Other than $$$$ what's the up & down sides?
Other than $$$$ what's the up & down sides?
I was expecting sketchy "off road use only" super 7 knock offs on ebay.
emsalex wrote: I was expecting sketchy "off road use only" super 7 knock offs on ebay.
As was I, mildly disappointing as that seems fun to me 
Seems like a good thing to me
I know it takes a while for ownership decisions to work through the pipeline, but I haven't seen any weirdness from the Volvo side yet. I was terribly afraid, when Ford bought them, that some Dearborn bean counter would go to Sweden and say, "What the hell are you guys doing building spare parts for a ten year old vehicle? Destroy that tooling at once, just like we do with Explorer parts."
Just to pick on British car people, I will say, "Really? You think the Chinese can make a car more fragile or less reliable than the British?"
It seems if you want to start an iconic sports car company nowadays the smart thing would not be to go out and dominate LeMans it would be to build an SUV and use it to fund your first sports car design. 
That basic Elise / Exige design may be 20+ years old by now, but damn they still look killer IMHO.
How many times has lotus needed a bail out by now? I can think of 4-5 times off the top of my head. Interesting who is doing the bailing these days like geely for Volvo/lotus, Tata for jaguar...
I do a lot of work with Chinese OEM's and they are actually improving a lot over the top gear jokes of just a few years ago. They are still many years behind the established brand but like Hyundai/Kia/Mobil they are determined and will catch up fast. Tata is one of the better things to happen to Jaguar Land Rover based on the enormous engineering leaps made recently.
My impression of Chinese ownership is that they buy something that works, then learn about it. Like reverse engineering a Honda 5 horse lawnmower motor, but with people.
They can reverse engineer people?
Wow. I need to get out more.
In some ways I see it as good, but I worry about the quality. Of course from the look of some of the reliability issues Lotus has had, maybe they'll improve it.
Rotrus?
If this had been in Off Topic, I would have expected it to be about something else.
I wonder if Geely is buying them for the engineering talent to help get into the US and other western markets?
They were the only sufficient entity at the table to purchase them. They actually walked away from the table about a month ago stating they were not going to purchase, but it seems it was a bargaining move on their part. The CEOs, Dany Bahar and now Jean-Marc Gales have run the company into the crapper (especially Bahar who's ideas cost HUGE money with no progress). It was either Geely purchase the company, or it was bankrupt or downsized yet again. They barely sold any cars last year, so the problem is with management and costs.
They need to find a way to bring the price down to the level of the shrinking middle class national and internationally either with a superior manufacturing process or purchase and older drivetrain design and refresh it on their own systems. The boards and CEOs of these companies just spend money and always talk about a reduction in brand when selling costs go down. I've never necessarily thought that was true, but that's for superior minds other than mine to figure out.
I bought a new Volvo last year and it seems more Swedish than Chinese. I thiink this will be good for Lotus, except for the planned SUV may actually come to pass. That part is sad, but that may be what it takes to keep the lights on and pay the bills.
The Chinese business persons have slowly shifted from the take and crush model of buying western firms to a more successful method of buy and tell them to do what they say they will do but with lots of Chinese people stuffed in. Oh and all your profits will be attributed to the Chinese and any debt will be attributed to the non-Chinese. So...just like USA companies.
T.J. wrote: I bought a new Volvo last year and it seems more Swedish than Chinese. I thiink this will be good for Lotus, except for the planned SUV may actually come to pass. That part is sad, but that may be what it takes to keep the lights on and pay the bills.
Yeah I think it's time to accept that if you're making street-legal sports cars that a mere mortal might be able to afford, you need to have at least one SUV in your product lineup to stay in business. Which raises the question of whether the Cayenne is really needed while all of Porsche's other models are so bloody expensive 
Someone who can actually do accounting may now be involved. So that's a good thing.
The Chinese acquisition seems to be working well for Volvo so empirical evidence says this might be a good thing.
The0retical wrote: Someone who can actually do accounting may now be involved. So that's a good thing.
But accounting is the arch-enemy of building Lotuses...
I remember when Tata got Jaguar. Then we got XKR then we got the F-type. Brits dont seem to know how to keep their car companies desirable.
My first thought was, "Ooo... maybe this time there will finally be a new Volvo 1800, based on a Lotus.!"
(hey... let me dream...)
Anyway, if they use the same oversight model as Volvo - they've essentially left them alone, but with an actual budget - I see this as a good thing.
GameboyRMH wrote:The0retical wrote: Someone who can actually do accounting may now be involved. So that's a good thing.But accounting is the arch-enemy of building Lotuses...
Fair point. I just sort of pictured them as the cocaine and quaaludes accountants of the motorsports world.
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