For more than 75 years, Lotus Group has been a paragon of the luxury sports car market. With a history including seven Formula One constructor’s championships and a cavalcade of famous vehicles like the Seven and Elan S2, this UK automaker built a legion of fans with its reputation for pristine aerodynamics and track-ready handling—and always making things lighter. The Lotus Engineering arm has taken on countless other projects, including re-engineering the DMC DeLorean and helping develop the Aston Martin DB9.
However, recent decades weren’t kind to Lotus. While rivals like Porsche, Ferrari, and BMW continually found ways to drive ahead, Lotus found itself stuck in neutral, faced with a string of setbacks often having nothing to do with its vehicles. As a boutique carmaker, sales figures were never huge, but even those fell through the floor in recent years, leading to talk that the supercar pioneer may be on its last wheels.
Can the brand turn things around, or is Lotus doomed? To answer this, I looked at how Lotus toppled from its perch and what it has been doing to reclimb the mountain. What I learned may surprise you—and I’m sure Lotus is hoping it will surprise many more people in the coming years.
What Led to the Downfall for Lotus Cars?
Lotus falling to the depths didn’t happen overnight. The company was already experiencing financial difficulties when founder Colin Chapman suffered a fatal heart attack in December 1982. At the time, Chapman was simultaneously facing potential charges related to a UK government subsidy scandal and allegations he was trafficking cocaine with John DeLorean (who was later found not guilty). Since then, the course has been turbulent, including several changes in ownership. Here’s a brief rundown of the highlights and lowlights:
- 1986: GM buys a controlling interest and eventually purchases Lotus outright, undoing an intellectual property agreement signed with Toyota four years earlier.
- 1993: GM sells Lotus to Romano Artioli’s ACBN Holdings, which also owned Bugatti.
- 1994: The legendary Formula One Team Lotus is sold to David Hunt and eventually shuts down in the face of shrinking budgets, rising debt, and poor performance.
- 1996: Malaysian automaker Proton buys a majority stake in Lotus.
- 2010: Lotus returns to Formula One as a sponsor for Lotus Racing/Team Lotus and later Lotus F1 Team. The latter scored two wins in four years and was sold to Renault following the 2015 season.
- 2012: Lotus fields engines for two entries in the Indianapolis 500, but both are black-flagged after 10 laps for not meeting minimum speed.
- 2012: Plans for several new super-high-end vehicles are scrapped after CEO Dany Bahar is fired and sued by Lotus for reportedly misusing millions of dollars in company funds.
- 2017: Chinese conglomerate Geely purchases a 51% controlling stake in Lotus.
- 2017: Lotus turns a profit for the first time in decades under CEO Jean Marc Gales—but Gales leaves the following June. Feng Qingfeng is now CEO of Group Lotus, with Phil Popham in charge of Lotus Cars.
The nadir came in 2022, when the brand only sold 576 cars. Not per month, not per quarter—576 machines for the whole year, numbers that hadn’t been seen since the early 1980s. Although several factors beyond Lotus’s control played a role, including Brexit-related supply chain issues and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic effects, internal issues like production delays were also to blame. The numbers were low enough to make anyone blanch. Or, in the case of Lotus, decide there’s nowhere to go but up.
Can Recent Changes Save Lotus?
To Lotus’s credit, it recognized something drastic needed to be done. In early 2023, they released more information about revival plans—and they had people like me looking thrice. Some companies decide to keep things manageable when setting growth goals, while others shoot for the stars. Then there’s Lotus: by 2028, it wanted to be making 150,000 cars annually. That’s a 26,042% increase in just six years.
How did it plan to achieve such an audacious goal? Through a combination of aggressive marketing and new vehicles. In 2022, Lotus dropped its previous-generation lineup of the Evora, Elise, and Exige. The first vehicle to replace them was the Emira, which went on sale in March 2022. Trumpeted as “the most accomplished Lotus ever made,” this mid-engine sports car combined the Lotus trademarks—dynamic handling, great aero, and low weight—with a renewed emphasis on comfort and practical features. After various delays related to emissions requirements, Lotus was able to start selling the Emira in the U.S. in 2024.
Despite the Emira’s attractiveness, it’s also a swan song, with Lotus claiming it will be the brand’s last gas-only vehicle. Previously, in 2021, Lotus Cars unveiled plans to develop four EVs as part of an alliance between Geely and Alpine, with the lineup including a sports car, a sedan, and two SUVs. It also announced a goal of going all-electric by 2028. The first EV, the Eletre, began delivery in March 2023. The second followed in 2024 with the Lotus Emeya, a liftback sports sedan or “super saloon.” Both vehicles offer up to 905 hp and 727 lb-ft of torque with a max WLTP range of 379 miles on the Emeya, making them serious EV players from a technical standpoint.
How Is Lotus Faring Today?
The early results from Lotus’s big plans are simultaneously promising and concerning. I’ll start with the good: in 2023, Lotus produced 6,970 cars, a company record. Furthermore, there was a waitlist of another 17,000 buyers. That’s a mind-boggling increase in one calendar year. On the other hand, the company reportedly lost an also mind-boggling $750 million. Reportedly, much of this dough came from building up production capacity—facilities, lines, supply chains, people, etc.—to meet the stated sales goals.
On the heels of 2023’s sales success, the initial objective for 2024 was to deliver 26,000 vehicles. In the first nine months of 2024, though, Lotus mustered 7,543 vehicle sales. That’s a big increase over its record-setting 2023 pace but well below what was needed for the original target. As a result, Lotus reduced its goal to 12,000. Not only that, but financial losses continued to mount. Despite the increased sales, Lotus lost another $667 million in the first nine months of 2024, putting it on track to set another kind of record.
Lotus again attributed the ballooning losses to expansion-related costs. It also introduced a new “Win26” plan to become profitable by 2026 through internal streamlining and optimization. Again, the brand is giving itself a short timeline, wanting to go from losing $750 million to making money in three years. Give Lotus credit for dreaming big, but at this point, I can’t help but wonder about its goal-setting.
Hedging Bets
I also wonder if Lotus decided to go full-force on EVs at the wrong time. EVs lost U.S. market share in the first half of 2024—the first time their share had dropped since numbers were tracked. Even though net sales were still growing, the trend had to concern an automaker that had gone all-in just a few years before.
As a result, Lotus pulled a few chips out of the middle. At the Guangzhou auto show in mid-November, Lotus confirmed it will develop PHEV versions of future vehicles, with a turbocharged gas engine and electric battery producing a combined 680-mile range. The company didn’t give a target date or say which vehicles will get the “Super Hybrid” drivetrain. However, Automotive News Europe recently reported these hybrids will hit the market in 2026.
What’s Next for Lotus?
I want to be optimistic about Lotus’s future. It’s a brand with a lot of history and prestige, and it is at least trying to be relevant in the modern landscape. The new vehicles look cool, and sales numbers are going up, even if not at the tremendous rates Lotus wanted.
I’m ultimately hoping the 2020s efforts by Lotus Group aren’t too little, too late—and I’m especially hoping it doesn’t try to grow so fast that things blow apart. If Geely remains committed so Lotus can absorb the short-term financial losses, I think Lotus will eventually get its swag back. The answer won’t be clear for a few years, though, and I’ll be on pins and needles to see if Lotus survives.
