We have more details on Group Lotus’ plan to turnaround the company within the next 5 years. Previous details on the plan revealed plans to produce more of it’s own cars, re-engineer third party cars, as well as expand it’s engineering consultancy business. More details about those details at this post.
Further details reveal that the flagship Lotus Esprit will be postponed to a end 2009, making it a 2010 model. Lotus says it needs more time to “insert more Lotus DNA” to ensure global competitiveness. Rumours previously had it that Lotus was to release the Esprit next year. The new Lotus Esprit is expected to be a mid-engine, rear wheel dirve layout and could use a 4.8 litre V8 DOHC unit from BMW, making more than 400 horsepower, which would be a real rocket combined with the Lotus philosophy of performance through weight reduction.
In the meanwhile, Lotus announced it will introduce a new mid-market level model in May 2008, as well as a new 4-seater high-performance model in collaboration with Proton – are we going to see a Proton car being tuned up in the style of the Lotus Carlton? Bernama reports that this model will be based on the Proton Satria Neo. The Lotus line-up currently includes the Elise, the Exige and the Europa.
As part of it’s efforts to cut costs, Group Lotus also announced 200 job cuts in it’s manufacturing workforce. The Hethel plant workforce suffers because of the US market slowdown, which is the company’s biggest market. Rather than calling it downsizing, officials have said it is more of a “right-sizing.”
There are some rumours of Proton selling off Lotus like what it did to MV Agusta, but Proton’s MD Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir was quick to clarify that there are no such plans, not now and not in the future. He was quoted to say “We will make sure that Lotus will work. We must ensure Lotus is a success; there is no other way.”
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Group Lotus 5-year turnaround plan.
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If proton sold lotus, then might as well sell everything else…
What? Postponed again, Need another 5 years Oh shit Big Trouble. I think give me another five years I will buy Electic Vehicle (EV) or Fuel Cell car with RM100k. Anything could happen within 5 years my friend.
I am wondering If Proton give Lotus another 10 years, what can they produce to be profitable again. Will they make any Fuel Cell Lotus Elise or Electric Lotus Car for future plan? Why why……..wonder what will make you Turn around in the next 5 years time.
Cakap tak serupa bikin mah. Mana boleh?
Don't talk only, action is the best!
Having lotus fiddle with the Satria Neo can only be a good thing… here's hoping for a Proton we Malaysians can be truly proud of. I wonder if Syed Zainal Abidin will call the Lotus tuned Neo "your second Lotus" :P
good news 4 satria neo :D
one word suits all… bungkus
i dont know…it has been years…since we bought Lotus..5-6 years? more? I dont know..but why not take all those Lotus thing to our own shores here? why u dont take all the engineers there and put in Tanjung Malim or Shah Alam? I just could not figure this one out guys..and please..do not say to me things like 'cannot' or what…You use our money to be operating and you come and tell me those shite…enough said!
this is the reason why british automotive industry failed in todays worldwide competition .another 5 years,after that maybe another 5 years,japs would had launched 3 more new models.PROTON own lotus,but british still run them,not surprising it will eventually closed down.arrogant and too many Mr.bean in town.
as bad as lotus is….dont forget lotus has a better chance of actually making some money in a open market as compared to proton.
lotus's forte is only handling and chassis developement in lightweight cars. they got tons to learn if they want to compete against ferrari f430 with thier overdue v8 lotus esprit. you'd think they've already thought about a 5 year turnaround plan long long time ago before some marketing nut at proton thought about another marketing term called '5 year turnaround' plan.
instead of making a high performance neo which looks very bad. why not just give us a detuned europa. actually give msians the cheapest and good europa.
dont forget nobody wanted to buy out lotus and for a reason they didnt want to either coz its not profitable or they knew they didnt need to.
Lotus Cars may not be profitable but Lotus Engineering is used by many European marques as Engineering consultants.
But Lotus seriously need a REAL range of cars. The current lineup of Elise, Exige, Europa are in effect one car…. with diferent skin.
i think this is not the real plan, proton cant plan anything because they can only sleep, no diesel no sale in europe, specialy in turkey.
don sell lotus !
yea. thats what i meant. its cheaper just to pay them consulting fees rather than buy up an ailing company and try to make it profitable. rather let people like proton foot the bill. and by that i meant msians buying protons.
my guess is also not many companies need lotus expertise that much anymore. and the europa target sales is 500units a year. profitable? not quite. ineteresting thing is once they had weight, thier handling suffered when comapred to the elise.
hope they abandon the SUV project under Lotus brand.
Talk like G officer about this and that year plan!…….
I think Proton should get a new and younger CEO for Lotus ? The way it sounded, it is almost a retirement plane for them. 5 years to change direction is not quite good enough. I always think that for these top officials in the auto inductries, they should have the direction mapped out 10 years in advance, anticipating rather than reacting ( like us, the non-insiders ).
How about hiring a Mazda team ( engineers, planners,production managers ) to lead for a change. I quite agreed that the current team is really just " blah-blah " as in Dilbert cartoon