EU reprieve on low volume ICE cars until 2035

[Leonard]

European supercar makers have been given a reprieve on their switch to electrification

The EU has given low-volume manufacturers an exemption from stricter CO2 targets until 2035

www.topgear.com

 

[Lotustoronto]

hmmmm I wonder if Lotus would be considered a small manufacturer by 2025? I mean they are planning on well over 10K including Electre. Maybe the V6 Manual will live on for a few more years!

 

[Leonard]

hmmmm I wonder if Lotus would be considered a small manufacturer by 2025? I mean they are planning on well over 10K including Electre. Maybe the V6 Manual will live on for a few more years!

Definitely be close id have thought.
Hope Lotus don't turn the Emira FE back to 2009 levels of Evora performance so that they can milk the Emira for another 12 years with mild updates

 

[Lotustoronto]

Definitely be close id have thought.
Hope Lotus don't turn the Emira FE back to 2009 levels of Evora performance so that they can milk the Emira for another 12 years with mild updates

Didn't they do that already .... lol I feel like that is the exact game plan

 

[Lotustoronto]

At the moment, 10k seems like a pipe dream. IMHO, Lotus is in over their heads. Dreams vs. reality. The Supply chain issues are nothing new. When other manufactures were warning of delays and production shut downs, Lotus was in LaLa land.

I didn't mean 10K Emira's. 10K with the Chinese Electre factory going... I am sure they will produce more than 10K a year including that. I just wasn't sure if they look at non EU factories production numbers mentioned in the article.

 

[Leonard]

Didn't they do that already .... lol I feel like that is the exact game plan

Yes but we have only gone backward 7 years so far

 

[Porter]

There's a game to be played with the business entities here. Lotus Cars (the UK-based sports car manufacturer) can be easily separated for legal reporting purposes from the China-based electric SUV company. Plus even if they are taken together, I'm not entirely sure the electric cars would count toward the quantity cap.

They are zero-emissions by nature so why penalize companies that are growing in the way the regulators want? They'd end up with a scenario where a company that builds 9,990 combustion cars is OK, but one that builds 100 combustion cars and 11k emissions-free electric vehicles is not. It would be a policy enforcement counter to the rule's intent.

 

[hagen111]

So tell me...which ICE engine do you still think will exist to be used by Lotus in e.g. 2030?

Hardly any investment is going into ICE engine development at the moment as mainstream manufacturers need to move to electric. There won't be engines for Lotus, even if they would be allowed to use them.

 

[Porter]

So tell me...which ICE engine do you still think will exist to be used by Lotus in e.g. 2030?

Hardly any investment is going into ICE engine development at the moment as mainstream manufacturers need to move to electric. There won't be engines for Lotus, even if they would be allowed to use them.

I wouldn't be so quick to assume that ICE will suddenly vanish like that. I know it's been all over the media to that effect because the "next big thing entirely kills the old thing" narratives are catnip to the Wall Street stock hype squad, but the real world doesn't really operate on hype.

Toyota and Mercedes/AMG are both worldwide auto manufacturers. They don't exclusively serve customers in ultra-developed affluent contexts, they build and sell product for all kinds of purposes in all kinds of environments all over the world. Just because the EU has set targets that govern what certain member states in the European context have incentivized or regulated for their own auto markets, has very little impact on the total picture of parts or engine availability in a global context.

I mean Toyota is still building parts and engines in Japan for new-model trucks being built and sold in Africa and elsewhere using the 1980s design for the Land Cruiser. That truck hasn't been sold in US/EU/JP for 30+ years and they are still building thousands of them a year for certain markets, with updated drivetrains that they are still developing.

If there's a market opportunity to sell thousands of engines or transmissions, typically manufacturers will figure out a way to do it, particularly if there's no direct end-customer support obligation tying them up afterwards. Drivetrains are a separate line of business that isn't necessarily tied to that brand's passenger car product cycles in the way that consumers often assume or expect.

 

[hagen111]

EU forces main manufacturers into Electric. There is no real viable alternative option for them for ICE in EU.
So no randomly available, read affordable, ICE engines with homologation. Sure there will be Porsche GT ICE, Ferrari ICE...but not available to Lotus. Even though ICE engines will be build for foreign non EU markets...they will require homologation against very high cost in EU.

UK, and ROW may be another story.

The old 1980's landcruiser can be had with Euro6 homologation in EU at the moment via grey import.

I hope you are right though, and I am wrong.

 

[Porter]

EU forces main manufacturers into Electric. There is no real viable alternative option for them for ICE in EU.
So no randomly available, read affordable, ICE engines with homologation. Sure there will be Porsche GT ICE, Ferrari ICE...but not available to Lotus. Even though ICE engines will be build for foreign non EU markets...they will require homologation against very high cost in EU.

UK, and ROW may be another story.

The old 1980's landrover can be had with Euro6 homologation in EU at the moment.

I hope you are right though, and I am wrong.

VW was still building the original rear engine Beetle in Mexico, including variations of the H4 aircooled boxer engines, up until about ~5 years ago. EU market regulations definitely have an influence on what EU-headquartered companies build, but it doesn't strictly determine it. Even less when the parent company has an entirely non-EU perspective.

 

[FederGigant]

You might be right that there will be engines left, but didn‘t Lotus say that they will end the Emiras production in 2028 anyways? They won’t need an engine anymore by 2030.

 

[Eagle7]

You might be right that there will be engines left, but didn‘t Lotus say that they will end the Emiras production in 2028 anyways? They won’t need an engine anymore by 2030.

That was the plan, but now that there's a reprieve, if they still have several years of backlogged orders why not fill them? If they have a good selling model, and they can still build and sell them legally, it would make sense business-wise to produce them as long as they're able.

 

[TomE]

2030 was the deadline for end of model life, tied to the date for sale of new ICE cars stopping.

If there are exemptions, if there are markets where they can still sell, if AMG are still building the i4 engine (Toyota won’t for the V6), if sales of Type 135 are low enough to mean spare production capacity at Hethel….

 

[Wolfram]

Isn't this all a bit academic? Hethel is in the UK, which is not in the EU, so this reprieve does not apply to Lotus. I've heard nothing about a UK policy change.

I'm not sure of the legal status of the ICE sales ban, but either it would prevent Lotus from building cars at Hethel wherever the eventual customer is, or at best they could continue building for five years but could only sell abroad.

 

[hagen111]

Its not academic, its reality. Audi has already announced it will invest 0 eur into any new past 2025 ICE...also not for rest of world. Those who belief that manufacturers will make huge investment into a next generation ICE (read EUR7)... I don't. Numbers will be limited as also in ROW they will find pressure on ICE and move towards electric. While at the same time the anticipated production numbers for ICE are much less than in the past and homologation for markets (as in efficiency and clean output) will have increased drastically. Its a very bad business case for ICE without high volumes to justify the investment.

Sure current ICE engines will be available for some time in near future. But 2030...any guess on which engine is still there? at which price?

 

[Wolfram]

Its not academic, its reality. Audi has already announced it will invest 0 eur into any new past 2025 ICE...also not for rest of world. Those who belief that manufacturers will make huge investment into a next generation ICE (read EUR7)... I don't. Numbers will be limited as also in ROW they will find pressure on ICE and move towards electric. While at the same time the anticipated production numbers for ICE are much less than in the past and homologation for markets (as in efficiency and clean output) will have increased drastically. Its a very bad business case for ICE without high volumes to justify the investment.

Sure current ICE engines will be available for some time in near future. But 2030...any guess on which engine is still there? at which price?

I was talking about how the 2035 reprieve may apply to Lotus. It's academic, because Hethel isn't in the EU.

 

[TomE]

I'm not sure of the legal status of the ICE sales ban, but either it would prevent Lotus from building cars at Hethel wherever the eventual customer is, or at best they could continue building for five years but could only sell abroad.

It’s a ban on sales of ICE vehicles in the UK. So no manufacturer will be able to sell them in the UK but ICE cars built in the UK can be sold in other markets.

I question whether Lotus would continue manufacturing after that point, with no home market, but I guess they could if it was still feasible and profitable.