The bad news is that we’ve known Lotus was likely going to plunge into the crossover craze for a while now. This new patent rendering seems to show they’re getting pretty far along with the concept, but it shouldn’t be anything to worry about.
Why shouldn’t you worry about one of the “purest” automakers betraying everything they used to stand for? Because it means it will make a lot of money, and more money means more fun cars for everyone else to play with.
It’s not entirely clear if this rendering, sourced from a patent via AutoRAI.nl, is definitely a Lotus, but uh, it’s just probably a Lotus.
Now that the relatively small company is backed up by an ownership stake from Geely, the same folks who own Volvo, Polestar and Lynk & Co., it means there is hope for small, lightweight and extremely tight little Lotus cars for some time to come. They just have to sell out a little bit to pad the revenue.
You shouldn’t blame them for that. And as far as crossovers go, well, this looks like the rest of them. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter to anyone but the millions of people who buy these things and the accountants that want to keep their jobs. Just be glad there is still a Lotus.