Editing by Xin Lanhua

UK Sports car brand Lotus (路特斯) planned to set up a production plant in China to increase sales by 100 times and go public within two years, Chinese portal Sina’s Auto channel quoted foreign media reports.

Lotus Cars is a world-renowned manufacturer for sports cars and racing cars with representative models such as Elise, Exige, Evora, Evija, and Emira. Based in Hethel of UK, it was founded by Colin Chapman in 1948. In 1996, Malaysian car manufacturer Proton announced an 80% majority stake in Group Lotus.

In June 2011, the Lotus brand officially entered China and released its official Chinese name, “Lotus” (路特斯). In 2017, China’s Geely Holding Group in Zhejiang Province bought a 51% stake in Lotus Group. Geely Group is also the majority shareholder of Daimler-Benz and Volvo.

In August 2021, Lotus Technology was officially launched in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province. It announced its product plan for pure electric vehicles in the next five years, including E-segment SUV, four-door sports coupe, all-new electric sports car. Lotus Group aims for global markets with more efforts of electrification and intelligence. It will deploy track-level intelligent driving and build ultra-high-end pure electric intelligent cars

In 2021, Lotus unveiled the Lotus Emira, its last petrol-powered sports car, and best-of-breed, and in 2019 it launched the Evija, the world’s first all-electric British hypercar. Customer deliveries of both cars will begin in 2022, according to its official website.