Tuesday 30th October 2001

Losses at Lotus

Millions of pounds down after a busy year

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[pabs]

Lotus should concentrate on evolving their own products before selling out to companies like vauxhall and shooting themselves in the foot financially.

[sjm]

I agree.

How can they hope to survive with only 1 model in thier range - the new Elise(Lets face it the esprit sales aren't exactly worth counting and probably make a loss)

[JPHERSEY]

Lets face it the VX220 was a disaster or both Lotus,Vaxhall and a few dealers.
If it had been badged an Opel...well that's a different story.
Quite frankly GM should drop the name Vauxhall altogether.

[Bruce Fielding]

Having been to the Lotus factory on Sunday and having seen a couple of Vauxhall VX200s in amongst a whole gaggle of Opel Speedsters (the same car with the steering wheel on the wrong side) I can confirm that the GM connection is going very well, thank you. By the way, the £14 million appears to be very well spent with most of the effort going into hi tech quality control and electronically controlled systems that will make the 'lots of trouble usually serious' soubriquet eventually obsolete. Also, let's not forget that Lotus Cars is just one aspect of an organisation that claims responsibility for some proportion of 10% of all cars on European roads, as well as doing major engineering work for the world's car industry. We were shown a secret part of the factory that's working on a project which will add both to the fortunes and kudos of Group Lotus very soon. Investment always hits profits initially but I believe that this one looks like it will pay off in the long run.

[guysh]

I thought that they had just sold off the Engineering bit???

Anyway as far as I'm concerned thay can go bust - It wouldn't surprise me because of the way in which myself and others have been treated - not content with ripping me off with the M250 they then messed me about with my Exige and didn't do anything about my misfire problem - now they don't care 'cause the warranty has expired- as far as I'm concerned they can all go to hell - expcially that fat old git - I bet he can't even get into and Exige......

... roll on my M12 - I should have listened to them at the motor show when they said to me - this M12 works and drives - what about the M250 - doesn't even have an Engine...... how right they where and they were polite about it too....

[PetrolTed]

quote:
I thought that they had just sold off the Engineering bit???

They sold off a small office (30ish poeple) in Coventry. There is a huge engineering element to the business.

[JPHERSEY]

Hi Bruce...well I'm glad the GM connection is going well now but there's no doubt it was a big risk. They were doing so well, for the first time in years, and then nearly got sued by GM because they couldn't cope with the extra capacity and had to farm out the body panels to a French company that had quality control probs. That caused huge supply probs to dealers.
This new investment is very exciting for the future however.