Lotus has committed to building electric sports cars in the UK as part of a £2.5bn plan that will lead to a 10-fold rise in production.
The brand expects sales of “tens of thousands” of cars a year by the middle of the decade, compared with just 1,378 last year, as it overhauls its entire line-up and pushes into sport utility vehicles and electric sports cars, new managing director Matt Windle told the Financial Times.
The company is already creating several hundred UK jobs as it begins production at the end of the year of its latest model, the Lotus Emira, its final sports car to feature a combustion engine, which was unveiled on Tuesday.
The group, which is majority-owned by China’s Geely, is three years into a decade-long plan to revitalise the historic, but often financially precarious, former racing brand.
In 2019, the last year for which accounts are available, Lotus lost £14.1m on revenues of £96.3m, while car sales have dwindled because of its ageing line-up.
Production at its main plant in Hethel in Norfolk will roughly triple during the 10-year turnround plan, which runs to 2028, Windle said.
The brand will also open a new Chinese factory, its first plant outside the UK, which will be dedicated to making electric SUVs.
Geely’s investments of about £2.5bn have allowed the company to plan new products and to plot a major global expansion.
“This plan will take us into new segments, and new parts of the market,” said Windle, who was promoted from engineering director to managing director in January.
“When the lifestyle products and the new sports cars come along, we will be talking about tens of thousands of cars a year, rather than thousands.”
He added: “The lifestyle cars will be produced in China, and the sports cars will stay in Hethel.”
The Lotus Emira and its derivatives will replace the company’s three current models, the Elise, the Evora and the Exige.
Lotus also set out details of how it spent the Geely investment, with two new vehicle architectures that will allow it to make electric sports cars and electric SUVs, rather than trying to develop battery cars from existing models.
Its dedicated electric sports car architecture is being developed in partnership with Renault’s Alpine sports car brand, which is also moving into electric vehicles.
The system could see the two companies collaborating on parts or production, though Windle said there were no current plans to make Alpines in the UK, or Lotus cars in France.
Its other new production system is for “lifestyle” vehicles that will involve combining its lightweight sports car dynamics with high-riding cars, a move that takes it into the most dominant, and highest-margin, part of the auto market.
It also becomes the latest performance brand to embrace SUVs, after Aston Martin, Porsche and Lamborghini released their own models. Even Ferrari is planning an SUV, the Purosangue, which is due out next year.
Windle expects the majority of Lotus sales to be SUVs in time, meaning that the bulk of the company’s production will be in its new Wuhan plant in China.
While motoring purists have decried the rise of SUVs carrying sports car badges, Windle said the vehicles would still feel like Lotus vehicles.
“It still has to be lightweight and simplistic, and a car you want to drive.”
Once the Emira begins deliveries next year, and the new electric cars are released, production at Hethel will rise to more than 5,000, he said.
The site is already advertising 150 positions for later this year to help with the launch and manufacturing ramp-up, as well as 125 jobs in nearby Norwich and a further 100 roles at its battery research centre near Warwick.
Windle added that the group had yet to reach a deal on batteries for its electric sports cars, but they would need to be from the UK or Europe, in order to qualify for tariff-free access to the EU, under the terms of Britain’s trading deal with the bloc.
This article has been amended to reflect that Lotus’s current model line-up includes the Evora, not the Elan