RE: Lotus and Williams Advanced Engineering team up
Discussion
mikey k said:
That was the "proof of concept" car the Tesla founders developed with Lotus
Don't think so. That was the production Roadster. As for it being "crap" it did exactly what Tesla wanted it to do and with some success. It proved the technology could power a pretty decent sports car and even at $100k+ it could be sold to 'early adopters' to coin a technology phrase. IIRC the original contract with Lotus was for a production run of 1000 Roadsters. The contract was extended twice and ultimately some 2,500 were built and sold - a very useful cash injection for Lotus right when they needed it.As for the 'proof of concept', that badge probably belongs on this. Note who is driving it Mikey k......I would agree that Musk is great at self-promotion and certainly he wasn't around on Day 1. For a full warts and all the best account of the Roadster story I've seen so far is Ashlee Vance's biography of Musk. He really got to the bottom of the Tesla story and spoke with many of the key players as well as the peripheral characters and he doesn't pull his punches about Musk. It was a very painful birth.......
Edited by Hedgerley on Tuesday 29th January 23:33
SpudLink said:
mikey k said:
"the pinnacle of battery technology during the inaugural four seasons of Formula E"
What where they need to swap cars half way through the race in order to finish!?
Then this technology has a LONG way to go.
Lets not forget Lotus teamed with Tesla's founders (no NOT Elon Musk
) to build the first EV sports car which became the the basis of the current models
When Formula E launched, I said it was more likely to setback the cause of electric cars because of the need to swap mid race. That was hardly going to persuade the man in the street who is putting off the idea of an electric car because of range anxiety. It would have made sense at the start to have 2 short races in a day, with support races while the cars are recharged. Twenty minute races are common in motorsport, so it wouldn’t be so glaringly obvious that the battery can’t last a race distance. Later they could extend the races to whatever length the cars could manage. What where they need to swap cars half way through the race in order to finish!?
Then this technology has a LONG way to go.
Lets not forget Lotus teamed with Tesla's founders (no NOT Elon Musk
) to build the first EV sports car which became the the basis of the current models As it turns out, apparently nothing can slow the growth in e-car sales, so I clearly know nothing.
lotuslover69 said:
Geely are injecting 1.5 billion into lotus cars...
They are serius about turning Lotus into a Mclaren competitor.
I think they’re serious about selling vast numbers of cheap motability crossovers in Asia and have suggested that it could take as much as 1.5bn of CapEx over the coming years to achieve that. I don’t think they are targeting the likes of McLaren but just aiming to use the brand to help sell more Protons and Lynx utility boxes. They are serius about turning Lotus into a Mclaren competitor.
All of this is good news, great news for Lotus but I think a bit of perspective is required. What’s good about Geely is that they have the Chinese mentality of patience and they seem to fully understand that Lotus has become the most dull and unaspirational sportscar brand on the planet due to 30 years of owners endlessly ‘adding cheapness’ while the whole of the planet culturally shifted to demanding ‘adding blingness’.
Turning that brand barge around will take years and starting with a ludicrous hypercar is probably the smartest step PR wise. And I assume the next step is to rework the road cars to update their architecture and hopefully hire a designer who can create some plastic panels to make it look genuinely desirable as there is nothing really wrong with how the cars work under the skin.
All in all, things are looking about as good for Lotus as they have ever done but I don’t think they have any plans to either take on McLaren or to use much of that verbal mention, not set in stone money of up to 1.5bn on sports cars.
DonkeyApple said:
All in all, things are looking about as good for Lotus as they have ever done but I don’t think they have any plans to either take on McLaren or to use much of that verbal mention, not set in stone money of up to 1.5bn on sports cars.
I suspect it would be a mistake to take on McLaren anyway. How long did it take them to establish they really knew what they were doing, even after producing an extremely impressive road car? They're nearly unassailable now, and that's ignoring Lotus' inability to stick to a five year plan for more than about three years. It's about as likely as Lotus overtaking Porsche for sales.That's not to say I wouldn't love to see an Esprit replacement, but they've got to have something really unique to enter that niche right now.
If the Geely investment delivers an Esprit that goes like an Evora, priced like an Evora but looks twice as expensive instead of half as expensive then I’d see that as a tremendous result for the sports car side.
One of the issues that Macca has is that at their particular price point the average age of the customer is high enough that all the cars need to be kitted out with Stanna motors and NHS medical equipment. The problem with aiming at younger buyers who can get in and out of cars unassisted and don’t need life support systems to keep them functioning in the cabin is that there are far fewer of them, hardly any have time or space to use a 2 seater and they’ve f
k all money anyway.
It’s a horrible time, in some regards, to be an expensive sports car maker as the target customer base that has the means require all the stuff from an S Class or Rangie to be jammed into their sports car and all while the badges on the car scream ‘winner’ to the world about them.
One of the issues that Macca has is that at their particular price point the average age of the customer is high enough that all the cars need to be kitted out with Stanna motors and NHS medical equipment. The problem with aiming at younger buyers who can get in and out of cars unassisted and don’t need life support systems to keep them functioning in the cabin is that there are far fewer of them, hardly any have time or space to use a 2 seater and they’ve f
k all money anyway. It’s a horrible time, in some regards, to be an expensive sports car maker as the target customer base that has the means require all the stuff from an S Class or Rangie to be jammed into their sports car and all while the badges on the car scream ‘winner’ to the world about them.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff