By Guy Taylor
Lotus Cars will cut up to 200 jobs from its workforce as it looks to restructure its business following huge losses announced earlier in the week.
Lotus – who are owned by the Chinese carmaker Geely – reported pretax losses of £141.1m for 2022 on Monday, largely as a result of supply chain issues.
In a statement today, the company announced it planned to “restructure” its workforce, conceding this “may involve the loss of up to 200 jobs”.
According to the Norfolk-based firm, this will be vital in “ensuring the organisation is leaner and more competitive long-term”.
It added: “Wherever possible, we will look to support the redeployment of staff and plan to look for ways to retain specific skills and knowledge within the business, despite the proposed cuts.”
The firm also suffered from a slump in the number of car deliveries last year, which fell from 1,566 in 2021 to 576 in 2022.
In its most recent company accounts, Lotus said that it had suffered from a “year of transition,” which saw it launch an £81,000 Emira sports car, two new electric vehicles and open a new factory in Hethel as part of a £100m investment.
“With any new model launch there are always production challenges which were enhanced with the supply chain challenges faced by the automotive industry,” the filing reads.
Its spokesperson said today that the company would “continue to concentrate our efforts on production of the Emira sports car and Evija hypercar, with 2023 set to be a record year for vehicle production, before we turn our attention to our future EV sports cars.”
