Lotus is going through difficult times, posting a £159 million ($251 million) loss in the previous fiscal year and axing up to 325 of its 1,215 employees worldwide.
But Jean-Marc Gales, Lotus Cars’ CEO since May 2014, is confident things can be turned around. In order to do that, an important step is to add more dealers, the executive told AutoNews Europe. That’s because Lotus is suffering from poor dealer coverage even in its home market.
“There is no dealer in London, and nor is there in Paris, Madrid, northern Italy, Hamburg or Berlin. More dealers drive more sales. We have opened nine new dealerships worldwide over the past six months and I would not exclude having 20 more in this financial year,” Gales said.
The company has managed to sell 46 percent more cars in the first four months of this financial year (which started in April), but Gales says that isn’t enough to guarantee the company’s future. “We need to continue to reduce costs and we are fully aware of the hardship that brings for our workforce,” the executive said. Thanks to these measures, Gales believes Lotus will return to profitability “in the very foreseeable future.”
Lotus’ CEO also revealed that within the next nine months the company will make a couple of announcements of product enhancements “that will make the heart of any Lotus enthusiast beat faster.” However, he didn’t get into details.
He did however confirm that the five concept cars unveiled by former Lotus CEO Dany Bahar were vapor. “They were not ready for any form of serious production,” Gales said.
PHOTOS
