Lotus boss calls for UK government support as it commits to Norfolk plant

The boss of the luxury sports carmaker Lotus has called for government support for its UK factory as the Chinese-owned company insisted it will not abandon its British roots.

Lotus said it had extended the lifespan of the £80,000 Emira petrol-engined sports car, made by 900 employees in its factory in Norfolk, in order for the brand to continue to serve the US market.

Lotus last year prompted concerns for the future of its British factory, after sources said its Chinese parent company, Geely, was considering its closure. Lotus then cut 550 jobs in August.

However, Lotus on Tuesday said it wanted to increase sales in the lucrative US market, meaning it will have to rely on sports car sales from its UK factory rather than electric SUVs from its newer, larger facility in Wuhan, China, which faces prohibitive tariffs.

“We definitely want to keep the [Norfolk] factory going and we definitely want it to be better, to grow,” said the Lotus chief executive, Qingfeng Feng. “We are actively discussing with the government, and it is not just on financial subsidies,” he said, referring also to infrastructure around the plant. He was speaking through a translator on the sidelines of a Financial Times conference.

The carmaker also said it would sell new Chinese-made hybrid SUVs in Europe and make a new hybrid-V8 petrol supercar, the Type 135, as part of a strategy “reset”. The company had previously promised to produce no more new petrol models, but abandoned that strategy as electric sales lagged behind expectations.

Lotus’s UK factory, based at a former RAF base at Hethel, Norfolk, is building 2,000 cars a year, but has the capacity to make 10,000, according to Feng. He said the UK “would remain as our best option as we have already made heavy investment in the region”.

The case for the UK factory has also been helped by lower US tariffs. Lotus makes nearly two-thirds of its sales in the US. The US and UK last year reached a deal to limit tariffs on 100,000 exports of British cars to 10% – a level Feng said was sustainable. By contrast, Chinese-made cars are effectively shut out of the US.

The English engineer Colin Chapman founded Lotus in 1948 with an emphasis on “adding lightness” to its nippy sports cars. Geely, owned by the billionaire Li Shufu, took majority control of Lotus in 2017. Geely has stakes in several European brands, including the UK’s Aston Martin and Germany’s Mercedes-Benz, and controlling stakes in Sweden’s Volvo and Polestar, as well as the London Electric Vehicle Company, the maker of London black cabs. In China, Geely makes vehicles under its own name, as well as under the Lynk & Co and Zeekr brands.

However, Geely was forced into a significant restructuring after overextending itself, raising doubts over the future of struggling factories.

Feng said: “Lotus was born in Britain and we will keep it that way,” although the company was still carrying out feasibility studies on building further models such as the Type 135 in the UK. Lotus has held talks with a UK battery producer as part of efforts to localise its supply chain.

Several of Geely’s brands have also been hit by the slowing transition to electric cars across Europe, as well as the evisceration of pro-electric vehicle policies by the US under Donald Trump.

In response, Lotus has said it will start to sell hybrid versions of its Eletre SUV in Europe by the end of the year. The Eletre started as a purely electric model, but Lotus has already started selling a hybrid version in China that combines a petrol engine with a battery.

Lotus had previously planned to sell 150,000 vehicles a year by 2028, but on Tuesday it said it would aim to sell only 30,000. Feng said: “I must admit the plan was aggressive.”

Feng said current UK political turmoil would not impact its investment plans, but added the company would benefit from a closer trade relationship with Europe to help its supply chain.