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Lotus is planning to end production in the UK after more than 70 years, which endangers 1,300 jobs in the last blow to the car industry industry.
The British sports bramaker, checked by the Chinese car manufacturer Geely, has difficulty paying in recent weeks to pay for his suppliers, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions, so that production temporarily stopped in the Hethel factory in Norfolk for about a month.
The loss -making company is planning to stop production in the factory – the only production base in the UK – already next year, the people added.
In a statement to the Financial Times, Lotus said that it had paused the production of mid-May to manage stocks in the midst of Supply Chain problems with regard to American rates. The company and Matt Windle, the head of Lotus Cars Europe, refused to comment on “a rumor”. Geely refused to comment.
Feng Qingfeng, Chief Executive of the American Lotus Technology, who has a controlling interest in the British company, this week told investors that it wanted to build more cars in America to respond to the higher rates of President Donald Trump about the import of foreign cars. The company has paused the shipments from its Emira sports car to the US.
“We believe that localization is a feasible plan,” he added.
GEYE took a 51 percent interest in Lotus in 2017, as part of a deal to invest in Malaysian owner Proton. The investment of Geely was seen at the time as a lifeline for the company, which was founded in London in 1948, after years of losses. The Chinese group invested around £ 3 billion in new technology and factory equipment, but changed its focus to a new factory in Wuhan.
The Chinese auto-broep last year stated Lotus Technology-the operation of the electric vehicle-in the US by a merger with a Shell company founded by a investment group supported by LVMH. In April, Lotus Technology said it would buy Gey’s 51 percent interest In British AffairsAfter the Chinese company had carried out an option to sell the importance.
For the quarter of April to June, Lotus Technology reported an operational loss of $ 103 million, compared to a loss of $ 233 million compared to a year earlier, while it supplied 1,274 vehicles, a decrease of 42 percent.
Li Shufu, the billionaire -founder behind Geely, who is also the owner of Volvo cars and Polestar, has unloaded his global assets and streamlined its core activities since last year.
With the help of Geely, Lotus tried for years to breathe new life into the historic British brand, but it struggled with his pivot to high-end EVs. That led to a series of management changes, in which Windle took over his European chef in May after his predecessor, than Balmer, left after less than a year. Chief Commercial Officer Mike Johnson also left the company in 2024.
Since the IPO in February last year, the shares in Lotus Technology have collapsed by 84 percent. The share fell by 8.5 percent on Friday after the financial Times report.
The end of the production in the Hethel factory, which was founded in 1966 by Lotus, would come a further blow to the car production of British car production, after other closures by Honda and Ford in the past decade.
British vehicle production collapsed at the lowest level since 1949 in May after Trump’s tariff war Aston Martin and other British car manufacturers forced their shipments to stop the US.
