future of Lotus

Lotus is well known for making sports cars but the company have not made any positive impact in the automotive industry. It has not developed any new technology nor has it been a top performer. It has been stuck as a niche market car maker that seems to be unsure of its future. Under the ownership of Proton it has been a vampire so to speak, it has been sucking money out of Proton to stay alive. It's development budget was cut when Proton got into financial trouble.
Now that 49% of Proton has been sold to Geely and Lotus is also under Geely ownership no one knows where it is headed. The company has a decent R&D department capable of developing good chassis. It's engineering side have been previously contracted to help develop chassis for several car makers. Lotus is falling short of it is potential but all of this is down to the lack of funds.

Proton could have turned Lotus into another Porsche when it was cash rich but the corruption within Proton killed everything. Under the previous CEO's helm (Danny Bahar), the company displayed prototypes of luxury sedans and a SUV which could have helped the company improve its cashflow and inject some excitement into the brand. Many loyal Lotus owners would consider buying a Lotus SUV. As proven by Porsche the Cayenne was the biggest cash cow for them. this could have easily been the same for Lotus.

Lotus needs to break away from just building sports cars. It needs a cash cow model which it can benefit from. From there Lotus can grow and potentially emulate Porsche. Under the Geely ownership it is possible since Geely managed to fully turn around Volvo and made it profitable again. With Geely steering the company Lotus will have access to the lucrative China market which it can really grow. The critical issue is that the sales of sports cars is low in china. The most important model will be a SUV or a luxury sedan. The chinese buyers like luxury SUVs and they would be willing to spend to buy a SUV made by Lotus.

Lotus was literally floundering when it was under Proton. It had a dream but it was never meant to be. The name Lotus is well known but it just never grew as one expected it to. It is the same for all other British car makers which ended up in the hands of foreigners. The lucky ones made a good transition and grew like Aston Martin.

Lotus needs to seen on the world stage as a current car company, not one that is forgotten.