At the core of every vehicle, lies a platform which alludes to a robust foundation with the tyres attached on which the car’s chassis and the body will be collated. Designing sinuous and adaptable platforms is not just an operose because of the toil required, but also because it involves gargantuan costs in the development. Hence, it is essential to design and fabricate the right ilk of platform perfectly suiting the model. Notwithstanding that this is not always possible, manufacturers have conceded to build a modicum of platforms in such a way that a greater variety of vehicles can be underpinned by each and encourage thrift.
Speculating the aforementioned vogue, Lotus Engineering, the consultancy wing of the brand has unravelled its bailiwick of creating and sharing personalised and highly flexible platforms with models of other makes which ensues a win-win scenario for both as the brand and the industry graduates to the domain of manufacturing and selling electric cars ditching the long-existing ICE cars.
As part of its consultancy services, it aims to provide platforms to global OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to let them benefit from reducing costs and rapid manufacturing along the assembly line which would otherwise have ravaged the pricing of their models and time of launch and production. Lotus is famously known for providing such solutions and a quintessential example would be GM’s laurel-winning sports car, the Opel Speedster, known as the Vauxhall VX220 in some markets.
The brand’s stellar commitment is based on a triumvirate of principles including Platforms, Control Systems and Technical Services, which also elicits domains such as intelligent design, product concept development, attribute development, advanced engineering and even a rounded fully furnished vehicle.
The Platforms attribute basically refers to large-scale supply of Lotus’ product foundations for other manufacturers thriving in the automotive industry to harness this foundation and build their own cars at a remarkably lesser cost and time.
Currently, the brand offers a trio of fully electric platforms along with the consolidation of a frame on which the British marque’s final petrol powered hurrah, the Emira is based. As they gradually transition to EVs, their archaic architectures haven’t bid adieu yet as these will continue to be offered under the tag, ‘Legacy Architectures.’ These platforms have spawned some iconic cars in the yesteryear such as the Elise, Exige and the Evora. While Lotus contributes the platform, the OEMs are replete with independence to have their own design and powertrains, the it provides the latter too if needed as the production facilities have been accentuated. These bells and whistles are offered for both, high and low volume requirements.
Mark Stringer, Commercial Director, Lotus Engineering, said: “We had our pioneering extruded and bonded aluminium small-vehicle platform which, with its great flexibility, efficiency and versatility, could be successfully re-engineered to form the basis of another car, in this case the Opel Speedster. The result was a unique and award winning sports car for GM which carried the Opel and Vauxhall DNA and which was manufactured efficiently and to globally recognised quality standards. It’s an excellent illustration of how our clients can benefit from the all the work Lotus has already carried out, reducing costs and time-to-market.”
Availability and flexibility of a leash of architectures as a kingpin to offering improved and befitting solutions to manufacturers means cars can be built across segments with reduced expenses and enhanced efficiency. These platforms are also the braggadocios of technical viability as these can be concatenated with other parts for an impeccable product.
Mark Stringer further comments, “Today, one of our key selling points with clients is that Lotus has transitioned quickly to electrification in its own range of vehicles, from the Eletre SUV to the Evija hypercar and the Type 135, our future EV sports car. It means we can make those segments accessible to clients who are looking to ramp-up to electrification quickly with reduced investment, while also supporting with our technical services.”
“Our commitment to lightweighting provides a great basis for adaptation, and there are high levels of flexibility in each platform so we can work with the client to develop unique attributes to embody its own DNA,” explained Mark. “Like everything Lotus Engineering offers, manufacturing is also scalable because our all-new production facilities have been created with additional capacity to enable third party work.” Reducing costs is what every manufacturer is targeting these days and on that note, this innovation by Lotus is definitely going to be lauded and used by many.
