We’ve Got Bad news About Lotus’s Macan-Rivaling SUV

Things are changing at sports car and now electric SUV company Lotus. Although the brand had pledged to go all-electric after the Emira, things recently took a turn for the worse amidst uncertainty over EV adoption, prompting Lotus to backtrack on that all-electric promise and instead look to a hybrid future. But it’s now been confirmed that an upcoming model, codenamed the Type 134, has been delayed, and without it, Lotus will be unable to challenge the Porsche Macan.

Electric Sports SUV Delayed Over Lack Of Demand

After the Lotus Eletre electric SUV, the company had planned to bring another to market. The vehicle, code-named Type 134, was a smaller electric SUV. A direct competitor to Porsche’s electric Macan crossover. Lotus said it was working hard to make the electric SUV under 4,400 pounds, significantly lighter than competitors.

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Now, the Type 134 is getting pushed back. Lotus Europe CEO Dan Balmer told Automotive News Europe that the drop in demand for luxury EVs that cut its all-electric plans in favor of hybrids is also affecting the SUV. It is being delayed to “better understand where the market is going,” he said.

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The Norfolk-based automaker has unveiled a more luxurious Eletre SUV, alongside a bespoke personalization program that’s now available in the USA.

The market appears to be going to hybrids. It doesn’t hurt Lotus that while its made-in-China EVs are subject to tariffs in the EU, hybrid vehicles aren’t. A similar fate may also be applicable here in the US, where Lotus’s plans to sell the Eletre and Emeya EVs en masse were derailed by a 100% tariff brought in by President Joe Biden on Chinese-made electric cars.

Lotus engineers could be in for some long nights fitting a gas engine into the Type 134 in a hurry.

Lotus Revamping Sales Network For Second Time In Three Years

Lotus, since it was acquired by Geely, had been planning to go big on electric vehicles. As part of that, the automaker planned new SUVs, new sports cars, and a new sales channel. It wanted to give dealers a fixed fee for selling its vehicles in a system closer to Tesla’s than a traditional car dealer.

That plan is gone now, Balmer told ANE. “You are more reliant on the brand itself to be all things to all men and women.” Dealers have “better strength in that area,” he said.

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The former head of sales at Lotus wanted to build a relationship directly with customers. He left in June, and Lotus is rolling back the plan.

But rolling back the plan isn’t the automaker’s big problem. Its problem is moving vehicles. Lotus recently halved its sales target for the year from 24,000 to 12,000. Through October, it had sold only 7,617. The brand’s sales flip-flop means that it isn’t for sale in Norway, the market with the highest EV take rate in the world. AN reports that 80 percent of the brand’s dealers in the UK are less than six months old. It takes time to build a store and brand awareness, time they haven’t had to sell products they also don’t have.

Source:
Automotive News Europe