Posts Tagged ‘Lotus’
DRB-Hicom has plan for Lotus Cars to restore full car production at its Hethel assembly plan and continue to build the first of its new-wave models, the Espirit supercar before the end of 2013. A four model within five year has been plan after the financial freeze for 60-day. It also means that Lotus should be making Elises, Exiges and Evoras at a combined rate of 44 cars a week and continue to develop the Espirit especially its own design V8 engine.
Bahar admits that DRB-Hicom has still to decide whether it will operate Lotus as is, modify its ambitious management plans or move to sell it.
“The past four months have been really tough for us,” he says. “We were working at a pace nobody had seen at Lotus for many years, so the shut-down, as I call it, was very hard for us. It is still not good, but it is where we are. My job is to convince our shareholders — and critics — that we can build a successful business here. But I’m feeling a lot happier now than I was a month ago.”
Source :- Autocar
Good luck. I dunno what to comment but Lotus must keep alive..
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Lotus boss, Dany Bahar has been ordered to continue the programme to replace the entire Lotus model range even though Proton has being acquired by a new owner, DRB Hicom. Proton’s new owner are reportedly ‘open’ to talks about the sale of Lotus but Bahar dismisses as speculation that the company is close to being sold. Bahar said that Lotus is now more than two years of its five year plan and new gearbox and new V8 supercar engine is in progress. The supercar prototypes will be test in May and much money involved.
Source :- Autocar
I dunno if it is better for Proton sold Lotus or not.. Let’s wait and see the progress.
Tuning car based on Lotus has been created by German manufacture PG and Düsseldorf-based automobile designer Michael Fröhlich. The Lotus Elise will features an electric motor powered by a lithium-ion battery and dressed the body with a carbon fibre to make this car more lighter. It also have solar panel mounted behind the driver that using sun’s energy and convert it to power up the batteries. The roadster model’s could produce 272 horsepower and 350Nm of torque and enough to propel the PG Elektrus to 100km/h in less than 3 second. The top speed of this car is 300km/h.
The audio system allows the drive to select from a range of sounds that emulate real engines including a full bodied V8 and a Formula One racecar. The German company has plans to produce a total of 667 examples of the Elektrus, each with a starting price of €240,000 (US$312,400).
New Proton owner, DRB-Hicom would consider to sale the Group Lotus after look the plans and operations. China’s Shanghai Auto, reportedly interested to acquire Lotus but new owner never received any offer.
On DRB-HICOM’s plans for taking Proton private, Mohamad Khamil said no stakes in the struggling carmaker would be sold to foreign entities.
However, it was open to possible technical cooperation with global players like General Motors, Volkswagen and Honda, he said, adding that he aimed to turn Proton around within five years.
Proton has been criticised for poor-quality and unimaginative cars and has struggled to stay in the black in recent years.
Source :- AFP Google
I’m agree with new Proton’s owner. Why keep if there’s no profit? I think new owner must focuss on to upgrade their car rather than buy any carmaker. Let’s Proton get attention worldwide and not just in local market only.