Lotus To Cut Potentially 325 Jobs?

[P4N Lotus]

What's going on thought they were having bumper year sales, does this mean lotus gona be stopped being Built in the uk?

 

Posted on lotus drivers club http://www.lotusdriversclub.org.uk/?p=5366

 

Lotus Drivers Club09.2014Lotus Cars

Group Lotus plc today announced a proposal to restructure its worldwide workforce as a result of the need both to reshape its organisation and to reduce costs. The proposal was made following very careful consideration and may involve the loss of up to 325 jobs.

 

The company wants to ensure that it has the right organisational structure in place to achieve its business goals and to build a strong, sustainable future. Regrettably, it is likely that compulsory job losses will be needed to ensure that the company has the right number of people with the right skills.

 

Group Lotus intends to redeploy staff wherever possible and will look for ways to retain specific skills and knowledge within the business, despite the proposed cuts. It also proposes to recruit into key roles, to help achieve the best possible structure and skill base.

 

Jean-Marc Gales, Chief Executive Officer of Group Lotus, said “We understand the concerns that this proposal will create. We deeply regret the potential impact any reshaping of the business may have on our employees and their families.

 

“We have worked very hard to avoid the need to make the proposal, but do believe that it is now essential. It is in no way a reflection on our employees who have shown nothing but dedication to us and have worked tirelessly to support Lotus.”

 

Group Lotus will now consult with staff and workers’ representatives on the proposed changes and on ways and means of avoiding job losses, reducing the number of job losses and mitigating the impact of any changes that are necessary.

 

Jean-Marc Gales added, “Once the reshaping has been undertaken, and with its strong and experienced management team, Lotus should be a leaner, more competitive organisation, focusing on both producing class-leading sports cars and innovative engineering. We will also build upon the improved sales results seen over the last few months.”

[chris_h]

I think he's just getting the business back into a potentially profitable state (And getting rid of the bahar excesses)

[Simon Mac]

Whilst obviously sad news for those at risk of losing there jobs,  It's also sad for Lotus's future, 325 jobs is more than 25% of the workforce

 

"If something cannot go on forever it will stop"

 

Workforce at something like 1200. Annual production of <1000 cars.   Think about it every car has got to pay for some ones annual wages! !

 

With no car able to serve the American market  (Lotus's only real purple patch over the last 10 years was when they started selling S2 Elises/Exiges there) where do they go?

 

Answer: Keep the engineering arm, liquidate the car side, probably to be bought up in a fire sale, by VAG, and we will get some pastiche of a re-bodied  Audi TT wearing a Lotus badge  (No doubt purely brand rights, not an ongoing concern, so you can forget warranties, or the pesky manufacturing of current Lotus specific parts.)

 

I was seriously considering a V6  Exige, this news has really put me off.  £60k only works for me if the residuals are strong.

 

I know a few people on the Tesla site that are now hitting these exact problems with parts availability on the Lotus made Tesla Roadster (we think getting new clams is hard!)  it's really starting to knock the residuals.

[Simon Mac]

Reflecting on my above post, and it's negativity. I'd like to offer what I'd want to see as a strategy to ease my concerns.

 

For me, if Lotus start reshipping to the US, it would make a big difference to my personal perception of the medium term prospects for the company. There is huge pent up demand over there. Used S2 Elises/Exiges are very much sought after. Many S2 owners would jump at the chance to buy a V6 Exige, unfortunately they can't.

 

Developing the current line up to meet standards over there would be much cheaper than developing a brand new model. (My understanding is it's the airbags that are the problem, simplistically can't they use the system out of the Evora in the Exige?)

 

This would tide them over for a couple of years of production, and I'd be confident of them surviving whilst I owned the car. It would also give them breathing space to regroup and work on how they can move the range forward doing some proper rework on the Elise to meet today's competition.

 

They should probably look into the new CFRP techniques too. http://www.reinforcedplastics.com/view/35054/carbon-fibre-and-cars-2013-in-review/ I suspect they don't have the budget for all the investment, but it is where things are going. Look at the i8, and to a lesser extent the Alfa 4C.

[Simon Mac]

More CF background.

 

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/162582-bmw-i3-will-bmws-new-ev-finally-be-the-breakthrough-for-carbon-fiber-cars

 

GM are even saying that modern CF means certain parts are CHEAPER in CF than fibreglass!! (The hood on the Viper is offered as an example)

 

A modern Elise with CF Clams and a smallish capacity modern turbo'd petrol. Use the weight savings on the bodywork to add a few creature comforts, they would sell like hot cakes, especially if they could get the unit price down. 

 

Of course we are all conditioned to think CF is exotic and expensive. Looks like the tide is turning, Lotus will look even more dated if in a few years you can buy a completely CF Z4 for less money.

[chris_h]

Sales are pretty good at lotus at the moment so I wouldn't worry about them long term.

 

All the dealers from around the world were at lotus recently. They aren't allowed to talk about it, which to me hints there will be a new model announced at a major car show soon.

 

My guess would be the esprit as it has been in the works for a long time.

 

The evora airbags don't meet the new US regulations (they have an exemption which they had to fight for) so they couldn't just put them on the exige.

[a7esk]

More bad news

 

 

2014 Lotus Evora S

Following on from Lotus’s announcement of impending job losses, some more bad news for the brand’s dwindling band of followers in the States: We’ve learned that the company’s last street-legal model, the Evora, is going to be withdrawn from sale in the U.S.

 

The news probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise. The 2014 Evora happened only because the company got a 12-month exemption on the federal requirement to fit smart airbags. That has now expired, and a highly placed source in a U.S. dealer group has confirmed that Lotus won’t be re-engineering the car to meet the new safety standards. So when the remaining inventory of 2014 cars is sold, a process that will likely take us well into 2015, Lotus dealers will be reduced to selling track-only variants of the Elise and Exige in the U.S.

 

Lotus Evora

[Simon Mac]

I was intrigued by the difference between regular and smart airbags:

 

http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/smart-airbags-attack-a-vanishing-problem-feature

 

So for Lotus to sell cars in the U.S. they need to put a scale inside the seats, and some form of computerised air bag deployment system in.  

 

Surely they must have planned this for the new Esprit, for without this, it too would be barred from the US market.  :S

 

What happens when/if it becomes EU law too at some point down the line? Will they just draw a line under that major market and sell to the Chinese?

 

 

Love the cars, just exasperated by the (mis)management.  Now we have a guy that used to be in charge of sales at Saab, and we know how that went down.  Of course Monsieur Gales is in the old school tie brigade, so when Saab went pop he landed a cushy job at CLEPA, the very organisation that represented the unpaid suppliers to Saab!!!

 

You couldn't make this *h*t up!!

[Sundaydriver]

I think he's just getting the business back into a potentially profitable state (And getting rid of the bahar excesses)

Agree !

[cjwjames]

Now that explains why it seems lotus are putting a lot of evoras into the uk market just look at pistonheads there for sale everywhere

But i agree with chris h post the company need some stability it dosnt help when we all think the worst

[Simon Mac]

Agree !

 

It's a Sisysphean task!. They've made a profit only once since 1996 (not surprisingly when they started shipping the Elise to the sates). An instant boost of 2500 sales + lots of contract work making the 2,500 Tesla Roadsters.

 

 

Their balance sheet is a standing joke. Their recovery plan to just break even is to sell 3,500 cars annually.  They are haemorrhaging cash. They are carrying round debt of around £0.5Bn, Their suppliers are on average being paid 6 months late.

 

We are bound to view this through "Rose tinted specs", but in the cold light of day they should have declared technical insolvency years ago.

 

Rubbing salt in the wounds, According to DVLA's figures* , total UK sales this year so far amount to 108 cars in total. Last year total UK sales registrations was 277 cars. So they have to sell another 169 cars in 3 months.

 

The splits look like this:

 

Elise  35 cars  (79 last year)

Evora 23 cars (99 last year)

Exige 50 cars 14 of which are Roadsters, (102 last year, 8 of which were roadsters)

 

Gale's comments about building on recent strong sales are not backed by those pesky things called facts.  Of course I might be missing massive sales figures from Europe and Asia, but they truly would need to be stellar! I guess there is also some shortfall to make up from race only cars, that don't get registered at DVLA, but... 

 

I sadly fear Jean-Marc is going to carve up what he can, and realise what he can for the main debtors (i.e. the banks). Of course they can't say that, so we carry on with the charade.

 

Sorry guys, I promise this is the last post on this topic!

 

 

 

 

* https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/veh01-vehicles-registered-for-the-first-time    You want VEH160.

[Simon Mac]

 

Sorry guys, I promise this is the last post on this topic!

 

 

White lie, rather than edit my original post. To put his into perspective:  McLaren have sold more MP4-12Cs than any Lotus variant!!!  

[Meister]

On a lighter note  I don't know about you guys, but I'm finding MLOC a veritable feast of education opportunities at the moment, one minute we are looking at number plates showing the molecular formulas for sugar the next we are using words like Sisysphean instead of Impossible.

Bloody brilliant.... I am not sending my kids to school anymore I'm just going to let them look at MLOC all day!

  

[darryl]

It's a Sisysphean task!. They've made a profit only once since 1996 (not surprisingly when they started shipping the Elise to the sates). An instant boost of 2500 sales + lots of contract work making the 2,500 Tesla Roadsters.

 

 

Their balance sheet is a standing joke. Their recovery plan to just break even is to sell 3,500 cars annually.  They are haemorrhaging cash. They are carrying round debt of around £0.5Bn, Their suppliers are on average being paid 6 months late.

 

We are bound to view this through "Rose tinted specs", but in the cold light of day they should have declared technical insolvency years ago.

 

Rubbing salt in the wounds, According to DVLA's figures* , total UK sales this year so far amount to 108 cars in total. Last year total UK sales registrations was 277 cars. So they have to sell another 169 cars in 3 months.

 

The splits look like this:

 

Elise  35 cars  (79 last year)

Evora 23 cars (99 last year)

Exige 50 cars 14 of which are Roadsters, (102 last year, 8 of which were roadsters)

 

Gale's comments about building on recent strong sales are not backed by those pesky things called facts.  Of course I might be missing massive sales figures from Europe and Asia, but they truly would need to be stellar! I guess there is also some shortfall to make up from race only cars, that don't get registered at DVLA, but... 

 

I sadly fear Jean-Marc is going to carve up what he can, and realise what he can for the main debtors (i.e. the banks). Of course they can't say that, so we carry on with the charade.

 

Sorry guys, I promise this is the last post on this topic!

 

 

 

 

* https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/veh01-vehicles-registered-for-the-first-time    You want VEH160.

 

The UK is possibly Lotus cars smallest market I believe about 10%, so I shouldn't read to much into DVLA figures for how well Lotus are doing.

 

DRB/Proton senior people appear to be happy with Lotus improvement over the last 18months.

 

Lotus have been on the verge of collapse since well before we bought our first Lotus back in 1981, it has not stopped us buying and won't stop us buying next year.

[chris_h]

Motorsport is doing very well, lots of track only cars being built when I was there a few months ago. They were bursting out of workshops, and my car had a 4 week wait before they could start. (They were also building two of the mega expensive f1 style cars, I believe they have sold 6 now at a serious price.) The production line was also the busiest I had seen since about 2004.

 

I also don't believe those uk registration numbers knowing the number of cars that have been sold through some of the dealerships.