Lotus isn’t doing so well having posted a £145 million loss in the 2022 calendar year with the key reason being “production issues” and supply chain problems during the second half of the year. Unfortunately, job losses are imminent. 

In 12 months, Lotus only moved 567 cars, down 62 per cent from its record retail sales of 1,566 in 2021, according to filings on Companies House. 

While that sounds terrible, Lotus believe that they are preparing for another record year in 2023. 

Lotus is planning to reorganise its workforce, placing hundreds of jobs under threat, though the company insists that this is unrelated to the losses. 

The company told Top Gear that job losses would affect those in engineering and administrative roles rather than production roles. 

A statement from Lotus read: “Lotus Cars proposal for a reorganisation of its business is to ensure that the right organisational structure is in place for us to achieve our business goals and to build a strong, sustainable future. This includes a restructure of its workforce, which may involve the loss of up to 200 jobs.

“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. We believe this is vital to ensuring the organisation is leaner and more competitive long-term.

“The UK is the heart of our sports car operations, focused on producing class-leading vehicles and innovative engineering solutions. We will 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.

“In addition, our shareholders have made a clear commitment that the UK, having invested in over £500 million into Lotus Cars’ UK R&D and operations and created many new jobs at our new London headquarters, as well as in Norfolk and this shows the long-term commitment to the brand in the UK.”