Interview: Matt Windle

LOTUS BOSS TALKS ELECTRIC SPORTS CARS, DEALER CHANGES AND HOPES FOR FUTURE

The man at the top of the British sports car manufacturer sat down with Ted Welford at the Concours of Elegance to discuss the brand.

From glittering sports cars in James Bond films to financial disasters, then to upcoming model portfolios wowing motor show audiences before being entirely canned just a few years later, it’s safe to say few car firms have had more ups and downs than Lotus.

That was before it was taken over by Geely in 2017 – the Chinese automotive giant that’s turned Volvo around and is now set to do the same for this British sports car firm. Well, we say ‘British sports car firm’ loosely, as from next year there’ll be a Lotus SUV rolling out of a new factory in Wuhan. That’s how much the marque is changing with this fresh cash.

‘I’m not sure Lotus would have survived the past 18 months without Geely. I just don’t see how we could have continued without that backing,’ is the stark admission by Matt Windle, managing director of Lotus, who sat down with Car Dealer at the recent Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace to discuss the brand.

Windle knows Lotus better than most – joining the firm in 1998 before heading up work on the Tesla Roadster (a model created by the brand’s in-house engineering division, based on the Elise) between 2005 and 2012.

After short bursts at Caterham and the now-defunct Zenos, Windle rejoined Lotus at the start of 2017 as chief body engineer. Since then, he’s climbed the Lotus ladder, becoming managing director earlier in 2021.

Just a few months after taking the top role, there was the unveiling of the new Emira sports car, which has already received more than 5,000 orders and left Lotus scrambling to find more production capacity to avoid lengthy waits.

Windle says the Emira is generally appealing to non-Lotus customers, mainly Porsche and Jaguar buyers, and will notably be the last petrol-powered car the firm makes as it switches to EVs – unsurprisingly something that’s proved controversial. As has the decision to make SUVs.

‘I understand that people won’t like what we’re doing,’ Windle says. ‘But ultimately, the aim of this is to build enough cars so that we can invest in new products so we can have a new sports car on the road every five years. That’s what we’re trying to do. But whatever the car is, it will be designed around the driver – that kind of DNA from our sports car will go up into other vehicles.’

These sports cars will also continue to roll off the brand’s long-running facility in Hethel, which has had more than £100m thrown at it this year alone to get it ready for the Emira and Evija – the latter being Lotus’s crazy 2,000bhp electric hypercar that acts as the halo model. Lotus Emira

The whole business needs to change, from design to engineering, to how we deal with customers, to dealers, through to parts supply and aftersales.

Matt Windle, managing director of Lotus

We’re not in a position to ram electrification down people’s throats, but what we will do is make desirable cars that are great to drive and also electric.

Meanwhile, the ‘lifestyle’ models, as Windle calls them, will be produced in China.

This is all a big shift away from the Elise, Exige and Evora that have been the only Lotus models on offer for more than a decade, which all get the axe as part of this push. It’s one that, unsurprisingly, means some big changes are needed at Lotus, not least to its dealer network.

Windle says: ‘The whole business needs to change, from design to engineering, to how we deal with customers, to dealers, through to parts supply and aftersales.

‘So we’re investing in new dealers, but also a lot of our dealer base will come on the journey with us.’

Despite that, Windle is expecting to lose some long-standing dealers that won’t be able to invest into its new corporate identity.

He says this ‘will be a shame as I know they’ve been involved with Lotus for a long time’, but he was frank in the fact that ‘businesses develop, businesses move on and that’s where we’re at’.

There will be gains, though. Just a few days after our interview, it was reported that Lotus plans to open 70 new showrooms in Asia.

Asked if Lotus dealers would all become grand, glass-fronted, Porsche-style ‘Centres’, Windle said: ‘No, that’s not what Lotus is about. We’ve designed our retail strategy so it can be small. It could be a pop-up event or even in a shopping centre. But we’re setting a standard, as we want that across the world.’

The issue of electrification is one that’s never far away from an automotive boss’s lips, but Windle seems more confident than most about the journey there – he was, after all, the first to make an electric sports car with the Tesla Roadster.

‘We’re only nine years away from the UK government saying you can’t sell internal combustion engines, and while the infrastructure and the work that needs to be done to achieve that is huge, we’re confident we’ll get there.

‘We’re not in a position to ram electrification down people’s throats, but what we will do is make desirable cars that are great to drive and also electric. I think all you need to do is make desirable cars and then people will accept that no matter what the propulsion system is, it’s the car they want to have.’

And Windle’s hopes for the future? Well the brand’s Vision 80 plan takes it up to 2028, which will be the marque’s 80th anniversary. Before then, there will be four new electric cars, of which two will be SUVs. But what about after that?

‘What I want is for Lotus to be self-sustainable, to have paid back the funds from our investors, and that the revenue from our cars will be reinvested in products. If we do that, then we’re on our way.

‘The beauty of Geely is that you give them a strategy and they invest in that strategy. Now we just have to deliver – there are no excuses!’ The Lotus factory

I’m not sure Lotus would have survived the past 18 months without Geely.

Lotus Evija in the assembly hall