Lotus Engineering is currently pushing its Versatile Vehicle Architecture to any manufacturer that wants to license it as a base platform for future cars.
The Lotus Evora is the first production car to debut based on the VVA chassis and previously we’ve also seen the Lotus APX Concept which was also built on the VVA. It’s interesting how these two models could have come off the same base platform as the APX is a front engine crossover SUV kind of thing while the Evora is a mid-engine sports car.
The VVA allows for the development of a range of vehicles up to a gross vehicle weight of 1,900 kg. It is designed for low to mid volume applications and is an evolution of technology from the tub that forms the basis of the Elise, Exige and Europa. The tub now allows for ease of ingress and egress from the vehicle (it’s not exactly easy to get in and out of an Elise), build modularity and improved, lower-cost repairability.
View presentation in full screen for ease of reading
One of the key selling points is that usually when car manufacturers make a niche or halo vehicle, it rarely fits the kind of engineering that the rest of its product range does. Not every car company is like Toyota, able to quickly source a rear wheel drive platform and boxer engine from now-partly-owned Subaru. A halo sportscar that may require a bespoke platform will rarely fit in with the rest of the mundane front wheel drive sedans and hatches in terms of platform engineering.
So instead of spending lots of time and money on a bespoke niche platform, Lotus hopes car companies will come to them for the VVA instead. It has been designed so that it can be stretched in width, length and height. The strength and stiffness of the low volume VVA chassis can be modified cost-effectively by varying the wall thickness of the extrusions, without altering the exterior dimensions.
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awesome engineering
is it true Waja & Gen2 & Exora use the same chasis with minor mod.?
if that's the case, then it's good to know Proton benefits from teaming with Lotus.
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i have to comment something about proton though, i'm sorry i have to leave my comment here even if this is Lotus's blog entry. Proton's plastic parts were made by car's plastic components manufacturer, mainly malaysian company. My younger brother used to work at one of those company. Proton asks them to make plastic parts for Satria Neo. Proton were given a sample of the product made by Japanese made moulds, they were great, then the manufacturer got the 'go ahead' to produce the plastic parts for Proton.
However, real production line use China's sub.par. moulds, the plastic engineer were so pissed off that he kneel in front Satria Neo bumper and push the plastic vent cover with his tongue..i repeat, his tongue. and it fells off. That vent were supposed to 'click' into place and holds it tight, but because of the manufacturer's greed to use cheap China's sub.par. moulds. So, they end up gluing the plastic vent into place for the unveiling of Satria Neo because it's so close to unveiling date.
Here's to the plastic manufacturer, your greed causes our dissatisfaction with Proton. The entire management and worker's union boss is family. How do you expect worker gets fair treatment & pay if the worker's union boss is the CEO's nephew?
Ariff, wat a true facts you have shared here!!
so i can see the problem is not the materials from china (china do have good stuff, just wat u pay is wat u get ) it was the middle man or sub contractor going greedy~ but again.. there should have QC thru out the whole production line~
who can blame here?
hhahaha…tip of the ice berg of the cronies job to survive.
Good idea from Lotus.
Sorry about this Proton, but you said in 2000 or was it 1997 or somewhere there, that we will get a Proton sports car RM150k called P002 or something like that.
The only evidence I see so far is a model PM5, even that is in glass.
so p1? use lah..!
wahh see now the subs are causing troubles for proton..!!
ariff said,
October 26, 2009 @ 1:47 pm
'Proton were given a sample of the product made by Japanese made moulds, they were great, then the manufacturer got the ‘go ahead’ to produce the plastic parts for Proton.
However, real production line use China’s sub.par. moulds'
I simply cannot believe that Proton will accept this. Namely, if Dr Wolfgang Karl Eppel, the one who once worked for BMW, is still 'Director of Quality' at Proton…
Use the chasis and rebirth the Putra! – A legend reborn –
plus new turbo phoenix engine? +DSG? :D?
and sell for 80k muhahahahhaha!
LOL !
Satria Neo is failure project. Non of the moulds, dies achieved ROI. Vendors are suffering big debt as big loan interest drilling their pocket now. A good lesson for P1. I hope P1 do not repeat this mistake.
proton didn't inspect every mould n dies? inspection should be done for every mould for sometimes. what about qc team. proton should specify what kind of materials to be used in their car. damn. bayangkan sebulan tanpa sales utk proton edar. naik lrt, tumpang kawan selama sebulan jika boleh. byr duit minyak klu tumpang kawan tu.
original question:
is it true Waja & Gen2 & Exora use the same chasis with minor mod.?
.
continuation for the above ranting.
Proton (probably the G asks them to do so) only make their plastic parts from plastic manufacturer in Malaysia (Malaysian owned). But if Malaysian manufacturer do half-wit job like this, better ask Proton to sub its parts somewhere else and give no business to Malaysian plastic manufacturer & no pay also to its worker making Malaysian plastic engineer to go jobless.
see.
that's why Proton made their plastic parts locally, to give jobs to Malaysian. Management must think about quality also. Not hiring banglas to clean 'parting line' (the line embeded to the plastic parts where the moulds meet). Parting line should be fine enough that it's invisible, not sticking out 5mm and need to hire bangla with box cutters to clean the parting line caused by those sub.par. China moulds, haizz
good idea. platform sharing. allows economy of scale and a wide variety of car design to come out from a single platform.
this takes it further ah, can have sports car, suv crossover, sedan is possible too. maybe even an suv.
compared to most platform sharing that goes either 2 body variants, this is quite a good buy.
If this VVA is so good Proton should be the
priviledged one to enjoy this technology advancement rather than
selling this idea to others.
Maybe its time proton throw out the current Swiss & run it themselves
if it plans to go big and global.Malaysia boleh-kan?!!
stick to the topic please… bashing proton again… the mistakes said are way before DSZ came in, and it is loooooooooong gone…
commentors, please stick to the topic about lotus and VVA… one such application is used in EXORA… EXORA will spawn many other like pick-up, mid-size sedan with multilink rear suspension and persona replacement…
that's VVA, athough might not use extruded aluminium cos of economically not feasible?
commentors, (not all), do u knw about feasibility? efficiency and engineering for god's sake?
don't comment like farts, its irritating… think la weyyy…
I hope Lotus DO NOT sale this expensive concept to Proton (althought they're partners). Proton very "well known" QC and QA will surely spoil it! Thank you very much to "ariff" (said, October 26, 2009 @ 1:47 pm) for your insight story on Proton plastic parts. I'm afraid it doesn't stop there. How about the transmission system? How about the suspensions? How about the battery? And the list just goes on.
I'm a dissatisfy Proton Persona owner and the car is falling apart bit by bit since I bought it last February 2009. Mileage still below 11k but its components are failing rapidly as if the car has been driver through hell of 100k! Rather than blaming it to the previous CEO of Proton (which is true also), I guess the new guy on the helm is still not doing his work properly too. Rakyat's money are in stake here gentlemen, and every now and then I'm listening to talks on "belilah barangan buatan Malaysia", is not that we are really eager to buy local degraded products, we Rakyat are forced to buy these fail products! We will let them know in the next election!
well, persona is a carry-over design, and though a new product, it is still inhibit the original problems…
proton, too, have to use barangan buatan malaysia… support local vendors, supplier etc, to achieve tax reduction… wat if there's no such thing, i think proton had moved forward getting the best quality from outside vendors, from rayong, thailand, particularly…
what to do? the current govmt still making it impossible…
Built RWD perdana on tis platform
Quite interesting engineering, but: In the slide it's mentioned that the APX concept was developed for the very low production volume of 2500 Lotus per year. For this it would make sense.
Don't think that Toyota or Audi is making any money with their Lexus LXF or R8. Even with the super high price they won't get back the development costs. They use this supercars to strenghten their brand name like in advertisement. Lotus on the other have to make money with their sport cars, as it's their only product.
Not quite sure if APX would make sense for the mass producer Proton ?
Macam bagus, wonder why current elise not massively produce?
What I know is Lotus tech is not mend for mass pro…
Rivet and glue tech not suitable for high speed production…
Waaaa Lotus go and do your homework laaaa
Lot
Of
Trouble
Usually
Serious
Lightning McQueen said,
October 27, 2009 @ 7:55 am
Macam bagus, wonder why current elise not massively produce?
What I know is Lotus tech is not mend for mass pro…
Rivet and glue tech not suitable for high speed production…
Waaaa Lotus go and do your homework laaaa
Lot
Of
Trouble
Usually
Serious
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Hello brother, Lotus does not mass produce its cars. It is a niche car manufacturer. Elise is not a car for the mass market, it is a niche sport car (a pure uncompromised sport car only for few people who really want it).
This VVA platform is for low volume car manucfacturing. It will cut the development cost in term of money & time for the car manufacturers.
SY0H said,
October 26, 2009 @ 11:14 pm
I hope Lotus DO NOT sale this expensive concept to Proton (althought they’re partners). Proton very “well known” QC and QA will surely spoil it! Thank you very much to “ariff” (said, October 26, 2009 @ 1:47 pm) for your insight story on Proton plastic parts. I’m afraid it doesn’t stop there. How about the transmission system? How about the suspensions? How about the battery? And the list just goes on.
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errr….thought proton own lotus. Then why they need to buy from lotus. When any topic comes out that's not related to proton, sure someone will try to drag into it. Tired of reading these comment. Try to write something that is useful and constuctive
MADBOY said,
October 27, 2009 @ 9:29 am
Hello brother, Lotus does not mass produce its cars. It is a niche car manufacturer. Elise is not a car for the mass market, it is a niche sport car (a pure uncompromised sport car only for few people who really want it).
This VVA platform is for low volume car manucfacturing. It will cut the development cost in term of money & time for the car manufacturers
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Malaysian parent company invests heavily to keep elite British marque on the road.Lotus, the historic British marque reversed from a £2m after-tax profit to a £14.6m loss in the year to March, according to the car manufacturer's latest accounts.
..if Lotus themselves making loss
how are they gonna cut dev money & time for other manufacturers?
Maybe its time Lotus sit down with DSZ and review their business module and direction.
swiss said,
October 27, 2009 @ 10:00 am
I read abt the negative profit too. But considering that they were developing Evora and now delivering it to the mass. It's likely the reason behind the red ink in the book. Yes? No? Otw, why are they hiring while Toyot and GM laying off ppl? Just 2 my cents oni. ;)
Plus rumors has it that the new Esprit is coming. Anyone can confirm that?
On the VVA, it looks like a great tech!
(but heck i'm not a chasis/structural engineer thus i can't measure the greatness of it. hahaha..)
Ok, wrong choice of words, rather than using partnership, I should have used the word ownership. As Proton own 80% of Lotus stake.
opaque said,
"When any topic comes out that’s not related to proton, sure someone will try to drag into it."
Owh please, now you're CONTRADICTING with your very own statement. Anything that Lotus invents will eventually get its way to Proton too. Theoretically this is supposed to be a good thing to Proton Car owners but in reality, non of this technology will reach its full potential as Proton's infamous QC/QA/Crony will surely spoil it for good. You're not tired of reading comments, perhaps the word "ignorant" is suitable for you. I rest my case!
SYOH, obviously it will not reach its full potential if it's used by PROTON. FFS the VVA is for low volume vehile mainly for sports and niche car… whilst proton models are mainly for mass production… if the VVA are to used for mass pro.. a lot needs to be changed hence probability of reaching full potential is lessen…
btw, most or 95% of PROTON quality problems are related to equipments or parts… not the chassis or platform… get your fact right…
SY0H said,
October 27, 2009 @ 4:44 pm
Owh please, now you’re CONTRADICTING with your very own statement. Anything that Lotus invents will eventually get its way to Proton too. Theoretically this is supposed to be a good thing to Proton Car owners but in reality, non of this technology will reach its full potential as Proton’s infamous QC/QA/Crony will surely spoil it for good. You’re not tired of reading comments, perhaps the word “ignorant” is suitable for you. I rest my case
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whatever….you think all lotus technology suitable for mass production. yeah ignorant. Maybe we should have proton sports car with waja pricetag. in your dream. you are …….
opaque said,
October 27, 2009 @ 5:35 pm
SY0H said,
October 27, 2009 @ 4:44 pm
Owh please, now you’re CONTRADICTING with your very own statement. Anything that Lotus invents will eventually get its way to Proton too. Theoretically this is supposed to be a good thing to Proton Car owners but in reality, non of this technology will reach its full potential as Proton’s infamous QC/QA/Crony will surely spoil it for good. You’re not tired of reading comments, perhaps the word “ignorant” is suitable for you. I rest my case
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whatever….you think all lotus technology suitable for mass production. yeah ignorant. Maybe we should have proton sports car with waja pricetag. in your dream. you are …….
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lotus tech going to proton? absolutely, the chassis tuning, campro engine with cps… but not all are feasible as opaque say…
are the QA should be the only one to be blamed? vendors? you think la, everything need economic of scale to be feasible la…
think la SYOH, think… use ur brain more than now… comment like farts sum more… nothing good, only smelly…
Some tech can be apply to proton later i believe.
Nice reading. The documents.
*except some stupid comments above.
The word "IGNORANT" as explain below. Suitable for blind-supporter of Proton.
ADJECTIVE:
1. Lacking education or knowledge.
2. Showing or arising from a lack of education or knowledge: an ignorant
mistake.
3. Unaware or uninformed.
*now pick your choice amongst the best 3 explanations above.
Even if the Proton cars crumble in front of you, you will still say its okay. Ahh! Typical blind-arse-supporter. Stupidity at its best!
All 3 listed above suit you , yourself.
calling people stupid is not a good attitude, 1 finger for other, 10 finger back to you.
i'm with Mysticmind… :)
just let the fella be…
the fella might not finish school yet and dreaming on to drive a ferrari at viva's price in msia…
go back and finish ur school!
we are not supporting proton blindly, but more than commenting and critic where it due…. donno how to be professional, just keep ur mouth shut…
credit where credit due…