Scotland: Lotus launches new Evora, plans to increase contract engineering

That it is a car designed to meet the legislative requirements of, and be sold in 41 countries worldwide, including the USA, further underlines this achievement.

[B]Increasing Production[/B]

The current global economic situation is well known to everyone and UK manufacturing is suffering especially. But partly through prudent long term strategic planning and partly through the efforts of its global team, Lotus is currently increasing production output to cope with demand for the Evora, the new 2+2 mid-engined sportscar, as well as the Elise and Exige small-platform cars.

Lotus is recruiting a considerable number of new production and engineering staff to cover increased requirements both in vehicle production and its international high technology engineering consultancy business.

Production in the 2009/10 financial year is planned with confidence to increase by 50% over the previous year and the number of direct production staff will increase by 30% during the same period.

[B]Strong exports[/B]

Lotus is currently exporting very successfully, with over 80% of its revenues derived from overseas markets where its business is benefiting from the weaker Pound.

The Group is supplying strongly into Europe and the Far East and already the demand at Lotus dealers for the Evora in the USA is significantly beyond initial expectations. Lotus sees this sector as the springboard of the recovery in the UK economy overall - in exciting world-class products, quality manufacturing and strong export sales.

"We see the headlines and are more than aware of the difficulties being faced by many other businesses worldwide, especially in our own industry." said Michael J. Kimberley, CEO of Group Lotus PLC.

He continued: "We’re not claiming that we have the solution to all the world’s economic problems, but our plans and efforts are working well for us right now. The Lotus story is very positive; new products, new customers, strong exports and new technologies and we know that this combination is a world-beating one."

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Credits: JRC