The US’s new car import tariff has hit Lotus hard, with the company cancelling sales of the Chinese-built Emeya and Eletre in the country due to the now-insurmountable financial hurdles.
Lotus has also halted shipments of the British-built Emira to the US after the new 25% tariff was applied in April, meaning that no cars are heading to a market that last year accounted for a fifth of all Lotus sales.
The deal recently agreed between the UK and US to lower those tariffs to 10% has helped Lotus, but Windle has yet to press go on restarting shipments to the US as he waits for the details.
“The headline numbers have gone out there, but actually the specifics behind it still haven’t been clarified,” he said.
“There’s product that’s ready to ship, but what we don’t want to do is jump the gun and end up getting clobbered.
“The tariffs are a negative with where we are now, but they could be a positive.”
Lotus’s volume growth has been impressive, given where it has come from, with overall deliveries hitting 12,134 last year, double that of the year before.
However, EV sales are below planned volumes as demand for luxury electric cars has fallen below expectations.
