By Ryan Felton
Britain's Lotus is known for its lightweight sports cars, its appearances in James Bond films, and its many brushes with financial collapse.
Now, Lotus is attempting to mount a comeback unlike any in its 74-year history. Backed by a Chinese parent company in Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, which also owns Volvo Cars, Polestar and other brands, Lotus's future rides on a plan to build out new hybrid and electric sports utility vehicles and sedans, in addition to more gas-powered sports cars.
There's one problem: Geely is a Chinese company, and some of Lotus's plans depend on Chinese-made cars. That's already making a crucial North American expansion more difficult than expected.
"We want to have our products here," Daxue Wang, Lotus's chief financial officer, said in an interview. "The U.S. is always the most important market."
Take the Lotus Eletre. The high-performance electric SUV is a far cry from the sports cars of Lotus's heyday, the kind of vehicles that can bring in a much wider customer base. So is the fact that it isn't made in England, but in Wuhan, China. Glowing reviews helped its case, though.
In September 2024, months after the Eletre's American order books opened, the U.S. government hit Chinese cars with stiff tariffs that pushed the SUV's starting price from $107,000 to nearly $230,000.
"While I am trying to deliver the product, suddenly the tariff increased from 25% to 100%," Wang said.
Tariffs and other roadblocks are why Chinese automakers have held off on U.S. expansion plans, even as they quickly make inroads in the rest of the world.
For Lotus, Eletre deliveries began in the U.S. in April 2025. So far, sales have been slow; Lotus has sold roughly one per month, according to data from industry research firm Motor Intelligence. A sports car, the Emira, comprised the remainder of its roughly 1,750 U.S. sales last year. Another Chinese-made Lotus, the Emeya sedan, hasn't been released in the U.S.
That hasn't stopped Lotus from continuing to try. With 39 dealers across the country, Lotus is the rare exception of a Chinese-owned car brand having a go at the U.S.
In part, that's because Lotus has been here, and a known commodity for hardcore auto enthusiasts, for decades.
"It does not matter what Lotus you have. The steering is always excellent, and the road feel is excellent," said Ross Robbins, president of a Lotus enthusiasts club in the U.S.
Robbins has owned 16 Lotus vehicles over the years. One of his two current cars, a 1965 Lotus Elan, is a prized possession. "One of my heirs will have to dispose of it because I'm never selling it," he said.
Founded in 1952 by British engineer Colin Chapman, Lotus gained worldwide renown for sporty cars that outgunned the competition with lighter weight over outright horsepower. The company had an even better record in motorsports, winning seven Formula One constructors' championships in the 1960s and '70s.
Its balance sheets were another story. Even as Lotus built icons like Esprit, which famously turned into a submarine in the 1977 James Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me," it often teetered on the brink of disaster.
Languishing sales in the 1980s saw a majority stake go to General Motors, which was primarily looking to benefit from Lotus's profitable engineering-services division, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. By the early 1990s, it was off to another owner, then another, before landing with Geely in 2017.
Geely aspired to transform Lotus into a fully electric brand, like others in its portfolio, that would sell 150,000 cars a year. The sports cars remain developed and built in the U.K.
This month, Lotus unveiled a business strategy that mirrors much of the car industry's recent trends: Instead of going all-electric, it is aiming to be 60% hybrid and 40% EV by the end of the decade. Gas sports cars will be sticking around, too.
That should be good news for enthusiasts like Robbins, who have expressed concern that Lotus's emphasis on battery power and bigger vehicles could dilute what the brand stands for.
Wang, the finance chief, said that the goal will be to preserve Lotus's spirit and heritage. That may well be crucial while it keeps pressing in the U.S. market, even as changing tariff economics present unexpected challenges.
"We see a promising market here," Wang said.
Write to Ryan Felton at ryan.felton@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 31, 2026 11:00 ET (15:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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