Insight: The Chinese factory underpinning Lotus's bold expansion

Tan is particularly proud of the stamping shop, where state-of-the-art automated stamping lines can produce body components at high volume and very high accuracy.

There are no workers in the automated main presses, which are capable of delivering up to 2500 tonnes of pressure (which Lotus claims to be the highest in the industry) yet also operating up to 18 times a minute. That equates to 3.5 million strokes per year for a double-shift operation, with tools being swapped automatically for different parts.

Apparently, the 550mm ‘draw depth’ of the Eletre’s rear side panel, stamped from aluminium, is also world-leading.

A helpful display on the wall shows all the individual components made for the Eletre, known internally as the Lambda, and for the forthcoming Type 134 saloon, known as the Alpha.

The welding shop is noisier and busier, parts being manipulated and passed by around 200 robots between different stations. The use of both steel and aluminium in the structure requires numerous techniques to marry components, including spot welding, laser fusion welding, arc welding and lead stud welding. Again, apart from some super visors, there are almost no workers. Pretty much the entire shop is automated.

When I talk to Tan later, he acknowledges that labour is indeed cheaper in China than it would be in most other parts of the world, but he then points out that Lotus faces the same challenge of both training and retaining talent.

Final assembly is where the Wuhan plant starts to feel more like a human endeavour. Robots haven’t yet managed to evolve the skills and dexterity to accurately fit parts in tight spaces.

The workers here are still clearly in the learning process, as small batches of cars traverse the line with large gaps between them. But if Lotus hits its targets, there will be more than 400 cars a day passing through the vast halls and into the brightly lit final inspection area.

Quality monitoring is taken very seriously too, with random parts subject to destructive test ing and a laboratory-like quality assurance room where coordinate-measuring machines – probes on robot arms – ensure the tight ness of tolerances.

Will Geely’s ambitions for Lotus work? That’s the billion-dollar question – but nobody could accuse the company of not backing its ambitions for the British brand.

Inside the Wuhan paint shop

We didn’t get to enter the paint shop in Wuhan, due to the risk of bringing contamination into it, but you will be unsurprised to hear that it’s equally close to the industry’s cutting edge.

While most high-volume factories have paint shops that spray three coats, Wuhan uses what’s described as a 4C3B process, with four coating steps interspersed with three baking steps. Cars are sprayed using small flow-spray nozzles to reduce wastage and the level of vapour contamination.

These nozzles can quickly swap between colours, with up to 98% of the unsprayed paint in lines recovered during this process to reduce wastage.

Painting and coating apparently accounts for around half the total energy consumption in producing a car, so efficiency gains here are particularly effective.

In terms of energy, Wuhan already has 12GWh of generating capacity through photovoltaic (solar) cells, many over the parking areas that help shade finished cars, with that figure set to be increased.