Lotus Bought By China's Geely

[Robin]

Lotus, the British sports car maker, is being bought by China's Geely.

The purchase is part of a deal by Geely to buy a 49.9% stake in Malaysian carmaker Proton, which owns Lotus.

Geely, which also owns the London Taxi Company and Sweden's Volvo Car Group, will take a 51% stake in Lotus.

Jean-Marc Gales, who became Lotus chief executive in 2014, has been trying to return the Norwich-based company to profit after two decades in the red.

Having reduced losses down to £27m last year, Lotus has said it aims to make a profit this year.

It was effectively locked out of United States in 2015 when its airbags failed to comply with new car safety regulations, but Lotus returned to the American market last summer.

While the Lotus car company has not been involved in Formula 1 racing since the 1990s it runs an engineering consultancy selling sports car technology.

Geely is expected to use its research in composite materials and lightweight technology to help it comply with increasingly demanding emission regulations in China.

Although they are not the sole stake in the company seeing how Volvo has gone under thier command I would only hope for good things.

So many years of disappointment with Lotus unveiling vaporware concepts and producing mostly the same 90's stuff over and over again. With a decent cash injection they could really overhaul the range and do something new.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

10 years ago I would have dreaded this. Now I think it's a pretty great move. Chinese investors seem to accomplish things wild-eyed British, American, and Russian investors cannot.

 

[Robin]

That's the thing, whatever you think of Chinese investment they put money in and get stuff done. Lotus can't keep producing the Elise for eternity!

 

[05XR8]

That's the thing, whatever you think of Chinese investment they put money in and get stuff done. Lotus can't keep producing the Elise for eternity!

For sure. I posted "Forgotten" FR Loti, in that thread. Hope they make a good range of spirited machines.

 

[mustafur]

I hope this means the Esprit will make a comeback.

 

[TheCracker]

Lotus, once again passed around like a cheap whore.

Hopefully this once will put a ring on it's finger and give them some proper investment.

 

[GTPNewsWire]

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

Is Lotus Safe At Last Following Geely Buyout?
Legendary British sports car maker is now owned by Chinese automotive giant Zhejiang Geely.

This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on May 26th, 2017 in the Automotive News category.

 

[ClydeYellow]

The possibilities are... Enticing, to say the least. What will it be first, a Volvo-powered Lotus, or the guys at Hethel teaming up with Polestar to produce even more kick-arse blue wagons?

 

[Obelisk]

The possibilities are... Enticing, to say the least. What will it be first, a Volvo-powered Lotus, or the guys at Hethel teaming up with Polestar to produce even more kick-arse blue wagons?

Why not both?

 

[Northstar]

A Lotus-Volvo can wait, their first priority should be making a Lotus performance version of this.

It seems happy about the prospects!

On a serious note hopefully some good things will come from this since they will hopefully have the funds to do some decent development work.

 

[ClydeYellow]

Why not both?

Because I don't want my heart to literally explode?

A Lotus-Volvo can wait, their first priority should be making a Lotus performance version of this.

What is this, and why do I want one?

 

[TexRex]

What is this, and why do I want one?

Geely GC2 for the former, but you're on your own for the latter.

 

[TomBrady]

I hope things go well because I love Lotus.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

I remember the trepidation when it was first announced Volvo was bought by Geely. Fast forward to now, though, and the company is arguably its strongest in ages.

I hope the same is true of Lotus in 2022.