Lotus was saddled with a lot of debt and Proton ultimately lost a lot of money keeping Lotus afloat by continuously pumping money into Lotus. Lotus has not since made any profit and has stayed in operation solely from the financial support from Proton. Proton only benefited from some basic suspension and chassis engineering for the Proton Perdana V6 model, Satria Gti and the later Gen 2, Persona, Satria Neo, Exora and Preve models. Having a decent chassis and suspension does not necessary mean better sales when the engine, transmission and build quality is substandard! Until today Proton is still losing a lot of money due to Lotus and it is a big financial burden.
In 2009 Lotus took a bold step and engaged Dany Bahar which attempted to turn the company around with a flurry of new models which were due to be released over the next 5 years. Sadly, the direction which Lotus took was wrong. Under his leadership, Lotus planned to release numerous new sports car models with 1 luxury sedan model. In the current global economic climate, it would not make sense to keep making sports cars as the old product to sell. Lotus had the brand pedigree, engineering know how and also the motorsports heritage to build and sell non-sports car models.Lotus in reality should re-look at their business model and consider how they are able to turn the company around. Surely in our current economic climate
sponsoring the Lotus Renault F1 team in consideration of the company's financial situation, it does not make logical sense to indulge in such expensive branding exercise. Lotus cannot survive on selling Elises, Evoras and Exiges only and sponsor a major Formula One team.
Lotus should develop a mid range sports sedan similar to a BMW 5 series size and a sports SUV to their model range. These two models will be able to capture buyers who are looking for a car with the Lotus branding, racing heritage and engineering and yet carry 4 adults comfortably. Building such models by no means dilute or bring down the brand image of Lotus. It just widens the customer base across all countries. Being able to sell more cars naturally mean more revenue for the company. Lotus should take some notes from Porsche that did what many people did not expect them to do by introducing the Cayenne and Panamera. It just seems like Proton never capitalized on Lotus's abilities and Lotus never took the step in the right direction to make itself profitable. It appears that Lotus is destined to be the burden for Proton until something drastic is done to turn the company around. I believe if Lotus was sold a China car manufacturer, they would be able to turn the company around and capitalize on Lotus's capabilities just like how they did for Rover and Volvo.
In comparison, in 2004 Porsche was smart enough to introduce the Cayenne and 2009 the Panamera which are currently its most popular and profitable models in their model line up. This move was in anticipation of economic changes and moving in a different direction to create a wider customer base. Porsche being one of the most traditional sports car companies in the world took a bold step in a direction that many people were very critical of them but it has paid of handsomely. Porsche did not invest in Formula One as a branding exercise. They focused instead on product development and expansion into key emerging markets such as China, South America, Russia and Nigeria. I do apologize to readers who wonder why I keep comparing many companies with Porsche and their models. The reason for this is that in this current economic climate, Porsche has done extremely well with their new models and has made more money than many other companies. They had the right strategy and good models to match.
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