Lotus ditch full EV lineup plan and switch to Hybrids

Whilst I’m not a fan of the EVs at the premium end of the market (any of them), this feels like a cop out or short term thinking clouding better strategic judgement. It’s not just Lotus, it’s happening across all brands. We can’t continue with ICE because of the implications to the environment and thus the future of our continued presence across most of the planet. Why aren’t legislators doing more?

Meanwhile, small, affordable EVs are getting better and better and much more of a realistic marketable prospect in my opinion.

Edit: Lotus should therefore embrace lightness again and come up with a lightweight electric sports car, or consult with other doing so. In fact there was once a partnership with Alpine to this end. Now look at what Renault is doing… If the technology doesn’t exist, Lotus and Geely should be perfectly placed to develop and embrace it.
 
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Lotus had a project way back with the Evora 414e that was extremely cool. 30 miles on battery and around 300 with the 1.2l 3 cylinder range extender acting as a generator. Then, 5 minute stop for fuel and off you go again.

If only they actually released it. They even sold the only working prototype years ago now. Think it appeared on ebay a couple of years back too.
 
Nasher said:
We are never going to meet the 2030 target.
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Yup, it's beyond idiotic to think we will, and the people from whatever party that are in are so far detatched from the common man to think that it's got a snowball in hells chance of working and are just frankly morons.
Hybrids will be the way forward.
No big motor manufacturer is going to sacrifice it's self over some half witted climate nonsense or bow to the doom goblin that is Greta.
It won't happen, just look what's going to happen to Jaguar and others that try it.
 
F1 and motor racing seems a good barometer for the near lack of future of ev sports cars ... how many formula e races have I watched.
 
JonRGV250 said:
Yup, it's beyond idiotic to think we will, and the people from whatever party that are in are so far detatched from the common man to think that it's got a snowball in hells chance of working and are just frankly morons.
Hybrids will be the way forward.
No big motor manufacturer is going to sacrifice it's self over some half witted climate nonsense or bow to the doom goblin that is Greta.
It won't happen, just look what's going to happen to Jaguar and others that try it.
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Why hybrids if you reject the science of climate change? Let's all have V8s!
 
JonRGV250 said:
It won't happen, just look what's going to happen to Jaguar and others that try it.
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See this frustrates me no end.
Jaguar have just ripped up decades of heratage and an iconic brand that most people even who do not like the cars will (if remotely interested in such a thing) will admit was cool.

and after seeing the albeit heavily disguised 1st new car from the rebrand i have to say i am totally not convinced.

however IF Jag do go under, and i hope they dont.... a load of people certainly including most of our media will blame it on them going full EV.

imo any company which goes from adverts like this

to like this

are risking trouble regardless of what is fueling the vehicle.

(for the record i have decided never to buy another ICE car again...... but damn if that top add does not make me want an F Type.

the bottom tho........... that just wants me to turn down the colour levels on my tv!.
 
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Flibster said:
£80k too. So that's a good S3 Exige and 25 thousand litres of Super Unleaded kind of price... :eek:
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Yep, you'll never see a saving by choosing the EV as the Exige is also unlikely to lose value now. While all of EVs depreciate rapidly.

Lotus aren't the only ones slashing EV plans and models though, so clearly manufacturers can see that the market is drying up.

I think the deadline will get pushed to 2040, then to 2050. Which was the original date. By then we might have synthetic petrol and the whole thing will just die off. It was only brought forward to shut Greta up, but no one cares about her now
 
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Nasher said:
Yep, you'll never see a saving by choosing the EV as the Exige is also unlikely to lose value now. While all of EVs depreciate rapidly.

Lotus aren't the only ones slashing EV plans and models though, so clearly manufacturers can see that the market is drying up.

I think the deadline will get pushed to 2040, then to 2050. Which was the original date. By then we might have synthetic petrol and the whole thing will just die off. It was only brought forward to shut Greta up, but no one cares about her now
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Not sure why you say “the market for EVs is drying up” when sales are increasing rapidly every year and continue to do so?

(They may not be increasing at the same rate for all manufacturers - which is why we will say goodbye to Lotus if they don’t sort themselves out soon, and new forward looking brands take their place)

Synthetic fuels will only ever be an edge case to keep classic cars in occasional use. There is no future situation where they are used for normal people’s “daily drivers” (except maybe the ultra-wealthy to drive current-gen supercars around London..)
 
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blun said:
Not sure why you say “the market for EVs is drying up” when sales are increasing rapidly every year and continue to do so?

(They may not be increasing at the same rate for all manufacturers - which is why we will say goodbye to Lotus if they don’t sort themselves out soon, and new forward looking brands take their place)

Synthetic fuels will only ever be an edge case to keep classic cars in occasional use. There is no future situation where they are used for normal people’s “daily drivers” (except maybe the ultra-wealthy to drive current-gen supercars around London..)
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Not sure about that, the market thinks EV sales are going to start declining and may already be.

There is no other reason manufacturers would be cutting back EV models.
 
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Full EV saw ever so slight decline 22-23 in the UK, but Petrol and Diesel both declined much more. Hybrids were a net gain in share. Overall electrified market share is increasing significantly since 2018, a clear trend.

www.statista.com

UK: new car market share by fuel type 2023 | Statista

The electric vehicle market in the United Kingdom continues to pick up steam, despite a slight slowdown: In terms of sales volume, the UK market share of plug-in electric vehicles reached 23.9 percent in 2023.
www.statista.com www.statista.com

I think some of the manufacturers are responding to lower than anticipated demand growth for full BEV, as well as political uncertainty across key markets. That doesn't mean BEV won't still grow over the next 10 years, I think this is still expected.
 
No wonder Lotus are pushing their Eletre deals on the radio. Adding a hybrid system into a chassis that was designed for electic only sounds jsut as awful as stuffing a load of batteries into a chassis that was always intended to be ICE.

I think the problem early hybrids was you got the worst of each. Not particularly good range and terrible weazy engines.

I think one reason for EV sales decline - or at least manufacturer uncertainty is the second hand market. As discussed in the EV thread, an iPace like mine was £80+K now with only 33K miles, I'd struggle to get £20K. Taycan are even worse, I think I read somewhere that Porsche were making dealers sell a certain number of Taycan before they could be allocated some of the more tasty ICE cars.

Insurance is expensive (my iPace being about £200 more than my Cayman GT4) VED is going to go up, extended warranty costs are expensive (Ipace is cheaper than cayman but honestly not that much less - for what exactly?)

You can quickly see why the population is cautious moving to EV. (My iPace is the best daily I've owned so far)
 
Nasher said:
Not sure about that, the market thinks EV sales are going to start declining and may already be.

There is no other reason manufacturers would be cutting back EV models.
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I dunno about all of them,.but fords problem may be less about them producing EVs and more about them doing disappointing EVs.
does anyone look at the new Capri and think that looks exciting? (esp for the price).
OTOH Renault and MG seem to be doing pretty well and are producing some really exciting cars,.same with Hyundai and Kia.

maybe new car sales are dropping a bit but in part that could be because the economy is generally in a bad place at the moment.
 
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