Scottish Elises

“Reflecting our experience accumulated through Volvo Car’s revitalisation, we also aim to unleash the full potential of Lotus Cars and bring it into a new phase of development by expanding and accelerating the rolling out of new products and technologies.”

Personally I do hope JMG will be kept at the helm, he's done a great job on a limited budget and does have a plan that is not only doable but financially sound. During is short tenure at Peugeot the group struggled but he successfully launched DS which is doing very well. Lotus is doing well enough.

The good news is that Lotus will now be part of a much bigger group with its own tech. Geely produced last year under their own brand some 750k cars so if you add Volvo's 500k, that's 1.2M cars sold worldwide, 500k of which are premium cars displaying a very impressive array of cabin and engine technology.

Geely has developed its GETEC engine line in the past 4 years and has access to Volvo Drive E. More interestingly if Drive-E is limited to for cylinders, the GETEC range has everything Lotus may want to play with from a 1.5l TGDI to a modern 3.5l all aluminium V6 with TGDI fully compliant with Euro V regulations, so with a bit of fettling from Volvo and Lotus would make it to Euro VI and. So one could imagine a "Drive-Eed" V6. Geely has its own gearbox manufacturer called DSI - based in Australia, formally part of Borg Warner which produce a 6 speed DCT and is working on a 7 speed DCT. Geely and Volvo have the wiring loom Lotus so desperately needs and access to some of the best first tier OEM suppliers in Asia not to mention state of the art factories and engineering centres in both China and Sweden. So if you had Hethel to the mix they should get some very impressive tech to play with.



When it comes to the engine it is similar in size and displacement, here are the specs (looking for more info on that):

Engine Technology 6- Cylinder in V-Configuration (V6), DOHC, 24V, VVT - code name JLV-6G35V
Engine Capacity (cc)‎: ‎3456
Max Power‎: ‎275 hp @ 6200 rpm
Max. Torque‎: ‎326 Nm @ 4700 rpm
So Lotus only needs to get working on it and could have it ready for implementation on the Evora and Exige in a year or so, they could also decide to let Exige and Evora current models use the Toyota powertrain until they are replaced, that would happen in 2021 and 2022 according to the plan before the acquisition. Geely is also a very pragmatic manufacturer that did not rush things at Volvo, they knew they needed time and let the Ford supply deal last until the Drive-E engines were ready to go. Despite the existence of DSI they also have a relationship with AISIN thru Volvo that provides the 8 speed auto, So it appears to me that they want to get the products right therefore I don't think we'll get to see the Elise before 2019-2020. We may get another deep refresh for Evora focussing on cabin tech.

The good news is Lotus will now get to be crown the jewel I believe they deserve to be, and if Geely say they are going to unleash the brand it may get very interesting, Lotus is set to jump into a new market segment.

Oh and last bit of good news Geely believes in Motorsport, Volvo is allowed to compete in WTCC while Geely runs the local F4 championship so Lotus Motorsport may be revived before too long.

Lazydonkey wrote:Geely have been nothing but brilliant for Volvo and seem to be following the Tata model of handing over cash and letting them do what they do.

They've also been heavily using volvo tech to underpin their home market offerings.

I see this as a good thing for lotus.