Lotus sales fell 42% in the first quarter of the year, marking the first significant decline since Geely started rolling out a new range of electric ‘lifestyle’ vehicles with the Eletre SUV and Emeya saloon.
Geely bought Lotus in 2017 from Malaysian firm DRB-Hicom, which also owns Proton, but has yet to see a return on the its £2 billion investment. Lotus posted a net loss of $183 million the first quarter while debts increased to $3.3 billion.
The company has been hit by muted demand for cars at the top end of the electric segment.
“In recent years, premium brand BEV penetration does not meet our expectation,” Feng said on the earnings call.
The US was to be a big market for the new electric Lotuses, but the country’s imposition of 100% tariffs on Chinese-built EVs forced Lotus to stop selling the Eletre there.
Demand has also fallen in Europe and China, with deliveries of the Eletre and Emeya down 31% to 719 in the first three months.
The company will pivot instead to Hyper Hybrid PHEVs, with Lotus sports cars also in-line for an electrified drivetrain. The first Lotus PHEV will be the Eletre and will go on sale in the first quarter of next year, starting in China.
Hethel was to build a planned electric sports car when Emira production ended, but lack of enthusiasm in the market led Lotus to postpone that indefinitely.
“Is the market ready for an electric sports car? I don’t really know the answer to that yet,” Lotus Europe CEO Windle told Autocar in May.
Windle had been pushing Geely to build more models in the Hethel plant, which assembled around 5000 Emiras last year but has a theoretical capacity for 10,000.
One potential model was the specialist Polestar 6 electric roadster. “I think we could build it,” Windle said. “There’s an element of transition because at the moment it’s just ICE, but we’re going to have to go on that journey.”
