Autoblog

Well, we knew that Lotus personnel had been working with the folks from Tesla Motors on their sexy electric roadster, and today we received a bit of interesting related news. According to a report on EDP24.com (the Norfolk Eastern Daily Press website), Group Lotus' involvement with the Tesla Roadster project is now very much official: the Roadster will be built by Lotus at its Hethel facility.

The move is part of Lotus honcho Mike Kimberley's ongoing plan to increase the company's involvement in outside design and engineering projects. It comes on the heels of Lotus' new deal with Nanjng Automotive to aid in the development of new MG vehicles.

We'll bring you more info on the Tesla/Lotus deal when the companies issue formal announcements in the coming days.

[Source: EDP24]

Kim Ogaard-Nielsen is now the former Chief Executive Officer of Group Lotus Plc, with Lotus veteran Mike Kimberley (right) named as Acting CEO, effective Thursday.

The move comes as a surprise, as Ogaard-Nielsen had only joined the company in November 2004. In standard press release doublespeak, Ogaard-Nielsen is said to be leaving the company "to pursue his other entrepreneurial interests." Kimberley is a 22-year associate of Lotus, going back to the Colin Chapman days, and is credited with reviving the company after Chapman's death in 1982. He has previously served Lotus as CEO from 1983 to 1991, and latterly as a member of the Board of Directors.

No candidates have been named to replace Ogaard-Nielsen long-term.

[Source: Group Lotus]

Recent developments at Lotus Cars strongly suggest that the legendary British sports car company is setting up to build cars for other automakers.

Lotus builds about 5,000 cars per year, with its new supercar due to be added to the total soon. But Autocar reports that Lotus has the capacity to handle up to 8,000 cars a year.

Lotus says that it has two opportunities for contract manufacturing on the table at the moment, one of which could be VW's GX-3 trike, which debuted as a "we may build it if the market's there" concept car at the L.A. Auto Show in January. The GX-3 prototype was recently seen testing at Lotus' test track.

Lotus has been positioning itself as a potential contractor to bigger car companies for some time, developing a contract engineering business, and more recently unveiling its APX concept car to demonstrate its product development and manufacturing capabilities.