RE: Jean-Marc Gales exits Lotus

[kambites]

They "need" to do whatever Geely tell them to do. That could be anything from carry on as a small volume specialist manufacturer, to ditching their own platforms completely and seeling rebadged Volvos in China, to ceasing to be a car manufacturer completely.

[Talksteer]

ESOG said:

John145 said:

It's bizarre people think that advanced technology and lotus do not mix! A diseased mentality.

I'll tell you what a TRUE "diseased mentality" is....

It is thinking that Lotus feels it must jump into the SUV producing pool and thinking people will actually buy such a product from them. I am truly astounded how there isn't more of an uproar and written\voiced opinion on the matter.

FOR GODSSAKE LOTUS FORGET ABOUT THIS SUV NONSENSE AND FRIGGEN BUILD AN AFFORDABLE FUN ELAN LIKE CAR ALREADY!!!! Think the 90s; ELAN M100, MR2s, S2000's, Miata, etc. Be the leader in that class.

Why not give it 1000bhp and make it out of carbon nanotube while you are at it?

Customer expectations of cars has greatly increased since all of those cars you name were created, safety and environmental legislation mean your car has to be substantially more robust too.

If you want an example of what a major manufacturer supported low volume driving enjoyment biased cars will look like on a spec sheet think Alpine A110 something which Lotus are already competitive with on specification.

The days of sports cars costing less than £30k is pretty much over, hatchback based performance cars will dominate at the price point because lets face it with modern suspension and brakes the compromises inherent in the layout is pretty minor and the money you spend on not making a low volume body can be spent on performance components.

And if we are going to criticise lotus strategy they probably should have gone electric or at very least traded Elise chassis for 2007 Tesla shares.....

[suffolk009]

CABC said:

JMF894 said:

Actually I think Porsche are where they are today because they built the Boxster. It saved them at the time.

but after that they made an even bigger move to SUVs. 911s and Caysters and a fraction of total sales now.
Their sports cars (ones i can buy) are now softer than they once were, more 'sport GT'.
All of this is commercially successful and the products are very high quality.
My selfish interest is in smaller, purer handling cars. I'm the odd one out, the 21st century has moved away from that.
This is not rose tinted glasses, just recognition of progress. If Porsche made a 'mechanical' car the size of an earlier 911 with todays techniques it would be awesome. Something like the original 718 but a bit bigger.

I wish people stopped trolling out the usual unqualified praise for technological progress. Much of today's car tech is better for driving, but so much of it simply isn't. Rather it's for comfort and legislation for H&S and emissions. OK for a daily, not for a fun car. Turbos, throttle maps, CDVs, high gearing, over-sized wheels and more. And when you have a sporty SUV it comes with over-firm damping for 'sports feel'.

You're quite right. But lets not forget that most cars would be much better to drive if they weren't so damn fast. I mean who needs a car that will do 160-170-180mph. It's crazy. Make the cars do 130mph max and they'd be so much nicer to drive. More fun at 40mph.

[CS Garth]

This is crunch time. They've stemmed the losses and shored things up. Now it's time to be realistic, you ain't going to exist as a manufacturer in 10 years time selling 1400 niche cars to beardies. Not without a cash cow elsewhere.

People are going to have to stop being precious and realise that for Lotus to remain making cars as we know it they're going to need to do something different, quickly. Marginal gains are no longer enough.

[mesajoe]

Oh dear, any delusions I had of buying another Lotus have just evaporated.

I've owned 5 so far and was waiting to see what happens at Lotus before I buy a 6th.

Not sure I will bother now.

Quite depressing.

[Helicopter123]

CS Garth said:

This is crunch time. They've stemmed the losses and shored things up. Now it's time to be realistic, you ain't going to exist as a manufacturer in 10 years time selling 1400 niche cars to beardies. Not without a cash cow elsewhere.

People are going to have to stop being precious and realise that for Lotus to remain making cars as we know it they're going to need to do something different, quickly. Marginal gains are no longer enough.

If they are only selling 1400 cars that's not a business, that's a hobby.

[Exige77]

kambites said:

Exige77 said:

Geeky want a 50,000/100,000 unit per year sportyish mark asap.

That way lies nothing more sporty than the "Lotus TT", based on a transverse front-engined Volvo platform; almost certainly neither designed nor built the UK. I'm not saying you're wrong, but whether the brand survives or not such a direction will be the death of the company.

It will still be Lotus Jim, but not as we know it.

I’m hanging on to my S1 and going to enjoy it while I can.

I’ve worked in China for last 20 years and Chinese Entrepreneurs aren’t interested in 2/3/4,000 units per year car companies.

[Colonel D]

I don`t see how a Lotus SUV would be a great move, not straight away anyway. Louts have a certain market right now and it won`t just expand with an SUV launch, another 2 seater is just aiming at the already existing small market. They need a 4 door saloon, a couple of boring models and then maybe an SUV or a modern day Carlton after they increase sales.

[CS Garth]

Colonel D said:

I don`t see how a Lotus SUV would be a great move .

Sporty SUVs are about the hottest segment of the market right now. If you're a young Chinese arriviste middle class what's cooler than an SUV made by a British racing car manufacturer - its McLaren for the masses.

[Tuna]

John145 said:

I don't think any sensible person thinks lotus is genuine competition to Porsche at the moment. A genuine competitor would have customers thinking: do I buy a 911 or Evora...?

In reality lotus have barely enough customer base to staff an office.

Lotus have (until recently) had two big problems - neither of which would have been fixed by designing a new chassis or engine, or sticking more technology in the Evora.

The first problem was public perception (I'm including reviewers here) - Lotus had nothing to offer that overcame the compromises you had to make to get out of a Porsche. Re-read the recent reviews and you can see that times have changed. Or read the comments from Porsche owners in the forums who seem quite upset to have their cars challenged.

The second problem was (and still is) dealer network. Most customers will read the reviews and *still* not ask if they should buy a 911 or an Evora because the nearest dealer is miles away down some unknown side road. Until owners can feel secure that they can just drop off their car for a service without planning a day trip, and until Lotus has a big enough network to stop treating 'niggles' in an ad-hoc manner, sales will remain limited.

John145 said:

The long term reality for Lotus now is to push. Geely is a genuinely attractive proposition but they will have a very difficult time to turn it around.

I am positive about Lotus's future now. I was not 3 years ago.

Gales made a lot of redundancies when he came in. That is not overly surprising given the situation. However what is surprising is the people who then left who were not forced. People with their whole career built at Lotus (I'm sure you can all think of one person in particular) walking away without any redundancy package.

I can't speak for that particular person, but he was offered a position that Lotus couldn't offer him - the same way Julian Thomson moved on. What do you expect Lotus to do, conjure up a car project for them to work on? Lotus couldn't pay for new paperclips, never mind development projects for the sake of keeping staff busy.

John145 said:

We have 2 directions for Lotus now:

- become the next Morgan doing nothing ground breaking and just turning over based on a has been product and a committed but small customer base
- align to a larger manufacturer, investing and developing new exciting cars that have technology and appeal to increase their market share

You may think there is such a thing as "getting the mechanics right" however the painful truth is that this is a fallacy. Do you really think that Porsche, AMG et al are incapable of doing the basics? Lotus must now push and I really hope this new CEO and ownership provide an exciting 10 year plan for the guys in Hethel. Gales never did.

I'd love to see a new halo model, and yes, the Elise 2020 for sure - but the first thing Geely could do would be to pay for the development work to fix the last of the niggles in the current cars, and sort out a larger dealer network. Lotus have one of the highest conversion rates for test drives in the industry, but util they can get people in the current models and singing their praises, it's hard to justify the development costs of new models.

The current distribution arrangement makes the cost of developing a new product absolute suicide. The current network will not make enough sales to payback development costs. If they can't make in-roads to 911/Cayman buyers with the current lineup, a new car isn't going to magically make a difference.

Edited by Tuna on Monday 4th June 22:37

[Colonel D]

CS Garth said:

Sporty SUVs are about the hottest segment of the market right now. If you're a young Chinese arriviste middle class what's cooler than an SUV made by a British racing car manufacturer - its McLaren for the masses.

I agree about them being hot property, but Lotus doesn`t have the reputation of McLaren, Porsche, Rolls.. etc Don`t get me wrong, Lotus have a great reputation but to most people it would just be another SUV. At least with a saloon it`s opening the door to the people who want a practical "sports car"

[Helicopter123]

Colonel D said:

CS Garth said:

Sporty SUVs are about the hottest segment of the market right now. If you're a young Chinese arriviste middle class what's cooler than an SUV made by a British racing car manufacturer - its McLaren for the masses.

I agree about them being hot property, but Lotus doesn`t have the reputation of McLaren, Porsche, Rolls.. etc Don`t get me wrong, Lotus have a great reputation but to most people it would just be another SUV. At least with a saloon it`s opening the door to the people who want a practical "sports car"

Alfa are selling their one OK.

[Tuna]

John145 said:

You may think there is such a thing as "getting the mechanics right" however the painful truth is that this is a fallacy. Do you really think that Porsche, AMG et al are incapable of doing the basics? .

Um... a Lotus always feels like a Lotus, a Porsche like a Porsche etc. - the dynamics are as much a part of the brand as the shape. Going for active damping and trick electronics will alienate people who like the Lotus feel and won't magically win over people who prefer Porsche dynamics.

[cypriot]

the harsh reality is that lotus does need to move up market to survive, evidenced by the huge increase in list price of their newer models. Selling niche models for peanuts is great for car enthusiasts and pistonhead forums, but not great for your bottom line!

They need to look at mclaren and literally copy their method. Go all in to the high performance luxury market, close down ALL current dealers, and open brand spanking new dealerships, all modern and shiny. Lotus has a huge heritage they can draw on to sell cars, as much as mclaren does, and there is no reason they cant be competitors for mclaren/ferrari/lambo. Needs a ton of investment, but that is the only way to survive - to create an aspirational brand. Lets hope this is the direction that Geely takes!

[davepoth]

Lotus will still need to make sports cars - even if they only sell twelve of them a year it's important to the brand.

I reckon something like an Esprit Turbo hybrid - a bit like a BMW i8 maybe - would do the trick. It'd be a good car to start building brand from.

[CS Garth]

Colonel D said:

CS Garth said:

Sporty SUVs are about the hottest segment of the market right now. If you're a young Chinese arriviste middle class what's cooler than an SUV made by a British racing car manufacturer - its McLaren for the masses.

I agree about them being hot property, but Lotus doesn`t have the reputation of McLaren, Porsche, Rolls.. etc Don`t get me wrong, Lotus have a great reputation but to most people it would just be another SUV. At least with a saloon it`s opening the door to the people who want a practical "sports car"

I see the logic but the numbers in China don't support it. The cross over market was the strongest market segment last year in China at 13% growth to circa 10m vehicles. Sedan market shrank a couple of percent to 12m or thereabouts. EVs grew over 80% to 0.5m.

Ergo a Lotus cross over with and EV in the range could do 50,000 units in China alone before anywhere else is even looked at if they get it right. Compare that to the circa 3k sales Lotus managed globally last year.

The new guy isn't primarily there to design the new 2 up for us - he is there to protect the Geely investment and scale up profitability asap. If a happy by product of this is the halo products remain (a la Porsche) then its good times all round....

Edited by CS Garth on Tuesday 5th June 00:21

[saaby93]

This feels depressing
Wasnt he doing ok
He turned the exige into a a separate model placed between the elise and the evora
The base elise is cheap the top exige evora expensive i.e. a wide range of models
He's made the company worth buying
Then he's ousted?

Where's the evora roadster?

[Oilchange]

Selling thousands of ev’s or crossovers or whatever has to happen so we can have the new Esprit

Edited by Oilchange on Tuesday 5th June 00:44

[otolith]

Talksteer said:

otolith said:

hyphen said:

otolith said:

John145 said:

However we have an Evora now with no active systems and a higher curb weight than a Cayman.

But lower than a Porsche with 2+2 seating, which would be a better comparison. It's not particularly light, though, I agree.

Does the weight matter though? Evora is billed as an everyday car I think, rather than a weekend car so you wouldn't expect the weight to have been the focus.

You might reasonably expect an aluminium and composite Lotus to be lighter than an equivalent aluminium and steel Porsche - and it is, but not by very much. As to whether it matters - all else being equal, weight makes almost everything worse, and lightness has been a Lotus USP forever, so... It's not that the Evora should be a 750kg weekend car, more that one might expect a greater advantage over the competition.

The structure of a car is typically only around 25% of the mass of the car so even dramatic changes in its mass don't have massive changes in the weight of the vehicle. Porsche also have the engineering resources to design a lot more of their car themselves so they can pull weight out the interior or suspension components or gearbox castings or engine mounts.

Lotus on the other hand has to go looking for parts from other people and try to find light weight ones. It's always possible to buy light weight low volume parts but the cost tends to be really high, I suspect some of this is why Lotus cars have become dramatically more expensive.

Secondly a highly optimised steel or aluminium structure can be lighter than a poorly optimised composite one. Porsche have the resources to optimise the hell out of components and then the sales volumes to hide these design costs in.

Easily the most successful car at weight reduction is the MX-5 (still only 1050kg) which achieves weight reduction by shaving weight off everything (e.g. 15g of the sun visor), again volume lets them spend a great deal of time on optimisation.

Oh, I quite agree - I know why the masses are so close, and the reason Lotus haven’t been able to realise the potential (cash, basically). It’s just rather disappointing that the chips have fallen that way.

[otolith]

kambites said:

John145 said:

I am positive about Lotus's future now. I was not 3 years ago.

I'm more positive about Lotus's future as a car manufacturer. I'm 100% negative about Lotus's future as a manufacturer of cars I have any interest in owning.

Same here. Bluntly, if they cease making cars I want to buy, I don’t really give a damn whether they go out of business or not. And to be honest, if you want the kind of car John has in mind, buy a McLaren.