Lotus accelerates with file 2,200 sports activities automobiles produced in first half of 2023

The British carmaker Lotus produced a file variety of sports activities automobiles within the first half of 2023, because it gears up for an enormous push behind gross sales of a brand new electrical SUV underneath its Chinese language house owners’ growth plans.

Lotus, which marked its seventy fifth anniversary this 12 months, produced 2,200 autos within the first six months of the 12 months at its manufacturing unit in a former second world conflict bomber manufacturing unit at Hethel in Norfolk.

The majority of the autos constructed have been the Emira sports activities automotive, the primary new Lotus product for the reason that Chinese language automotive group Geely purchased a 51% stake in 2017.

The manufacturing file is not going to final lengthy, as Lotus has began to ship the primary of its Eletre sports activities utility autos from a brand new manufacturing unit in Wuhan, China, as a part of a Geely plan to extend annual manufacturing to 150,000 by 2028.

Geely has invested greater than £3bn in Lotus, forward of a deliberate itemizing of its electrical automotive enterprise on New York’s Nasdaq inventory trade. It’s going to float by a merger with a particular function acquisition firm (Spac) backed by LVMH, the posh items firm managed by the billionaire Bernard Arnault.

“We’re seeing the primary inexperienced shoots of the funding coming by,” stated Mike Johnstone, who was appointed as Lotus’s chief industrial officer in January. “It reveals that the machine is cranking up now.”

Lotus stated its order e-book had grown to roughly 17,000 autos worldwide for the £90,000 Eletre and the £81,000 Emira, Lotus’s last petrol automotive. It’s also producing a restricted variety of its all-electric Evija hypercar, which will probably be bought to the super-rich for £1.7m apiece.

The corporate is planning to disclose a brand new saloon automotive this 12 months and a smaller SUV subsequent 12 months earlier than one other electrical sports activities automotive, to be constructed at Hethel, in 2025. The growth would require extra manufacturing unit house past the Wuhan plant, and Lotus is contemplating constructing one other manufacturing unit within the US.

Johnstone stated the US Inflation Discount Act “may act as a method to encourage us to do manufacturing there”, but in addition acknowledged that the potential for tariffs on US imports could possibly be an element.

The UK will not be being thought of for an additional manufacturing unit, however it’ll stay the bottom for Lotus sports activities automobiles.

“For us the UK is extremely vital,” Johnstone stated. Making automobiles within the UK is “a part of our DNA”, he added.

Lotus has lengthy been recognized for producing a small variety of handbuilt race automobiles and sports activities automobiles. Its founder, Colin Chapman, famously centered on eradicating any extra weight to make the automobiles quicker and extra nimble than rivals with larger engines.

The SUV push will do the other, however the firm stated the Eletre would retain Lotus’s dealing with traits as a result of engineers had centered on the burden distribution all through the automotive.

Constructing an SUV has turn out to be a well-worn path for sports activities and luxurious carmakers seeking to enhance gross sales and cater to rising markets for very costly autos, significantly in Asia. Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and even Ferrari have all launched SUVs.

Johnstone stated the SUV patrons have been a couple of decade youthful than a typical Lotus buyer, and there have been way more girls.