Lotus Regains Branding Rights In China

Lotus has officially reclaimed its iconic logo, the Chinese trademark "Lianhua" and the Lotus wordmark after a lengthy legal battle. This victory helps strengthen Lotus' global identity.

The announcement coincides with Lotus achieving record-breaking sales in Dec 2024. For the first time, global deliveries surpassed 2,000 units. Lotus claims this milestone places it among the top three ultra-luxury car brands, though further details were provided to back this clarification on this claim is awaited.

Lotus was formerly owned by Proton from 1996 to 2017 before Geely took control of it as part of its 49.9% investment deal into Proton.

The Lotus brand legal entanglement traces back to the early 2000s, when Proton facilitated a deal granting China’s Youngman Group rights to distribute Lotus vehicles and use the Chinese trademark “Lianhua" (Lotus in Chinese).

Youngman imported the Lotus Europa and collaborated with Proton to CKD assemble the Proton Gen-2 for the Chinese market. The Gen-2, was marketed under the Europestar brand with the tagline “Engineered by Lotus,” before being rebranded as Lianhua which further complicates the Lotus’ branding in China.

Although the Youngman-Proton contract expired in 2012, Youngman continued producing Proton-based cars until 2015.

Geely and Lotus UK then launched an extensive legal effort to reclaim the branding from Youngman Group all while marketing the Lotus range of products under the Lotus NYO (“new” in Chinese) brand name.

With the dispute resolved, Lotus will no longer need to use the Lotus NYO branding in China. 

Source: CarNewsChina