The CORONAVIRUS pandemic has hit the automotive industry hard. The closure has forced the closure of showrooms and factories, and sales so far this year have fallen by 48.5% compared to 2019. In April, this figure was 97.3%, with only 871 personal records recorded in the month, the lowest sales figure since 1946.
Smaller players can be expected to suffer the most, however Lotus, with a total of approximately 1,200 workers at its Norfolk headquarters, turns out to have weathered the storm.
“At the end of the month, we’ll have 100 percent production efficiency again,” Chief Executive Phil Popham told Driving.co.uk. “It was necessary to make many plans in terms of the process, the design of the plant, to ensure the absolute protection of our staff. Everyone, from an operational point of view, is now back at work, with the exception of a small organization of other people who are still protecting.
Popham says he didn’t have to cut jobs because of the shutdown, and the entire factory workforce was fired, all received full pay. “We benefited from the government’s payment program for 80% of those on leave, which was welcome. This turned out to be very, very critical because we really lost 10 weeks of production and 10 weeks of revenue.”
Lotus has also benefited from his club at the world’s fastest-developing car company: Geely, which manufactures cars under its own name, but also owns Volvo, Polestar and London EV Company, the manufacturer of the capital’s new plug-in black taxis.
“Clearly, China entered the pandemic long before we can see what’s going on there,” Popham says. “And they encouraged us to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. The expectation of a blockade was very genuine and we were prepared for that.”
What time is it early?
“At the beginning of the year, in January/February, we invested in IT, in terms of gadgets and systems, so that we had the opportunity to paint other people remotely: all our engineers and designers.”
Luck is not the right word, under the circumstances, but having your head set on the festival is an advantage. Popham says 90% of those who have worked from home still do, adding engineers and designers, return to headquarters in the next two weeks.
Lotus has taken ordinary steps to make sure other people are safe, according to Popham, adding that the two-meter distance rule is maintained at work, even though the government narrowed the rules to “one more metre.” Anyone who probably has to work within two meters of someone else is running with the right EPI (personal protective equipment), he said. There are also parking settings, frame temperature tests when staff members walk through the door and one-way systems on site.
“Let’s know what the ultimate way to paint is. When do we have to be in the office? When do we deserve to be in the factory? When can other people paint remotely? To take advantage, I suppose, the benefits of what we have learned over the more than 4 months by being forced to paint remotely ».
“I think we’re going to grow and paint on what will be the new popular. And it’s about flexibility, power and productivity.”
In addition to those returning to Hethel, the company earlier this month announced 125 more jobs for its structure and chassis structure activities of “light structures” in Norwich, so if forced to hire this year, Lotus is doing the opposite: it is expanding. Fortunately for Lotus, none of the company’s sponsors have made any investments, so the game continues with progression plans.
What everyone needs to know is how this affected the company’s long-term product plan and, in particular, the hypercar evija (Ev-aye-ya).
The Evija is only the first all-new Lotus style since the launch of the Evora 2-2 central motor sports car in 2008, but also the company’s first electric car.
Anyone who cares about its functionality doesn’t have to worry: Lotus claims that the 1,680 kg Evija comprises a massive torque of 1,973 horsepower and 1,254 lb-ft of torque, approximately 4 times the power of the last maximum resistant Lotus. It will succeed at declared speeds above two hundred miles per hour and aim at a corporate speed of 0-186 mph in less than nine seconds. The time of 0 to 62 mph will be less than 3 seconds, he said.
What’s great, but still in development? Absolutely, popham says, and the corporation is now running to recover lost time due to the coronavirus.
“Several of our engineering cars were in continental Europe at the time of closure and had to return. We are now in the procedure of doing the tests again.
“We are allowed to return, our engineers can send the cars where they are needed. We have also transferred some of the tests to the UK to help, and will assess where we are in terms of the technical testing programme in the coming weeks.
“But everything else continued with the stop, adding structure at Hethel, where the car is being built. So from a production point of view, we’re ready. We just have to go through the engine and the final technical tests.
“Obviously, when a 2 million pound hypercar is introduced, it has to be 100 percent just before it’s done for customers to have it.”
You read it right: 2 million pounds equivalent to a car. Of course, this means that it will not be built in large quantities, but observers can make a significant contribution to the company’s finances, and if Lotus succeeds, Evija will greatly decorify its reputation.
Popham says he is in talks with several “warned” consumers and has won deposits and purchase intent letters.
“We were in the middle of the global tour [of Evija] when the confinement began. He had just landed in the United States for an east coast excursion and had to be brought back directly. We had to cancel the occasions and we would have been in continental Europe with him for now. So we had to reschedule all our activities, because there are many consumers who ask to say, I want to see this car.”
This will take place in autumn and winter: “We will make sure that all interested consumers can see the car as soon as possible.”
Evija is also pointing out a new direction for Lotus as the company adopts electrification. Your next (unnamed) sports car, after Evija, will be the last one the company will manufacture to run an internal combustion engine; all upcoming models will be supplied with electric motors.
“We said we think the long term is electrification,” Popham confirms. “And we’re very focused on getting to that.”
In the UK, the government has announced that it will ban the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars from 2035. In fact, it is consulting to postpone that date until 2032. Like automakers, Lotus knows you have to adapt to survive.
“In the long run, we believe the trend is electrification,” popham says. “It will be from the customer’s point of view or from a regulatory point of view; this is the long term as we see it.”
Our assembly with Popham preceded the driving of the Evora GT410 Sport and the Exige Cup 430. Both cars feel crazy and their supercharged 3.5-liter V6 engines also sound crazy. Won’t Lotus’ unwavering consumers be discouraged by the sound of silence provided by electric motors?
“It’s a fact that I myself have asked for a lot, as the world moves towards electrification,” Popham says. “What will be the expectation of sound? It’s another sound, of course. You can have everything very quiet or you can create any sound in the cockpit that needs [electronic transmission].
“The fashion generation has been bred with internal combustion engines, the sound of that, but the world is moving towards electrification, and I think everyone will get used to a new sound. And people’s perceptions and expectations will replace over time.”
What about plug-in hybrids and hybrids, which many brands are rushing lately at a time when demand for purely electric cars is increasing? Although sales of purely electric cars increased by 158.6% in the first part of 2020, at the same time last year, they still make up only 4.7% of the overall market.
“Well, it’s an attractive debate right now, ” said Popham. “From the perspective of the sports car, there are demanding situations with hybrids that you want to be overcome. You have an internal combustion engine, you have electric motors, you have batteries, so that’s the weight. You want to minimize the weight [in a sports car].
“And also packaging: sports cars are usually smaller than general cars. There are also demanding situations with hybrids in terms of dynamics; it takes as much freedom as you can imagine to truly design the car for aerodynamics.
“While battery-powered electric cars offer you a number of benefits in this regard. They give you the freedom to place the batteries, allowing you to focus on the location of the center of gravity. It offers wonderful flexibility in the design of aerodynamics and air flowing over or through the vehicle. Pure-electric has many benefits. There are many demanding situations around the middle house.
“But we don’t have the answer to that query right now related to the fate of this trip. In fact, we are in all of this as a component of the progression of our platform right now.”
And those platforms probably wouldn’t be suitable just for sports cars. From a monetary point of view, SUVs make a lot of sense to automakers, due to their popularity and potential premium value over smaller models. The Porsche Cayenne, as little loved by the automotive press as it was launched, is known to have saved Porsche from bankruptcy, and the popularity of the SUV frame shape meant that all car brands, from Lamborghini to Roll-Royce, got on the train.
So far, Lotus has not shown that an SUV is in its future, Popham has publicly stated that it does not gain advantages from a discount.
“I’ve been asked a lot about SUVs and it’s an apparent segment that other people want to communicate about. What we’re looking for now is the expansion of the logo into other segments, and we wouldn’t rule anything out, from sedans to GT. SUVs and crossovers. We’ll take a look at all those segments.
“But there are two points that we will consider when we analyze the segments in which we will move in the future. First, the most important thing is that we can produce a Lotus in this segment with the DNA of a Lotus. Our positioning is for drivers: it’s about the driving experience; it’s about the dynamics of the road. It’s about aerodynamics; it’s about the thrill of driving. And we’d only enter a segment if we could produce a car that’s just Lotus in that segment, which still delivers DNA.
“Obviously, an SUV or a sedan would have a different dynamic than a sports car. However, it would have to be a Lotus.
“And secondly, of course, we will have to be able to deserve it. And those two points motivate our research right now on how to expand the logo in the future.”
Tweet @wdron Follow @wdron
Lotus’s newest gasoline car will be a driver
Purely Lotus Evija hypercars take to the track for the first time
Lotus Evora GT410 Sport 2020 Test