Evo Mag Article - "Can Lotus survive its latest crisis?"

This is a difficult read if you're a Lotus fan.

Can Lotus survive its latest crisis? | Evo

Lotus’s latest troubles are grabbing headlines, but the writing’s been on the wall for some time.

www.evo.co.uk

 

[Orchardbike]

When you read that, you have to ask the question why Geely promoted Matt Windle?

 

[brainf18]

When you read that, you have to ask the question why Geely promoted Matt Windle?

I think this might be the beginning of the end for Lotus. I feel bad for the hard working folks in Hethel. Matt and Geely led them into disaster.

 

[kitkat]

Autocar is reporting it had two sources that said Chinese management ordered the preparation of closure of the Hethel factory.

1. The heart-stop moment came on early Friday morning. A source with impeccable connections to Lotus UK told Autocar that the order had come from China to prepare its historic manufacturing facility in Hethel for closure.
2. A second source backed up that bombshell. Lotus was investigating moving sports car production to the US. Separately, the Financial Times discovered from a different source that Hethel was indeed on the chopping block, threatening 1300 jobs.

 

[JimH]

P*rs*he Monthly - sorry - EVO - magazine is both notoriously and historically anti-Lotus....

 

[Eagle7]

Isn't this the same Evo who's Jethro trashed Lotus and the Emira when he was given a pre-production car to test drive at Anglesey, and compared it to a track prepared Porsche that just happened to be there that same day?

 

[freefall_junkie]

Autocar is reporting it had two sources that said Chinese management ordered the preparation of closure of the Hethel factory.

1. The heart-stop moment came on early Friday morning. A source with impeccable connections to Lotus UK told Autocar that the order had come from China to prepare its historic manufacturing facility in Hethel for closure.
2. A second source backed up that bombshell. Lotus was investigating moving sports car production to the US. Separately, the Financial Times discovered from a different source that Hethel was indeed on the chopping block, threatening 1300 jobs.

Autocar has long been a supporter of Lotus and they probably have better industry connections than any UK mag, so sadly this has a ring of truth to it.

 

[Six Speed Stephen]

I'd be happy to re-body my Emira with left over Evija parts!

 

[Lotustoronto]

How else was Lotus (Hethel) suppose to get some government subsidies? This looks all very planted IMO.

 

[Nick in Sydney]

Matt and Geely led them into disaster.

Geely yes, Matt W not really. Matt, Lotus Cars, and the Emira are just a side show for Lotus Technology. Emira has sold pretty well and originally it was only supposed to be on sale for ~4 years before being replaced by the all-electric TYP135.

The disaster is all about Geely's bad strategy and bad luck: they have burned well over $1BN on a misguided 100% EV strategy, tried to go up-market too quickly, and then got hit with massive US tariffs.

 

[geoffbland]

Geely yes, Matt W not really. Matt, Lotus Cars, and the Emira are just a side show for Lotus Technology. Emira has sold pretty well and originally it was only supposed to be on sale for ~4 years before being replaced by the all-electric TYP135.
The disaster is all about Geely's bad strategy and bad luck: they have burned well over $1BN on a misguided 100% EV strategy, tried to go up-market too quickly, and then got hit with massive US tariffs.

Mostly agree but Matt Windle would be in charge or at least some what responsible for; customer service, quality control, quality checks of subcontractors work such as those making composite body panels, communications to prospective owners including those with early deposits down, dealing with warranty claims, estimates and forecasts of costs, sales and purchase prices, informing and liaising with the dealers and the Geely parent company etc. However our personal opinions are just that and we'll never know most of the details of what has happened behind the scenes and exactly what was in his control or exactly what was enforced on him from above - we should bear that in mind.

 

[Orchardbike]

The buck stops at the MD. You can’t change culture from the bottom up, it’s a top down process. The feeling a lot of people have got of Lotus is that they didn’t.
/don’t care about their customers. I know of a few people who’ve contacted Matt Windle directly and got either no response or a less than impressive response. Yes, we don’t know what was going on and what he had to deal with, but with the issues Lotus had, he had zero effect on these problems.

 

[Nick in Sydney]

Mostly agree but Matt Windle would be in charge or at least some what responsible for; customer service, quality control, quality checks of subcontractors work such as those making composite body panels, communications to prospective owners including those with early deposits down, dealing with warranty claims, estimates and forecasts of costs, sales and purchase prices, informing and liaising with the dealers and the Geely parent company etc. However our personal opinions are just that and we'll never know most of the details of what has happened behind the scenes and exactly what was in his control or exactly what was enforced on him from above - we should bear that in mind.

Totally agree, but my point is that none of that is the reason why Lotus may close Hethel and relocate to the US. Yes, Lotus Cars under Windle has done a lousy job with Emira customer service, quality control, etc. No debate. But at the end of the day, the Emira has sold reasonably well. The risk to survival is mostly due to the EV strategy and the US tariffs, not poor leadership at little old Hethel.

 

[digilotus]

I wonder what would have happened if Polestar / Volvo management took over Lotus Cars from the outset. It's a bit of a shame that all they shared within Geely group was a bit of the Volvo / Lynk & Co parts bin in developing the Emira and nothing else.

 

[Nick in Sydney]

The buck stops at the MD. You can’t change culture from the bottom up, it’s a top down process. The feeling a lot of people have got of Lotus is that they didn’t.
/don’t care about their customers. I know of a few people who’ve contacted Matt Windle directly and got either no response or a less than impressive response. Yes, we don’t know what was going on and what he had to deal with, but with the issues Lotus had, he had zero effect on these problems.

Yup. Maybe it's because Matt came up through the engineering ranks, but he just doesn't seem interested in customers. You'd like to think that the MD of a small sports car specialist like Lotus Cars would be hanging out with customers at drive days, attending Goodwood, chatting with journalists . . . engaging. Perhaps that's always been the Lotus culture— Colin Chapman was all about engineering, I doubt he thought much about customer service.

Ever since he got burned by that "we will honour the prices" video, Matt has been invisible and it's crickets.

 

[digilotus]

Making Lotus cars in the US is relatively easy for Geely. They can tool a new production line in the South Carolina plant where some Polestar and Volvo cars are currently made. The Lotus plant in China can also readily be repurposed to make Polestar and Volvo cars, so that investment can also be re-used. I'm sure they have various contingency plans and this would be one of them - they're not stupid.

Moving towards multi-brand production facilities would enable Geely to consolidate machinery, staff and costs, similar to what VW do with manufacturing various brand cars in their super factory in Wolfsberg. Hethel is the only site in which this wouldn't be possible to do at any sensible scale. As for Hethel, the Renault partnership with EV sports cars fell through, the TYP135 eV sportscar is now "indefinately postponed" and the Hethel expansion plans would need some major investment which is now very unlikely.

 

[freefall_junkie]

Totally agree, but my point is that none of that is the reason why Lotus may close Hethel and relocate to the US. Yes, Lotus Cars under Windle has done a lousy job with Emira customer service, quality control, etc. No debate. But at the end of the day, the Emira has sold reasonably well. The risk to survival is mostly due to the EV strategy and the US tariffs, not poor leadership at little old Hethel.

Hard to overstate just how much of a total failure the EV strategy has been. By Lotus's initial targets the Emeya and Eletre were supposed to have propelled them to 76,000 sales in 2025. They'll be lucky to do, what, 10,000 this year? When I was at the Jim Clark event last weekend, surrounded by Lotus sports and race cars of all ages, there was just one Emeya and one Eletre there presented by Lotus Glasgow. They looked so out of place: bloated, overweight and really nothing to do with Chapman's engineering DNA.

The Emira has sold pretty well, but I suspect it hasn't made them much if any money. The warranty costs alone must be wiping out a huge chunk of profit.

 

[JClem]

Is anybody really surprised by this news? Given the razor thin margins on Emiras the warranty work alone is enough to make a significant loss, never mind all the other costs and capital expenditures.

The “showroom” on Piccadilly is ridiculous and nothing more than a vanity project. Paying David Gandy to say nice things about the Emeya on Instagram was a complete waste of money. The amount spent on the Evija could have been used to focus on customer service for the Emira which would may have retained my current and future business.

I recently heard a fantastic story from a DB9 owner. They bought it second hand but the engine failed on a road trip shortly after. Aston Martin straight away said they would replace it with a new V12. He has done 50k miles since and is now looking at a Vanquish. That’s how it should be done.

 

[freefall_junkie]

I recently heard a fantastic story from a DB9 owner. They bought it second hand but the engine failed on a road trip shortly after. Aston Martin straight away said they would replace it with a new V12. He has done 50k miles since and is now looking at a Vanquish. That’s how it should be done.

Compare that to Lotus: we are arbitrarily reducing the paint warranty from 5 years to 3, and if you get paint bubbling on the doors after this time, GFY.

 

[Orchardbike]

The Emira has sold pretty well, but I suspect it hasn't made them much if any money. The warranty costs alone must be wiping out a huge chunk of profit.
[/QUOTE]
I’d love to know how much of a loss they made on my car! (mine could be the reason they could close Hethel!)