Lotus boss calls for UK government support as it commits to Norfolk plant
The boss of the luxury sports carmaker Lotus has called for government support for its UK factory as the Chinese-owned company insisted it will not abandon its British roots.Lotus said it had extended the lifespan of the £80,000 Emira petrol-engined sports car, made by 900 employees in its factory in Norfolk, in order for the brand to continue to serve the US market.Lotus last year prompted concerns for the future of its British factory, after sources said its Chinese parent company, Geely, was considering its closure.Lotus then cut 550 jobs in August.However, Lotus on Tuesday said it wanted to increase sales in the lucrative US market, meaning it will have to rely on sports car sales from its UK factory rather than electric SUVs from its newer, larger facility in Wuhan, China, which faces prohibitive tariffs.
“We definitely want to keep the [Norfolk] factory going and we definitely want it to be better, to grow,” said the Lotus chief executive, Qingfeng Feng.“We are actively discussing with the government, and it is not just on financial subsidies,” he said, referring also to infrastructure around the plant.He was speaking through a translator on the sidelines of a Financial Times conference.The carmaker also said it would sell new Chinese-made hybrid SUVs in Europe and make a new hybrid-V8 petrol supercar, the Type 135, as part of a strategy “reset”.The company had previously promised to produce no more new petrol models, but abandoned that strategy as electric sales lagged behind expectations.
Lotus’s UK factory, based at a former RAF base at Hethel, Norfolk, is building 2,000 cars a year, but has the capacity to make 10,000, according to Feng.He said the UK “would remain as our best option as we have already made heavy investment in the region”.The case for the UK factory has also been helped by lower US tariffs.Lotus makes nearly two-thirds of its sales in the US.The US and UK last year reached a deal to limit tariffs on 100,000 exports of British cars to 10% – a level Feng said was sustainable.
By contrast, Chinese-made cars are effectively shut out of the US.The English engineer Colin Chapman founded Lotus in 1948 with an emphasis on “adding lightness” to its nippy sports cars.Geely, owned by the billionaire Li Shufu, took majority control of Lotus in 2017.Geely has stakes in several European brands, including the UK’s Aston Martin and Germany’s Mercedes-Benz, and controlling stakes in Sweden’s Volvo and Polestar, as well as the London Electric Vehicle Company, the maker of London black cabs.In China, Geely makes vehicles under its own name, as well as under the Lynk & Co and Zeekr brands.
However, Geely was forced into a significant restructuring after overextending itself, raising doubts over the future of struggling factories.Feng said: “Lotus was born in Britain and we will keep it that way,” although the company was still carrying out feasibility studies on building further models such as the Type 135 in the UK.Lotus has held talks with a UK battery producer as part of efforts to localise its supply chain.Several of Geely’s brands have also been hit by the slowing transition to electric cars across Europe, as well as the evisceration of pro-electric vehicle policies by the US under Donald Trump.In response, Lotus has said it will start to sell hybrid versions of its Eletre SUV in Europe by the end of the year.
The Eletre started as a purely electric model, but Lotus has already started selling a hybrid version in China that combines a petrol engine with a battery,Lotus had previously planned to sell 150,000 vehicles a year by 2028, but on Tuesday it said it would aim to sell only 30,000,Feng said: “I must admit the plan was aggressive,”Feng said current UK political turmoil would not impact its investment plans, but added the company would benefit from a closer trade relationship with Europe to help its supply chain,
Google announces raft of free upgrades for Android phones
Google has announced a range of features coming to Android phones this year, including a new Gemini Intelligence AI system and a tool to help users avoid distracting apps.Revealed in a livestreamed “Android Show” event, the free upgrades are scheduled to arrive in waves over the next year for high-end new and old phones alike, including Samsung and Pixel devices. Google also revealed that a new lineup of laptops will arrive in the autumn.Gemini Intelligence will combine the company’s top AI tools into one system aimed at being more proactively useful.It will be able to automate tasks by directly interacting with the apps already on a phone
Head of Microsoft’s Israel branch to step down after inquiry into dealings with Israeli military
The head of Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary will step down in the wake of an inquiry that has scrutinised its business dealings with the Israeli military.Microsoft ordered the inquiry last year in response to a Guardian investigation revealing the military had used the company’s technology to operate a powerful surveillance system that collected Palestinian civilian phone calls on a mass scale.The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found the military’s elite spy agency, Unit 8200, had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store a vast trove of intercepted calls from Gaza and the West Bank.The inquiry commissioned by Microsoft is understood to have recently concluded. Its findings are unclear; however, sources familiar with the situation said they prompted an announcement last week that Microsoft Israel’s general manager, Alon Haimovich, would leave the company
GameStop’s $55.5bn bid for eBay rejected as ‘neither credible nor attractive’
The board of eBay has rejected the US video games retailer GameStop’s surprise $55.5bn bid (£41bn) for the online marketplace, describing the proposal as “neither credible nor attractive”.Earlier this month, GameStop made an unsolicited bid for eBay, publishing a letter on its website outlining a half-cash, half-stock proposal.This was despite the US games company – which became a global household name during the meme stock craze of 2021 – being worth far less than its takeover target. GameStop had a market valuation of roughly $12bn before its bid, almost a quarter of eBay’s $46bn valuation
Trump heads to China to spread the gospel of American tech
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian.Donald Trump is headed to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, would join Trump
Trump heads to China to spread the gospel of American tech while emulating Xi Jinping on AI
Donald Trump is heading to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, would join the US president. Other guests from the tech sphere include Meta’s recently appointed president, Dina Powell McCormick; Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of computer memory maker Micron; Chuck Robbins, CEO of longtime telecom giant Cisco; and Cristiano Amon, CEO of semiconductor maker Qualcomm, according to a White House official.Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO – who is close to Trump but criticized the US’s limitations on chip sales to China in an April interview, saying that he didn’t want a “loser mentality” to cost the US its edge in AI – will not be joining the president
Molière Ex Machina: AI used to create ‘new work’ by beloved French playwright
Molière is to the French what Shakespeare is to the English: the last word in historical literature, drama, wit and satire.Now, more than 350 years after his death, the 17th-century dramatist has been revived after scholars at the Sorbonne University in Paris used artificial intelligence to help write an experimental play in his style.L’Astrologue ou les Faux Présages (The Astrologer, or False Omens), a three-act comedy, made its debut at the Royal Opera at the Château de Versailles last week.The two-hour play tells the story of a wealthy bourgeois Parisian who, under the instruction of a charlatan astrologer called Pseudoramus, insists his daughter Lucile marry a debt-ridden and elderly wigmaker.While the theme could well have been dreamed up by Molière, the dialogue, music, costumes and scenery were all created with the help of a French AI tool called Le Chat (The Cat)
Court rules Coles misled shoppers with its ‘Down Down’ discount campaign
Housing market in England and Wales weakening due to Iran war, say estate agents
Datacentres using 6% of electricity supply in UK and US, research says
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang joins other US bosses on Trump trip to China
Ivan Cleary begins long goodbye with a legacy built to last long after he leaves Panthers | Nick Tedeschi
Sarah Taylor named England men’s fielding coach while Gay, Rew and Baker are called up