Recently, President of Geely Automobile An Conghui revealed that the first China model of Lotus brand will be put into production in Wuhan, Hubei province China. The British Lotus Cars is a legendary brand, Lotus, Porsche, Ferrari was once the world’s three major sports car manufacturers. In 1996, Lotus was acquired by Malaysian automaker Proton. In June 2011, the Lotus brand officially entered China and released its official Chinese name “路特斯”. In June 2017, when Geely acquired Proton, a subsidiary of Malaysian DRB-HICOM, it acquired a 51% stake in the Lotus brand under the same group.
In November 2018, Geely Auto Wuhan Branch was established. In December of the same year, Geely Auto Wuhan Branch approved an annual production of 150,000 passenger car projects. The factory plans a total investment of 9.044 billion yuan, construction began in early 2019, and completed by the end of 2021.
It is reported that Lotus will retain the blood and genetics of the old British sports car, lightweight, aerodynamic design will be “indispensable”, Lotus will also introduce some daily use models to expand sales, including the long-rumored SUV models. In addition, Popham, the CEO of Lotus, said that Lotus will launch a new sports car based on the new platform in 2020, which will become part of the five-year development plan of Lotus. It is expected to release the concept version in 2019, the price of production version may be more than 2 million pounds. After the launch of this new sports car, the new generation of Elise, Exige, Evora will also be built based on this platform in 3 or 4 years.
