Automotive News Europe - September 2019 - 14

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

Q&A

QA Steady shift

Lotus CEO Popham outlines ambitious production expansion plan, electric future

Will there be further electric cars after the Evija?
Electrification is part of our future. The
Evija is our first step, if you discount the
first Tesla being Lotus designed and engineered. Our next sports car will have
an internal combustion engine. You will
see it before the end of next year. Beyond that car every car we produce in
whatever segment will offer a full-electric version.

fter buying Lotus in 2017, China's
Zhejiang Geely Holding promised
to invest billions of dollars to turn the
struggling UK sports car maker into a
rival to Porsche or Maserati. The first
fruits of that promise arrived when Lotus
unveiled the full-electric Evija hypercar
in London in July. The car is a $2 million
statement of intent, but the hard part
will be transforming the famous but under-resourced brand into a global player.
Lotus CEO Phil Popham explained how
this would be achieved during a roundtable discussion that included Automotive
News Europe Correspondent Nick Gibbs.
You define Lotus as a high-end luxury
sports car manufacturer. What does
that mean in terms of price positioning and rivals?
The range we currently have is between
50,000 pounds and more than 100,000
pounds (about 55,000 euros to 110,000
euros) and with the exception of the hypercar, that's where we see our core range
in terms of pricing in the future. That said,
we do believe the Lotus brand has the potential to go beyond that, which is why we
have made the step into hypercars, but
that's not our immediate strategy.
What are your sales aspirations and
where will you build them?
You will see a big investment at Hethel
[Lotus' global headquarters in eastern England], not just in terms of the Evija but
other future products. The skeleton building [left unfinished after Lotus' last attempt
at growth under CEO Dany Bahar, who was
fired in 2012] won't be a skeleton by the
end of this year. We are a relatively small
company. We will sell just under 1,700
units this year, but we have aspirations to
quickly go beyond that. Hethel has a capacity of more than 10,000 on two shifts, and
we will outgrow Hethel, so that gives you
an indication of how far we will grow. We
have opportunities to invest in manufacturing in China because of the infrastructure
Geely has, but we will need to look at either
something radical at Hethel or other facilities in the UK in the longer term. One thing
we won't be doing is double tooling -- building cars in multiple locations.

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Will you skip hybrids?
That is an option. One of the challenges
is that hybridization brings unnecessary
weight for sports cars. You have got an internal combustion engine, an electric motor and batteries. That is a real challenge
in terms of [keeping the car] light weight.

Meet the boss
❚ NAME: Phil Popham
❚ TITLE: Lotus Sports Cars CEO;

Senior VP, Commercial Operations
Lotus Group

❚ AGE: 53
❚ MAIN CHALLENGE: Choosing
which models to invest in for future
growth during a period of massive
upheaval for the auto industry.

How many models do you hope to sell?
That will depend on how many segments
we enter. Our Vision 18 10-year plan is
ambitious in terms of volume growth. We
can go right from sports cars to sporty
GTs to sporting sedans to crossovers to
SUVs. What will dictate our decision is
1. Can we make money out of it? and
2. Is it a car that truly reflects the Lotus
DNA, which is very specific and focused
around the driving experience.

How will you collaborate with other
Geely-owned brands?
Geely's size gives us huge opportunities in
terms of investment and access to technology, resources and expertise. But we
won't take a Geely platform and just make
a Lotus with it. If we do that, we would
have to be involved in the engineering of
that platform from the start to make sure
the car that comes off it is a true Lotus.
The Lotus tagline "For the driver" will
have a short shelf life if autonomous vehicles take off. What is your plan for AVs?
I don't think it has a shelf life. The move
to electrification, connectivity and autonomous driving is going to increase commoditization, but as that grows so too will the
desire for a driver's car that you can use
during your leisure time. We won't ignore
autonomous driving. We will harness the
technology. You can press a Lotus button
to have an expert sat next to you to tell you
how to get the most out your car.
What's your message to a UK government looking to exit the EU with no deal?
We need to get the deal done. Even if we
exit without a deal, a deal will be done.
We are a trading nation, always have
been. It will only be a matter of time before we do a deal. It doesn't change our
long-term strategy to be a global organization with its heart in the UK. ANE

SEPTEMBER 2019

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Automotive News Europe - September 2019

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