The Proton-owned brand will follow Aston Martin's lead with its Toyota iQ-based Cygnet by putting its 2010 hatchback concept into production in 2013.
"The city car concept is now confirmed for production," says Lotus spokesman Alastair Florance. "That’s called the Lotus Ethos, and it’s due about 2013."
Florance confirmed that the car would be built by its Malaysian parent company Proton. That brand released its own version of the same car – the Italian-designed Emas concept – early in 2010.
"It’s being worked on right now – people out in Malaysia are working on that," he says.
"It’s bigger than a Smart or Toyota iQ, but it’s still pretty small – it’s probably a similar size to a Toyota Aigo," says Florance, referring to a European Toyota model that is slightly smaller than the Japanese-produced Yaris hatch.
At the suggestion that the car would basically be a Proton’s wearing a Lotus badge, Florance said that would be "trivialising it".
"We’ll work extensively on the engineering – the Lotus version will be very much a Lotus," he says. "But I believe there will be a Proton version."
The new Ethos city car has been flagged to be a hybrid-only option for Lotus.
It is expected to be offered with the same powerplant as was seen in the concept version – a plug-in "series hybrid" drivetrain that has the ability to run on pure electric power around town while also being fitted with a 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine for longer distance driving.
