Lotus promotes engineering boss to top job

LONDON -- Lotus Cars has appointed its chief engineer, Matt Windle, to lead the automaker after CEO Phil Popham stepped down.

Popham will leave the company at the end of March after less than three years in the post, Lotus said in a statement.

The first two projects that Lotus will see through to completion under Windle will be the Evija electric hypercar and a new sports car codenamed Type 131 that will be unveiled this summer.

Popham said Windle, who has a history with the UK sports-car maker of more than 20 years, is a long-standing 'Lotus Man.'

Windle, 49, joined Lotus in 1998 before switching to Tesla in 2005 to work on its first car, the Roadster, which was created with help from Lotus.

He then spent five years working for niche British sports-car makers Caterham and Zenos before returning to Lotus in 2017. He was promoted to head of engineering in March 2020.

Popham, a former Jaguar Land Rover executive, joined Lotus as CEO in 2018, the year after the company was bought by China's Geely Group. Popham spent 14 years at JLR in various roles that included global marketing director, global head of Land Rover and JLR UK head. He left the company in 2014 to become CEO of British luxury yacht company Sunseeker.

Lotus did not disclose Popham's future plans.

Popham oversaw the implementation of the Vision80 plan which called for a complete overhaul of the brand and a more global outlook.

The plan included phasing out production of all three of the brand's aging sports cars this year, as well as developing the Evija and Type 131.

Popham also helped to forge a partnership with Renault's Alpine brand that will see the two jointly develop a new electric sports car platform.

The plan also called for the construction of a new assembly hall in the company's Hethel headquarters in Norfolk, England, as part of a 100 million-pound ($136 million) investment in the site.