Lotus moving upmarket?

[jamieboy]

According to Autocar, anyway.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/...

Not sure what to make of it - lightweight and simple is what defines Lotus (to me, anyway) so it seems like a risk to take the fight to Porsche / Aston Martin.

No question that they're good at what they do, but can they keep enough "Lotus-ness"?

Saying that, I thought the Elise was a big success- I didn't realise they'd made a loss for the last 14 years, so maybe they don't have many options...

[homerjay]

"Under the plan, Lotus plans to raise sales from the current 2000-25000 cars a year to 6000-8000 within five years"

say what now???

[jamieboy]

homerjay said:

"Under the plan, Lotus plans to raise sales from the current 2000-25000 cars a year to 6000-8000 within five years"

say what now???

Wild guess: 2000-25000 should read 2000-2500.

[kambites]

So no Elise S3 then?

How often are Lotus Cars going to get themselves into a relatively stable, profitable (or at least not too lossy) situation and then do something stupid to ruin it?

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 23 June 12:28

[CampDavid]

kambites said:

So no Elise S3 then?

How often are Lotus Cars going to get themselves into a relatively stable, profitable (or at least not too lossy) situation and then do something stupid to ruin it?

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 23 June 12:28

It's a perpetual cycle

[mattviatura]

I think Lotus have always been unsure of whether to go the luxury route or not. When I was growing up I always thought of the Esprit as being an upmarket sports car and to some extent the FWD Elan.

The Elise marked, for me, a return to Lotus' lightweight past.

Edited because I'm illiterate.

Edited by mattviatura on Wednesday 23 June 12:35

[MX7]

Dany Bahar - Ferrari
Donato Coco - Ferrari
Andreas Schlegel - Aston Martin
Andreas Prillmann - Ferrari
Frank Tuch - Porsche

It looks like their intentions are clear, which I think is unfortunate because Lotus have their niche away from the big supercars.

[Fittster]

"Proton has held a briefing in Malaysia outlining its plans to make Lotus profitable within five years. Lotus has not made a profit for Proton since it bought it in 1996."

Why would anyone continue with a company that has not made a profit in a decade?

[Fittster]

MX7 said:

It looks like their intentions are clear, which I think is unfortunate because Lotus have their niche away from the big supercars.

A niche that doesn't actually make any money.

[kambites]

Fittster said:

Why would anyone continue with a company that has not made a profit in a decade?

I suspect they mean that Lotus cars haven't made a profit. Lotus engineering (which I think is also owned by Proton, but I might be wrong) turns a healthy profit doesn't it?

Lotus have also worked on chassis designs for Proton's own cars, I have no idea how their internal accounting system gives credit for that kind of thing.

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 23 June 12:38

[vxsmithers]

re loss making brands - VW and Skoda spring to mind, brand building for the future, think its worked for them...

[Fittster]

kambites said:

Fittster said:

Why would anyone continue with a company that has not made a profit in a decade?

I suspect they mean that Lotus cars haven't made a profit. Lotus engineering (which I think is also owned by Proton, but I might be wrong) turns a healthy profit doesn't it?

Even if that assumption is correct why would Proton continue to make Lotus cars if they haven't made a profit in over a decade? At some point business logic has got to kick in.

[kambites]

Fittster said:

kambites said:

Fittster said:

Why would anyone continue with a company that has not made a profit in a decade?

I suspect they mean that Lotus cars haven't made a profit. Lotus engineering (which I think is also owned by Proton, but I might be wrong) turns a healthy profit doesn't it?

Even if that assumption is correct why would Proton continue to make Lotus cars if they haven't made a profit in over a decade? At some point business logic has got to kick in.

I suppose that depends on how interdependent the two companies are. It's perfectly possible for a department of a company to make a loss in its own right, but to somehow boost the profits of other bits of the organisation.

This is pure conjecture by me, by the way. Proton may well be losing money overall on the "Lotus" business.

[toast boy]

That fact about them not making a profit in 14 years seems a bit strange, the Elise/Exige has been a pretty successful car for a low volume manufacturer, and for the Elise at least I would have thought it would have a decent margin on it. Have they lost money through the other projects they have been pursuing? For me it's pretty simple, S3 Elise/Exige plus a new Esprit, no other models needed. Their recent efforts have shown that even if they make a fantastic car, they struggle to compete outside their niche.

[GKP]

Group Lotus is healthy enough. 'Cars' always struggles to make a profit simply due to the lack of volume - it's more of a shop window for 'Engineering'.
Quite where the new production lines necessary to ramp up output to the projected levels are going to be hasn't been made clear. Maybe Malaysia.

[MX7]

Fittster said:

MX7 said:

It looks like their intentions are clear, which I think is unfortunate because Lotus have their niche away from the big supercars.

A niche that doesn't actually make any money.

It appears that they can turn a profit, but they haven't got it right. Either way, if they abandon the 'adding lightness' philosophy, and move into the multi-million pound supercar market, they are still not guaranteed a profit, but they are guaranteed much larger losses if it still doesn't work for them.

At the moment there are no other manufacturers that offer the same that a Lotus does. I really don't think that moving to a hotly contended market, where the Lotus brand has no real history, is going to help.

Edited by MX7 on Wednesday 23 June 12:56

[jamieboy]

Probably worth keeping this in the 'official' thread:

http://pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f... Loss-Making Lotus Pledges 5 Year Turnaround

I don't think the news story was up when I started this one, sorry.

[plasticpig]

I wonder if they would make a profit if they moved production to Malaysia? The Europa was supposed to do the job according to PH http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/GASSING/topic.asp?h=0...