Lotus Terminates Evija Partnership With Williams Advanced Engineering, Prompting Legal Action

Lotus has terminated the engineering contract it had with Williams Advanced Engineering for the electric Evija hypercar, prompting the latter to take legal action against the British carmaker.

“As the Evija programme enters its latter stages, Lotus has elected to bring the project in house due to delivery problems from Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE). As a result, Lotus has terminated its contract with WAE as a technical partner for high voltage and battery development on the Evija hypercar project,” Lotus told us in a statement.

“Lotus will complete and enhance the programme in house as referred to in previous statements about our new Advanced Technical Centre in Warwickshire and the revised Evija production timetable. The end result will be a better product as we introduce not only the most powerful production car in the world but also the world’s best electric car For The Drivers.”

Company statement on Evija. pic.twitter.com/oLlDzE9lxX

— Lotus Cars (@lotuscars) September 2, 2020

Williams Advanced Engineering on the other hand appears to be pretty aggravated with the carmaker’s decision, according to Autocar, claiming that Lotus’ decision is “wrongful and without any legal basis, made for Lotus/Geely’s unrelated commercial reasons”.

The engineering company also added that any allegations from Lotus that it breached the terms of agreement are “false and contrived”. Williams Advanced Engineering is taking legal action against the carmaker, saying it’s still owned money for unpaid invoices since last April.

Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) also says that it “continued to perform outstanding work and progress the project despite the global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

“WAE wishes to make clear that this issue has no impact on its existing projects, customers, and partners,” it added.