Lotus just figured out suicide isn't possible without exhaust fumes
Geely seemingly just found out that the sweet release of succes (or death) isn't coming, so it's going back to the drawing board.
"Butters it's over, you really want to sit around for weeks waiting a slow demise? Neither do I. It's taking to long. Here you go Butters, buckle up, where in for one last ride. Suck it in butters, where heading for that big woke kingdom in the sky", is what Cartman told Butters while trying to commit suicide by huffing exhaust fumes through a hose in the car of his mom. Shame the kid forgot his mom drives an EV. No fumes, no death.
It's the scene my mind went to when I read about the news that Lotus is slowly ditching the EV-only plan and even coming out with some completely non-electrified, combustion only cars. It feels like Geely, the big Chinese concern that took over dying Lotus a couple of years ago with the idea to make it an EV-only sports car brand, has been doing exactly what Cartman was. Planning for something to go spectacularly right, only to figure out you've got the wrong tools to do it with. The EV-reference is in there somewhere.
Geely seemingly just found out that the sweet release of succes (or death) isn't coming, so it's going back to the drawing board. It's going to try and build light sports cars powered by combustion engines. No electric fluff, just ICE's and fun. At least, that's what the plans sounded like when I read them.
Of course it's holding on to the heavy EV's and adding some (V8-)hybrids to the line-up, like every other car builder is today. But Lotus is actually going backwards in time. Which, in this case, is a good thing. You see, dear reader, we've been talking a lot about brand and the value of it. The name and what the people behind it have been building for decades. Geely thought it could get around it by building nice cars, which the Eletre and Emeya are. I've drive them both, they're amazing, even if the range is a bit lacking for the price.
The point is that Lotus was built on the mantra "Add lightness", meaning, making a car as light as possible and following what comes from that, which usually was a lot of fun and small sports cars. Geely threw that in the thrash and thought the name would cary over to big, hulking, powerful EV's. The opposite of what Lotus was. It didn't work. The headlines when the Eletre came out only featured the word 'heavy' in combination with 'too' and 'big'.
Now Lotus/Geely is doing what every good brand would do, and pivot back to what worked under the brand name (just have a look at what Jaguar has been doing lately. Nothing woke going on there anymore). At least, what kinda worked, because it didn't go that well for Lotus. It went bankrupt building light and fun cars. But that had more to do with the Brits being stuck in their ways and not keeping up with the times. If there is one thing you can't blame the Chinese of, it's exactly that.
So let's hope Lotus pulls through once more and doesn't start huffing tail pipes again. This time they are there and they do expel deadly fumes.
Extra: The South Park Scene:
In other news:
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