Lotus opened 2025 with a painful round of job cuts, losing 270 employees. With the reality of tariffs kicking in, Lotus needs to figure out a way to generate more revenue. While the brand has the new Lotus Emira sports car doing relatively well in Lotus terms (5,272 vehicles shipped to dealerships last year), things are rocky for the legendary British brand. The good news is that Lotus is under the Geely umbrella and headed by Matt Dwindle, who sees opportunities. In an interview with Autocar, he sees manufacturing cars for other brands as a solution at its Hethel factory in the UK, with the biggest possibility being the upcoming Polestar 6.
Lotus Has A History Of Building Cars For Others
As a business model, building cars for other brands has a precedent for Lotus. “Back in the late 1990s and 2000s, we were building several models at Hethel, and I think that’s a business model we’re exploring,” Dwindle pointed out to Autocar. Those models from back in the day were mainly based on existing Lotus cars, including the Vauxhall VX220 and Tesla Roadster. According to Dwindle, the Polestar 6 (Polestar being another Geely-owned brand) makes sense as the Hethel factory is currently geared for EVs.
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What’s currently hurting Lotus is US sales, following President Trump’s tariffs kicking in last month. With a 25 percent tax added to the British-built Emira sports car and the Chinese-built Emeya and Eletre electric cars facing even stiffer penalties, Lotus was forced to cancel sales and exports to the US. The recent deal made to change the tax to 10 percent for British vehicles may help, but, understandably, Windle is waiting for details and confirmations before rebooting shipments. There is also the problem that the tariff situation is still far from predictable.
Avoiding Those Tariffs
As it stood before the tariffs, Lotus’ growth has been strong, delivering 12,134 cars last year, doubling the number from 2023. Hopefully helping to balance out the tariff problem, Lotus is launching its Hyper Hybrid line of range-extended EVs in China at the beginning of next year. At the same time, it’s pausing plans for an all-electric sports car to be built at the Hethel facility while it assesses demand.
“Is the market ready for an electric sports car? I don’t really know the answer to that yet,” Windle said, and with a frankness we can appreciate, adds that, “I think being a product strategy person in the automotive industry is probably one of the most difficult jobs at the moment.”
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While America is a struggle for automakers right now, Europe isn’t a smooth, straight road either. The continent’s obsession with legislating battery electric vehicles into every home is a huge problem for all brands. A full BEV future is maybe not the answer,” he told Autocar. In the meantime, Dwindle is focusing on growing Lotus through dealerships and remains upbeat. “Network development is a big part of our strategy is around volume growth going forward,” he said. “I think the opportunity is there, and it’s going to be an exciting couple of years.”
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Source: Autocar
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