Lotus secures another three years of DRB investment

The Malaysian owner of Lotus, DRB-Hicom, has officially announced an extension of its revitalization programme for the British brand by another three years. The more than €116 million (one hundred million pounds) it invested to remedy the dire situation of Lotus after acquiring it from Proton and the scandals surrounding Bahar are beginning to bear fruit.

Slight improvements in sales have given DRB hope and justified this new show of confidence. The company’s Managing Director, Tan Sri Mohd Khamil Jamil, stated: “We have left all that behind and we are making progress.” According to Jamil, from January to May this year Lotus has already sold seventy cars, when in the whole of 2012 they registered only ten more.

Likewise, production at the Hethel factory is now set to rise to forty cars a month. Of these, 85% are exported to other markets. The plan that has provided these small reprieves for Lotus’s accounts consists of making better use of existing products with new versions (the latest being the Exige S Roadster) that are cheaper to manufacture and of better quality, performance and technology.

The award of £10 million (€11.5 million) from the British Government’s Regional Growth Fund has also helped. These funds will be used to create jobs and training and R&D projects at Lotus. Jamil also stated that Bahar’s five-year plan has been officially shelved, but that the Esprit is not entirely dead and could be revived at a not-too-high cost.

Source: Autocar