Lotus Boss Quits

[Lotustoronto]

That didn't last long....

Lotus commercial chief leaves after 18 months | Autocar

Mike Johnstone is understood to have made the decision himself, and is said to be planning to stay in automotive

www.autocar.co.uk

 

[Nick in Sydney]

Not good. A clear vote of no confidence in the future of Lotus from an insider who knows what's going on.

 

[Lotustoronto]

Not good. A clear vote of no confidence in the future of Lotus from an insider who knows what's going on.

Agree... couldn't be a clearer indication of troubled waters ahead. He was higher up than Matt Windle, essentially the CEO from the British side of Lotus.

 

[BobbyG]

Lotus is a rudderless mess right now.

I‘m not optimistic about the long term health of the company

 

[Porter]

Agree... couldn't be a clearer indication of troubled waters ahead. He was higher up than Matt Windle, essentially the CEO from the British side of Lotus.

Different organizations, Johnstone was with Lotus Technology while Windle is with Lotus Cars. The sports car company wasn't actually folded into Lotus Technology, though the distribution of the cars is now handled through LT.

Before they split the companies, I believe Johnstone reported to Windle, though I'm not positive about that.

 

[Eagle7]

I think he's seen the EV handwriting on the wall, and knows that Geely's making a huge mistake to go EV only. All the big players are backing way off the EV train, and restarting their ICE production facilities. Hybrid is going to be the way to go for a long ways into the foreseeable future.

Geely simply doesn't have the other very necessary pieces in place to go all-in for being a luxury only brand. They need to learn from the Emira. Looks like a top luxury car, but not priced that way. Geely should aim for the middle of the market bell curve, not the very slim and highly competitive end of it. Get vehicles with base models in the $75k-$95k range that are decent enough as base models. With options they can go above that, but being able to show and sell good-looking vehicles that are reachable by the bigger segment of the marketplace is the smart way to go.

 

[Nick in Sydney]

I think he's seen the EV handwriting on the wall, and knows that Geely's making a huge mistake to go EV only. All the big players are backing way off the EV train, and restarting their ICE production facilities. Hybrid is going to be the way to go for a long ways into the foreseeable future.

Geely simply doesn't have the other very necessary pieces in place to go all-in for being a luxury only brand.

Spot on. I've always thought they should have started with a hybrid Macan competitor.

 

[CHEESE]

Yep, Lotus was probably thinking that going all-EV is easy mode, but things have changed over the last few years and people are sick of having EVs jammed down their throats by authoritarian regimes.. *cough*

 

[Fasttoys]

Lotus has always had a troubled past and the Emira V6 is truly a refresh of the outgoing product powered by the same engine other than the AMG version that is slowly being rolled out. Going 100% to EV was a bold move that should have been slow-walked, especially in a crowded market of competitors that had been out for a while. Lotus needs to focus on quality and its current customer base while building a brand for new upcoming customers. If they keep having nagging issues on the Emira that is just a refresh, they will lose customers and hurt their prospects of getting new customers in very expensive EVs.

 

[Eagle7]

Yep, Lotus was probably thinking that going all-EV is easy mode, but things have changed over the last few years and people are sick of having EVs jammed down their throats by authoritarian regimes.. *cough*

There may be a bit of that, but I think the main issue was they way over-estimated the viability of the technology. It just isn't workable as a works-for-everything solution. It has its place, and can work in certain applications, but trying to shoe-horn it into everything everywhere was a mistake. Something in the middle using EV, hybrid, and ICE where each of those work best would be far more practical, and use less resources than what they're doing.

You can't "just stop oil", that's absurd. You also can't just wholesale strip rare earth minerals for batteries and solar cells. Those resources are probably even more limited than oil, and definitely not renewable. Something in the middle that uses less of each makes a lot more sense for a long-term interim solution while investigating other ways of generating energy.

 

[Lotustoronto]

Take a look at the reviews of the Macan EV. The same journalists that blasted the Emira and Eletre EV make the new EV Macan seem like the best new vehicle. I think there is a market for EV's of this caliber, but Lotus has an identity problem. It has done a piss poor job with its customer experience and I think the culmination of everything together is the problem. You can have the EV's built in China, but if you want success into this new field (EV), you have to be better than your competition at everything else. (Tesla didn't need this because they had NO competition for the past decade!) Lotus needs Rolls Royce levels of service, Reliability levels of a Porsche and performance of Ferrari. If they wrapped that package together, at the current price points, people would buy them. Unfortunately the sentiment from the automotive crowd is (old) Lotus levels of service and reliability of a (old) Lotus. Performance is the only thing they got right in the EV's so far. Plus the stigma of "made in china" hanging over it's head along the way. (made in UK would have made a difference)

Perhaps it will take more time to convince people. I don't think making more ICE/Hybrid SUV's would have made a difference, the competition in the field is immense. No way a Lotus SUV wins over the DBX (new one's interior is amazing), Urus, Cayenne, Purosaunge, even the X6M or SQ8. Much easier to compete against a Model X (it's only true competition, Maybe BMW iX M60?)

If Lotus wanted to survive, going head to head against the current legacy brand ICE/Hybrid performance SUV's they would have been destroyed. Charting the new path in EV was the right option for slow long term growth with less competition (for now). The execution was terrible. I hate to say this, but if Danny Bahar had Geely money backing him, he would have been better to steer the ship. Lotus' top brass is missing the special sauce to put this all together and it shows.

 

[dgrace]

If all this is true, what are your feelings for parts and support for Emira going forward?

 

[brainf18]

Geely bought Lotus for one primary reason - Brand recognition. Geely thought they could leverage the name and reputation of a company with a storied F1 history and niche sports car market and turn it into mass market auto manufacturer.

Its pretty clear that Geely wanted to RAPIDLY morph Lotus, a boutique automaker, into a global brand and sell 100K+ vehicles annually. To be competitive in a crowded market of high end ICE and EV producers, Geely failed on several fronts. First they failed to make the required investments in infrastructure. No one except for niche sports car buyers is going to tolerate not having a dealership nearby. Secondly they forgot the crawl, walk, run principles of scalable manufacturing. While Geely can likely PRODUCE cars in volume, they don't have the customer base (demand) to purchase those volumes.

Fundamentally Geely (Lotus) has a demand problem. The Emira's purpose was to reinvigorate the brand, energize Lotus loyalists and capture new market share from sports car buyers. The Emira certainly did this and by that measure has been successful. The disconnect has been with the exponential increase of interest in Lotus has not translated into increase desirably for the follow on vehicle offerings. In fact. Geely / Lotus have treated their Emira customer base so poorly it has had a strategic negative impact on brand recognition and essentially stunted the growth of Lotus products in the mainstream SUV marketplace.

Until Geely & Lotus build out dealer and service infrastructure as well as do a better job of treating their existing customers better, I see Lotus' growth as an uphill battle with stiff headwinds.

If Lotus and Geely want to succeed, two things need to happen Immediately. First, Geely needs to make all Volvo dealers, Lotus service centers. They'd get instant infrastructure and mitigate buyer's support concerns. Next, anyone and everyone who has or is in the process of purchasing an Emira, needs to be able to access robust, comprehensive customer service. If Lotus/Geely don't do something different soon, this branding expansion experiment will fizzle and maybe fail.

 

[I.am.Duke]

Lotus isn't a real company. We're all along for a ride on the crazy train cuz they build really nice cars. But lets not kid ourselves, Its not a real company.

 

[Nova]

I feel like Lotus has some good EV products. The reviews of the Eletre, especially from the more no-nonsense Youtubers, seem to be pretty positive and impressive. I would expect the Emeya to be similarly well done. Mike Johnstone has worked at Volvo under Geely before so he has experience dealing with the larger corporate culture. I don't believe the issues with Emira directly impacts him in anyway since it's mostly quality and delivery related, which are issues from Lotus Cars UK and not Lotus Tech.

Which is all to say, I can't think of many negative issues that would cause Mike Johnstone to leave. Save for two reasons: the leadership he has to report to is particularly difficult to work with, or some fat opportunity came up that he just had to take advantage of.

 

[Lotustoronto]

I feel like Lotus has some good EV products. The reviews of the Eletre, especially from the more no-nonsense Youtubers, seem to be pretty positive and impressive. I would expect the Emeya to be similarly well done. Mike Johnstone has worked at Volvo under Geely before so he has experience dealing with the larger corporate culture. I don't believe the issues with Emira directly impacts him in anyway since it's mostly quality and delivery related, which are issues from Lotus Cars UK and not Lotus Tech.

Which is all to say, I can't think of many negative issues that would cause Mike Johnstone to leave. Save for two reasons: the leadership he has to report to is particularly difficult to work with, or some fat opportunity came up that he just had to take advantage of.

You can say it isn't Lotus Tech's issue, but for the average consumer, they have no idea the difference between Lotus Tech and Lotus Cars UK. It's all the same. So whoever is dealing with Lotus Tech CS HAS to be involved in the sports car line up as well. The EV's are decent and I would have an Eletre over a Model X if I had to choose. But the service and experience is so poor that most people will choose the Model X.

 

[Porter]

Geely bought Lotus for one primary reason - Brand recognition. Geely thought they could leverage the name and reputation of a company with a storied F1 history and niche sports car market and turn it into mass market auto manufacturer.

Its pretty clear that Geely wanted to RAPIDLY morph Lotus, a boutique automaker, into a global brand and sell 100K+ vehicles annually. To be competitive in a crowed market of high end ICE and EV producers, Geely failed on several fronts. First they failed to make the required investments in infrastructure. No one except for niche sports car buyers is going to tolerate not having a dealership nearby. Secondly they forgot the crawl, walk, run principles of scalable manufacturing. While Geely can likely PRODUCE cars in volume, they don't have the customer base (demand) to purchase those volumes.

Fundamentally Geely (Lotus) has a demand problem. The Emira's purpose was to reinvigorate the brand, energize Lotus loyalists and capture new market share from sports car buyers. The Emira certainly did this and by that measure has been successful. The disconnect has been with the exponential increase in intrest in Lotus has not translated into increase desirably for the follow on vehicle offerings. In fact. Geely / Lotus have treated their Emira customer base so poorly it has had a strategic negative impact on brand recognition and essentially stunted the growth of Lotus products in the mainstream SUV marketplace.

Until Geely & Lotus build out dealer and service infrastructure as well as do a better job of treating their existing customers better, I see Lotus' growth as an uphill battle with stiff headwinds.

If Lotus and Geely want to succeed, two things need to happen Immediately. First, Geely needs to make all Volvo dealers, Lotus service centers. They'd get instant infrastructure and mitigate buyer's support concerns. Next, anyone and everyone who has or is in the process of purchasing an Emira, needs to be able to access robust, comprehensive customer service. If Lotus/Geely don't do something different soon, this branding expansion experiment will fizzle and maybe fail.

This. All of this. I could not agree more with this whole assessment. Spot on.

 

[Lotustoronto]

If all this is true, what are your feelings for parts and support for Emira going forward?

As long as they produce 30-50K Emira's over its life span, we will be in fins shape for support. Less than 10K is not good.

Emira is the bridge between old Lotus and new. They will continue it for as long as possible. (at least in the i4 variant) Think of the Emira as the 911, the reason people will go to a Lotus showroom and possibly look at the EV SUV. The car that gives Lotus the link to heritage and everything that comes along with British built and F1 etc. . For these reasons alone, Geely will want it to succeed and be supported as much as possible. This will include support for Elise, Exige and Evora. (older models, I am not so sure) It's more marketing than profits. (Hethel)

Does Lotus survive.... that is an entirely different questions and comes down to how long will Geely leave it on life support. Without an EXTREME change to dealer networks, customer service and reliability they will certainly fail. Selling SUV's is not the same as low production sports cars to enthusiast. We will deal with the deficiencies because of how special the car is. The soccer mom that wants a "cool" ride isn't putting up with those problems when she can just go to Porsche, buy a Cayenne and be treated like a proper customer buying a 100K+ SUV. If Lotus fails it will because they treated the customer poorly, not because of the SUV.

 

[Porter]

If Lotus fails it will because they treated the customer poorly, not because of the SUV.

100% agree. And this is where the cultural differences come into play. If the Lotus senior management doesn't get the cultural requirements for success outside of China, they are not going to achieve it. You have to serve the customer.

That approach may not sit well with an exclusively Chinese senior management team selling to a Western customer base. Let's be honest, the only people making real strategic decisions in that whole company are the ones listed on the following page, their direct lieutenants, and Li Shufu himself. The last guy listed on the Board is only there for advice about the grotesque 0.001% ultra-luxury market.

https://ir.group-lotus.com/governance/board-of-directors

 

[seriously]

If Lotus and Geely want to succeed, two things need to happen Immediately. First, Geely needs to make all Volvo dealers, Lotus service centers. They'd get instant infrastructure and mitigate buyer's support concerns. Next, anyone and everyone who has or is in the process of purchasing an Emira, needs to be able to access robust, comprehensive customer service. If Lotus/Geely don't do something different soon, this branding expansion experiment will fizzle and maybe fail.

I think this is key to Lotus' future. If they want to be a real car company in the US, they need to have a broader B&M presence. Partnering up with Volvo - kind of like Jaguar/Range Rover would make a lot of sense. And get out of the mom and pop exotic car shops that carry Lambos and Ferraris. Volvo who is promoting Polestar on the side may not be open to this though. Polestar is making some incredible EVs.