A light for Lotus to grow

Lotus receives a three-year financial backing from parent company DRB-Hicom, but Bahar's five-year plan is officially scrapped and it won't be listed in the package that is coming their way.

Speculation has bounced onto the air saying that Lotus has already made DRB-Hicom nearly £100million poorer by struggling to keep the company afloat. Prior to DRB's takeover recently due to Proton's absorption into the company, DRB has come up with a three-year financial plan for the ailing sports car maker.

Thanks to the positive growth that Lotus is gaining at the moment, DRB is keen on investing more money to further expand the marque's portfolio. According to DRB-Hicom's Managing Director, Tan Sri Mohd. Khalid Jamil said that Lotus has sold 70 cars up to the month of May in 2013, as opposed to 80 cars only being sold in the whole year of 2012.

“We have cleaned up and we are moving ahead,” DRB managing director Tan Sri Mohd Khamil Jamil told Malaysian media, highlighting the financial, technical, marketing and product planning problems the firm inherited when it took control of Lotus’s parent company, Proton.

“We are coming out with the variants based on existing products — variants with improved technology, improved performance, improved quality as well as improved costing,” he said.

The company is planning to expand the current Lotus Evora and Elise by providing new variants to boost up sales figure by a margin. Besides that, the revival has appeal to Mr. Vince Cable by pouring in an additional £10million as part of the Regional Growth Fund. Due to that, the RGF's current priority is to add more R&D projects and new jobs.

By summing up, Mr. Jamil has also confirm the scrapping of Lotus' five-year plan that was originally proposed by Dany Bahar during his helm as CEO. Despite the Esprit being developed close to production, DRB is still deciding on whether the company's flagship should see the green light.