RE: Lotus breaks sales record, posts £594m loss
Discussion
BlackandWhite said:
Is it even possible to still be in business and making such a stupendous loss? Hoe exactly do you make that up if what you are currently doing is taking you so deeply 8k to debt.
A £600m loss in a year is nothing !Tesla were losing a lot more in the early days and Lucid are burning through $2bn to $3bn per year currently (for the last 3 years).
For context, £600m is about 5,000 cars sold, and Tesla sell more than that worldwide in a week
Edited by SDK on Monday 8th April 23:23
GT9 said:
Frimley111R said:
I wonder how many people would still want Porsche to stop making big saloons and SUVs?
Whenever I'm face with questions like these, my first thought is always, 'what would Colin do?' 
Seriously, he was actually a businessman, so would probably appreciate the technical side of the new generation of car, and I guess the financial aspect too, so long as it made money, though I suspect ’New ‘ Lotus is performing about as well as ‘Old’ Lotus, the figures appear to be very ambitious, time will tell.
Probably small change to Geely and part of the wider plan to infiltrate and own the UK.
Was looking round an MG hybrid SUV thing the other day that a relative has, actually really quite nicely made but it being an “MG”, it’s like a Chinese bloke got your dead grandads clothes from a charity shop and has turned up claiming to be him.
Not quite as bad for Lotus but it’s getting there, but they do have to make what the punters want.
And the constant mentions of Colin Chapman, most buyers now won’t care, it’s a brand name, he has been dead longer than most buyers have been born. Lotus would have long been defunct if it was up to him as he was an engineer and they don’t tend to make great businessmen.
Was looking round an MG hybrid SUV thing the other day that a relative has, actually really quite nicely made but it being an “MG”, it’s like a Chinese bloke got your dead grandads clothes from a charity shop and has turned up claiming to be him.
Not quite as bad for Lotus but it’s getting there, but they do have to make what the punters want.
And the constant mentions of Colin Chapman, most buyers now won’t care, it’s a brand name, he has been dead longer than most buyers have been born. Lotus would have long been defunct if it was up to him as he was an engineer and they don’t tend to make great businessmen.
From the article:
“ Already 63 per cent of its deliveries were battery-electric models, as production ramped up in the second half of the year. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Lotus recorded a 92 per cent increase in revenue and a 110 per cent increase in deliveries to 3,749 cars. “
Bulk of sales are the Chinese made cars. It seems to be simple exercise of :raise cash in USA to finance Lotus UK which then buys all its cars from Lotus China. China makes and keeps the profits and no corporation tax is paid in UK.
EV cars pay no VED, Lotus pays no tax here, what’s not to like…
“ Already 63 per cent of its deliveries were battery-electric models, as production ramped up in the second half of the year. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Lotus recorded a 92 per cent increase in revenue and a 110 per cent increase in deliveries to 3,749 cars. “
Bulk of sales are the Chinese made cars. It seems to be simple exercise of :raise cash in USA to finance Lotus UK which then buys all its cars from Lotus China. China makes and keeps the profits and no corporation tax is paid in UK.
EV cars pay no VED, Lotus pays no tax here, what’s not to like…
bigaoi said:
Yes, I think for everyone's sanity they are indeed best regarded as two separate, or at least, very loosely-related companies. We'd hope the SUVs prop-up the sports-car division, but they may just kill the uprofitable one, one day. Having said all that, Volvo do indeed seem to be doing well. It depends on whether the owners actually have an interest in making sports cars.
I don't think so. The sports cars are the halo that defines the brand; it's a loss leader. Edited by bigaoi on Monday 8th April 17:22
Consider Porsche. Last year it sold 50,146 911s and 20,518 718s (Boxster and Cayman combined). So a smidge over 70,00 sportscars. In the same time it sold 87,533 Cayennes, 87,355 Macans, and 74,649 saloons (Panameras and Taycans), totalling 249,537. Making total sports car sales 22% of the total, in a year when Panamera sales were down due to a replacement model being on the way - this year it'd probably be nearer 20%.
Someone once said that Porsche's greatest achievement is turning into an SUV company whilst still convincing the world it's a sportscar company, which is I'm sure where Geely are trying to pitch it. But that will require the world to still think Lotus is a sportscar company.
pycraft said:
bigaoi said:
Yes, I think for everyone's sanity they are indeed best regarded as two separate, or at least, very loosely-related companies. We'd hope the SUVs prop-up the sports-car division, but they may just kill the uprofitable one, one day. Having said all that, Volvo do indeed seem to be doing well. It depends on whether the owners actually have an interest in making sports cars.
I don't think so. The sports cars are the halo that defines the brand; it's a loss leader. Edited by bigaoi on Monday 8th April 17:22
Consider Porsche. Last year it sold 50,146 911s and 20,518 718s (Boxster and Cayman combined). So a smidge over 70,00 sportscars. In the same time it sold 87,533 Cayennes, 87,355 Macans, and 74,649 saloons (Panameras and Taycans), totalling 249,537. Making total sports car sales 22% of the total, in a year when Panamera sales were down due to a replacement model being on the way - this year it'd probably be nearer 20%.
Someone once said that Porsche's greatest achievement is turning into an SUV company whilst still convincing the world it's a sportscar company, which is I'm sure where Geely are trying to pitch it. But that will require the world to still think Lotus is a sportscar company.
NDNDNDND said:
Geely are making some SUVs for the Chinese market. So what?
Another confirmation that Lotus is basically dead, and lives on as nothing more than a brand name?
I do find it striking the hate that there is for Lotus now it's part of a Chinese conglomerate, that was never there when it was part of a Malaysian conglomerate. It almost seems as if general opinion is that Proton were the ideal owners, who basically did nothing with the company for decades and left it to rot? Seriously - all the development for the Elise was done under Bartoli and Proton just basically made variations on a theme for 21 years of basically the same car. The nearest thing to a new model - though hardly a clean sheet design - under Proton was the Evora and it doesn't seem to have been "done right" until the Emira... under Geely.Another confirmation that Lotus is basically dead, and lives on as nothing more than a brand name?
Also, if none of this had happened Lotus would now be part of Stellantis - can you see that working out for anyone?
simonrockman said:
Production has to be the UK problem. They had initial orders of 10,000 Emiras, and it sounds like they have only shipped a third if that. If they have six thousand orders for £90k cars they look safer than the figures feel.
I think there was some issue with the USA where they took ages to get approvals to sell them in some key states.SDK said:
BlackandWhite said:
Is it even possible to still be in business and making such a stupendous loss? Hoe exactly do you make that up if what you are currently doing is taking you so deeply 8k to debt.
A £600m loss in a year is nothing !Tesla were losing a lot more in the early days and Lucid are burning through $2bn to $3bn per year currently (for the last 3 years).
For context, £600m is about 5,000 cars sold, and Tesla sell more than that worldwide in a week
Edited by SDK on Monday 8th April 23:23
I find it strange they went for the option of expensive high end electric cars (perhaps to prove up technology and create halo models), when the big money to be made is in the volume associated with more affordable electric cars.
I think Lotus needs to make a "Tesla model 3" type alternative and at that price point to get close to those rather lofty sales targets.
suffolk009 said:
I completely fail to understand Geeley's desire to make Lotus "all electric".
I rather suspect that the conversation was something like -“let’s buy a brand so our ev cars have some Western cache as opposed to being just another Chinese product.”
“Ok what’s reasonably priced”
“This lotus thing is named after a flower, and has a nice badge - we can buy it very cheap and it has been around ages”
“Ok, buy that then”
theicemario said:
Haven't had the displeasure of seeing too many Eletre just yet
Don’t panic ! You are not missing anything. One lives locally and it is so underwhelming that the first time I saw it; it didn’t even register as the latest Lotus. Dull as dishwater but probably sells like hot cakes in the China.
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