Lotus under plans to switch to Volvo engines

KUALA LUMPUR: Lotus is known for simple yet some of the most powerful sports cars. However, what many people aren’t aware of is that powering every Lotus car is an engine sourced from Toyota.

According to the recent update from Lotus, the company is under plans to switch from Toyota to Volvo engines. In past, the Japanese automaker has supplied mills for Lotus cars like Elise, Evora, and Exige.

The question here is why Lotus wants to make this shift? Is it a matter of performance or something more substantial is behind the expected transition. Well, as revealed by company’s officials, the issue doesn’t concern to power, as Lotus used to tune Toyota engine’s with upgrades like superchargers.

So, what’s the matter? Well, the desired shift is based on Lotus longing to enlist itself under the Geely family. Just like the VW Group that holds many automobile firms under its wing, all sharing benefit from one another like tech and engineering skills. Lotus wants to get slotted under the Geely Group and take advantage of its connection.

In the recent past, the Chinese car brand Geely has acquired significant stakes in car companies like - Volvo that it acquired from Ford in 2010 and Lotus in 2017 from Proton. Post the two deals, Volvo and Lotus now are the members of the Geely family. And that’s the reason why auto journalists are predicting a lot of sharing of technologies and platform between the new Geely Group members.

Talking about Volvo’s engine lineup, the brand offers a 1.5-litre three-cylinder and 2.0-litre four-cylinder mill. Both these engines come with turbo tuning, and if they get featured in a Lotus car, a supercharger will accompany for sure. There’s also a hybrid engine called ‘Twin Engine’ under the Volvo lineup, so can we expect a hybrid Lotus shortly?