Photo: Lotus
After two troublesome years since former Lotus CEO Danny Bahar was fired over improper spending, a certain Jean-Marc Gales took the reigns of Lotus. As anyone can imagine, two years without a chief executive office took their toll on the British marque, but Jean-Marc has a plan to return Lotus to profit.
Before going through the solutions the new CEO proposed, let’s have a brief reminder about how bad things are at Lotus Cars at the present moment. A prime example of Danny Bahar’s bad management comes in the form of the £159 million (€203 million / $253 million) the brand lost during the fiscal year that ended on March 31st of 2013. Not pretty at all...
Due to the fact sales volumes are not that good these days, Lotus recently spruced up the V6-powered Exige S with an optional six-speed automatic to make the popular track-focused model more consumer-friendly. In addition to this, AutomotiveNews reports 325 of 1,215 employees will be fired in order to cut down on expenses. But that’s not the end of what Jean-Marc Gales plans to do at Lotus Cars.
When asked if the company plans to develop an all-new platform, the chief executive told: “We will stick with the aluminum tub chassis, which is a very modern construction, but we will make it easier to get into and out of and make it even more rigid.” In plain English - no, Lotus won’t R&D an all-new platform, but do minor enhancements to the current one to bring it up to date.
No new models are in the pipeline, but Jean-Marc disclosed that “within the next nine months there will be a couple of announcements of product enhancements that will make the heart of any Lotus enthusiast beat faster.”
Due to the fact sales volumes are not that good these days, Lotus recently spruced up the V6-powered Exige S with an optional six-speed automatic to make the popular track-focused model more consumer-friendly. In addition to this, AutomotiveNews reports 325 of 1,215 employees will be fired in order to cut down on expenses. But that’s not the end of what Jean-Marc Gales plans to do at Lotus Cars.
Lotus will focus on the commercial side more than on anything else
That basically translates to expanding the dealer network, but also hike up marketing efforts to attract new customers to the highly-specialized marque. To put the commercial side into perspective, the Exige S has moved just over 1,000 units since the Series 3 was launched in 2012, which is really disappointing.When asked if the company plans to develop an all-new platform, the chief executive told: “We will stick with the aluminum tub chassis, which is a very modern construction, but we will make it easier to get into and out of and make it even more rigid.” In plain English - no, Lotus won’t R&D an all-new platform, but do minor enhancements to the current one to bring it up to date.
No new models are in the pipeline, but Jean-Marc disclosed that “within the next nine months there will be a couple of announcements of product enhancements that will make the heart of any Lotus enthusiast beat faster.”
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