Lotus has been struggling financially for a long time and the potential move to the States is obviously an attempt to offset the further economic burden of Trump's tariff legislation. Given that these tariffs have been largely targeted at China it's interesting that Chinese owned Lotus (Geely International, a Chinese Automotive Group owns 51% of Lotus) is seeing this as a back-door opportunity to dodge the tariff handicap.
Wouldn't be surprised if local to planned USA re-location area has various incentives and grants available to allow Geely to establish a foothold in the USA (although given Trumps abject hatred for Chinese manufacturers - perhaps he'll personally put a kibosh on it?)
On a more positive and historic note one would imagine that if Geely hadn't invested in Lotus it would by now be long gone. Strikes me that the demise of Lotus has been a long time coming, especially as they increasingly manufactured higher and higher spec' vehicles l,that were/are miles away from their traditional origins.
I think that part of the downfall of Lotus and other specialist low volumn car manufacturers is the British car buyers mindset towards cars from BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Porsche and the like. These companies have been carefully marketing their brands to UK (and USA) buyers for many years, indoctrinating potential purchasers how good the quality, technology, performance, driving experience of the vehicles is...........advertise for long enough over many decades to grandfather, father, son and daughter and it becomes almost endemic midset belief that you have to own one of these vehicles (much as in the opposite way that UK manufacturered cars are/were rubbish - perhaps true in some cases - certainly not in others)
