for a panel to be made by a bloke with a sanding block. The Elise chassis was glued aluminium for the same reason - a pressed steel chassis costs a fortune to tool up.

The downside is that the 'per car' costs don't ever reduce, so in small numbers you can be cost competitive, but the Elise could never, ever get the economies of scale that make the MX-5 so cheap.

Basically, in short run premium models, Lotus possibly have an advantage. That makes semi-bespoke, highly targeted niche models more attractive. If they want to produce million selling 'everyman' cars, they are dead in the water. So a Lotus produced SUV could be possible, so long as they don't chase the most boring, mainstream part of the market. I'm fine with that - I like interesting cars!

If you read the most recent reviews of the Evora 430 vs the equivalent 'mainstream' Porsche, I'm not sure you can point to that many details that the Lotus is missing. You could argue that the Evora has taken ten years to get there, but then the 911 has been around slightly longer

[Hungrymc]

saaby93 said:

Uh oh
Does anyone think Evoque should have been a Lotus name anyway
Lotus Evoque

Not for a moment.
Substitute Evoque with any other SUV you chose.... I had hoped that was obvious but maybe not.

The Question was, do people have a vague understanding of the investment it takes to produce an SUV even in that semi premium sector. Customers won't accept compromises in the same way they do for Elise's and Evora's (I have an Evora, it's fabulous, and compromised in areas I don't think important for a focused drivers car).

Or do we think Lotus go for a low cost SUV and go after Dacia (but with better driving dynamics).

The point is, that if Lotus go the SUV route, they have to be given access to Volvo cars / platforms / power trains / resources. I've no problem at all with that by the way as long as Lotus are given enough flexibility to make it "Lotus" ...And even then it's going to take serious money.

[Hungrymc]

Tuna said:

Lots of fair and sensible stuff.

I agree in the main. But I think you can point to many areas where a 911 is better finished / more highly developed. It's generally in the finish, trim and technology. I think in a car like that Evora, you would happily accept compromises in these areas as it's a wonderfully focused drivers car. I certainly agree that improvements have been made by Lotus over the last 5 years in particular. My 2011 Evora S is OK, but it's not to the quality of a similar aged 911, it is terrific fun though so I don't care :-)

SUVs arent so focused as to excuse lower quality / development in these other areas.

So the question becomes do they fight JLR and Porsche on level terms, get after Velar / F-pace / Macan.... Which will have to be be Volvo based and very, very highly developed in every aspect? Or do they try and go in a completely new "Lotus" direction? (Which in many ways they did with Elise, Exige, Evora) I'd love to see it, and if Geely will stump up a bucket load of cash then brilliant.

[anonymous-user]

Tuna said:

So a very rigid, punchy SUV is mechanically well within their sights. The difference between them and the mainstream SUV manufacturers is that they don't have the resources to produce the same kind of interior as you'd see in a Cayenne. Specifically, acres of moulded dashboard and clever multi-layered plastics are hard and expensive to tool up for and make next to no economic sense unless your initial production run is in the tens of thousands.

But it's the interior, and increasingly, the Electronic Feature Content, that actually drives a sale these days. I'm sure Lotus could engineer a BIW as well as Porsche, and possible work out how to make it at low volumes, but they are never going to develop their own infotrainment or navigation system that can beat that of the Porka!

Frankly, outside of the magazine reviews, all modern cars have a "stiff enough" chassis, so much so that the average customer simply can't tell the difference between say 20kn/deg and 30kn/deg for example, and not only can't they tell, they don't care!

if you make an expensive SUV then you NEED a high quality, high EFC cabin. If you make a small EV you can get away with a much more basic cabin, to the point where simply providing an Google Play interface might be sufficient (ie you can buy in your infotainment etc).

Lotus's expertise is simple, low volume, light weight technologies, none of which makes an SUV a sensible thing for them to do. Also, if Lotus made an "sports" EV i think people would go try it, if they made a "sports" SUV, most people will still just buy the german stuff as the word "Lotus" still means Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious to them........

[anonymous-user]

DonkeyApple said:

Sure you can build small EVs with near 200 mile ranges but that range diminishes somewhat as you put your foot down.

Indeed, just like it does with non EVs! Lotus could build a "sports" EV that works on a track, but is fun in the real world, that's what would sell cars. The number of people who actually do track days, even people who own elises is very small.

Build a sports EV, that is fun, can commute 150 to 200miles in the real world, seat 4, be nimble, peppy, and yet return >200mpg equivalent in the real world (as my i3 currently does) and you've got a winner imo.

[saaby93]

Max_Torque said:

if you make an expensive SUV then you NEED a high quality, high EFC cabin. If you make a small EV you can get away with a much more basic cabin, to the point where simply providing an Google Play interface might be sufficient (ie you can buy in your infotainment etc).

Why do you need a google play (or similar) interface?
Isnt it enough to mount your iphone/samsung/tablet thing high up enough you can use it as a satnav/music streamer?
otherwise a wireless

[Tuna]

Max_Torque said:

But it's the interior, and increasingly, the Electronic Feature Content, that actually drives a sale these days. I'm sure Lotus could engineer a BIW as well as Porsche, and possible work out how to make it at low volumes, but they are never going to develop their own infotrainment or navigation system that can beat that of the Porka!

Surely that's exactly where Geely/Volvo can help them? If there's one thing that's more easily ported between cars, it's the infotainment unit - as the VW Groups demonstrates so well. In that respect, Volvo put Lotus ahead of the game as they're fairly bleeding edge when it comes to autonomous driving modes. It may be that Lotus can even repay the favour - they have periodically done research in active sound / noise cancelling systems that could play into better cabin feel.

All that optimism aside, I don't think Lotus should be getting into the parts of the market where people make decisions between cars based on which Sat Nav they prefer. The thing to remember is that there is no reason for them to be chasing markets at the scale Porsche are at - because (as Porsche themselves are proving), selling at that scale forces compromises on the car that ultimately override the brand. Purely selfishly, I don't want a car my Mum would feel safe purchasing.

From a financial perspective Lotus could quadruple their size and still not even be a blip on the VW Group's radar - but that would still represent a healthy profit and a centre of technical excellence that Geely can call on. Why worry about things that need them to increase sales by a couple of orders of magnitude? Lotus need to be creating cars that people buy despite their quirks and oddities - out of passion - not because they're a safe bet.