They survive by being a leader, not a follower. Use the Wuhan factory to make cars for China and the Asian market. Use the Hethel location to make cars for Europe and North America. Go hybrid at Hethel. If they want to stay EV at Wuhan, that's up to them. China controls the majority of the rare earth mineral resources of the world, so making EV's at Wuhan would be more viable for them for that market. The all-EV mandates for Europe and North America are going to fall apart, and be modified to focus on fuel economy instead of just electric. Those winds are already starting to blow.
Lotus Hethel should focus on hybrid development, and Carr's design team should do the design work. Don't focus on competing with anybody; focus on making great products and providing great interaction and support for the customer. Use the Emira as the lesson/example. Design a beautiful sports sedan that ISN'T super powerful, but looks like it and price it between $50k-$75.k. Follow up with a hybrid SUV that again, isn't super powerful, but IS super cool and useful as an SUV. Make the focus on the function like they did with the Emira, and keep the SUV affordable like the sports sedan.
Put some serious effort into the customer experience, starting with online interaction. Set up a network of satellite offices that are a dealer location insofar as service and visibility, but they do NOT carry vehicle inventory. They have demos customers can see and drive, and the location can assist in ordering, but mostly they are service and customer interaction locations. This would greatly reduce the weight of the cost of maintaining each location, as it doesn't sit under the pressure of the cost of inventory sitting on the lot, hoping somebody wants to buy one of them. That old business model is no longer viable because cars cost too much to produce and buy now.
This business model would allow Hethel to expand its production capability as needed, with most likely another facility for the SUV, and let the current facility produce the sports cars and sports sedan. Let the satellite locations handle the customer interaction/experience so the factory can just focus on making vehicles, which is what they seem to want to do anyways.
Looks is what's going to get attention; that's the lesson of the Emira. Next is a price that's way below what the looks would suggest. That's the other lesson of the Emira. A hybrid powertrain/platform could be developed that's the same for all 3; sports car, sports sedan and SUV. That would help keep the costs down for production and sales. Put the main focus for the sedan and SUV, on what people use sedans and SUV's for. It isn't 0-60 and track times. Let the sports car be the performance model, which would be the most expensive of the line-up.
Lotus CAN survive and prosper if they stop worrying about what other companies are doing, and focus on making the products that they themselves would want to buy and use.
