Lotus stalwart Russell Carr on the brand's design evolution

Under new ownership and changing environmental priorities, the Lotus lineup has morphed to include an all-electric saloon and SUV. But the sports car focus still remains a strong inspiration for the design team, albeit with an added emphasis on efficiency. 

Car Design News: You have been a defining voice in Lotus design for a long time now. As you reflect on that tenure, what elements of Lotus’s design DNA do you consider essential to protect as the brand enters its next era?

Russell Carr: If you look at our cars over the years, there’s more than one style. In the ‘60s, the cars were very streamlined and quite curvaceous. Then, like a lot of car companies, we went very edge and wedge then returned to more soft and sculptural cars. We can pick what we think is the most Lotus or the most appropriate but behind them all there’s consistent philosophies. 

Colin Chapman said there’s always space for a virile company that’s agile and that’s what we remain today. He wanted to put the fun in motoring to create cars that are light, responsive and, above all, efficient. You hear people say Chapman’s manifesto was to simplify and add lightness but he actually talked a lot about efficiency. With an electric car or a petrol car, we want to get the best performance from a specific amount of energy so that’s still very inspirational. 

He said we’re trying to create a prestigious product and customers want something that’s different and interesting. We took those things and put it in our own terms when we were designing Evija and the other cars. We said we want to create cars that are beautiful and glamorous because that’s the first way to draw people into the product. We want to design cars that are memorable. 

CDN: Lotus has much broader product ambitions than in the past. How has this changed the way the design organisation functions, and what does that mean for maintaining a cohesive design identity?

RC: It’s always a challenge to get cohesiveness across the range. There should always be a link but not necessarily copy paste, you don’t want all your cars to look like Russian dolls because it doesn’t make for an exciting showroom. You’re also trying to satisfy different segments of the market and people want different things. 

For example, when Emeya and Electre were being designed, we wanted to create a saloon car and SUV that looked more sports focused than competitors. Of course, you want to make a connection with the hypercar because that’s a very appealing prospect but you have to adapt the volume of the statements you’re making because it’s not always appropriate to be quite so loud and bold on a more mainstream car. 

More fundamentally, because of the EV packaging we can use the interior space more efficiently and visually what’s interesting is the cab forward design. You get a shorter nose which is effectively what you get in mid-engined cars, so there’s that link. It was a real desire on Electre to make a statement of the benefits of electric car design and how it’s slightly different from a combustion engine car design.

CDN: Will we see more diversification in powertrains going forward given the EV slowdown?

RC: We made a statement when Geely bought the company that we were going fully electric because that was the legislation. Now, we are doing hybrid cars for next year, so there’s already been diversification going on. We have to work to suit international legislation but also what customers want as well. 

CDN: With global competition intensifying, particularly in the EV space, what do you see as Lotus’s unique design advantage over emerging rivals?

RC: What we’ve got going for us is our tremendous heritage. We have a lineage of shapes and forms we can pick from to use as influences. We don’t want to do pastiches of our cars but we can certainly always look back, whether it’s the philosophies or the shapes, to help inspire our future. 

We have those strong values from Colin Chapman that we’ve formed into a new manifesto: digital, natural, analogue. That drives us towards an aesthetic but also a product philosophy that is very authentic. The idea of putting fun into motoring, doing something different, efficient and prestigious is still valuable. If we keep that in mind and how that connects to executing products, I think it will give us something which is relevant, different and will excite people. 

CDN: The brand’s recent EVs are positioned as premium, tech-led products. How do you reconcile that shift with Lotus’s heritage of simplicity, lightness and mechanical honesty? 

RC: We crossed a little bit of that when we were doing Evija in subtle ways. When you’re on the outside of the car, you can look in through the back window and see some beautiful suspension components. It’s not an audible thing or something you feel like you do with an engine but a lot of people love looking at engines so we said the suspension can be a beautiful thing. 

I think the trick is to blend the best of both worlds. There are a lot of electronic system softwares which make life easier so it’s incredibly important that those are integrated into the car but it’s doing it in a way that doesn’t dominate and is appropriate for the type of car. Albeit there are nuances around the world about what people prefer, so in Northern Europe and North America, people are a bit more traditional. In China and certain parts of Asia, people love to see a bit more technology on show. 

CDN: How do you cater to changing markets and demographics whilst still maintaining the Lotus identity? 

RC: In Europe, North America, Australia and Japan, the traditional sports car is very well liked. But if you look at some of the other markets like the Middle East and China, they have a slightly different take on what’s important to them because of what point they joined the evolution of the car, how they use their cars and the climate.

Thinking about global taste, it’s important to retain something which you can say is very much Lotus but equally you don’t want to put yourself in a position where you are dogmatic, true to your brand, but you haven’t got a company because you’re not selling anything. That’s why Colin Chapman’s philosophies are great because they’re interpretable. It’s a starting point and we can use that to create something relevant to the time and market we’re living in. 

CDN: Do you believe the current strategy of electrification is the right path for Lotus, and from a design standpoint, what will success look like in the next decade?

RC: I think diversification is absolutely essential. It's pretty clear that you can't exist as a company doing low volume affordable sports cars. You either have to be in the premium setting, where margins are bigger or you need more volume, so the strategy and its principles are absolutely correct.

Success, for me, is obviously a stable car company, one that is maintaining or growing its workforce and a constantly evolving product range in line with a defined cycle plan. Within that product range, I would see a variety of vehicles, but core to it will be something which we can recognise as being a sports performance car.