Contents
- Lotus Elise, Exige and Evora Enter Final Year of Production
- New series sports car production Hethel approved for UK £ 100 million + investment in completely new production facilities More job creation support created to support more volume Production discontinuation planned for Evora, Exige and Elise in 2021
Lotus Elise, Exige and Evora Enter Final Year of Production
New series sports car production Hethel approved for UK
£ 100 million + investment in completely new production facilities
More job creation support created to support more volume
Production discontinuation planned for Evora, Exige and Elise in 2021
In a world-class manufacturing facilities in Hethel verified a new sports car series this year will start the Lotus Type 131 prototype. The new manufacturing investment is part of Lotus’s Vision80 strategy, and will also see two Lotus sub-assembly plants move into one efficient centralized operation in Norwich city to support higher volumes. To accompany the £ 100 million + investment in Hethel’s facilities, Lotus will recruit approximately 250 new employees.
This will be in addition to the 670 employees who have joined Lotus since September 2017, when shareholders Geely and Etika took ownership of the company. Engineering and manufacturing roles for both Lotus Cars and world-renowned engineering consultancy Lotus Engineering will need new hires. Lotus Engineering, which opened the Advanced Technology Center in Warwick at the end of this year, released an image to introduce the upcoming performance car family, giving clues about the next generation of products to come after the Elise, Exige and Evora, which entered the last production year in 2021.
Three sports car lines available, starting with the iconic Lotus Elise
Lotus Elise was introduced in 1995. With its pioneering use of extruded and bonded aluminum, high-tech composites and lightweight know-how, it has revolutionized the low-volume sports car industry.
Using technology pioneered in Elise and launched in 2000, Exige quickly became the core of the “Race Car for the Road”. While Exige quickly managed to embrace the world’s toughest tracks with the safety and progressiveness expected from a Lotus, it showed a rare ability to offer the driver an inclusive yet accessible experience on the road.
Evora brought Lotus back to the super sports car industry as a more driver-focused, award-winning and versatile road car than its peers. In motorsport, Evora has also been successful, winning the national GT championships around the world and winning a podium at Le Mans.
The future Lotus cars take this learning and develop it further, along with the primary criteria for being “For Drivers” to ensure that this vital DNA is preserved.
Lotus has created many automotive legends over the past 73 years, and with the Evija hypercar and the new Type 131 sports car, the dawn of a new innovation and legend creation breaks out at Hethel.
