SOUTHFIELD, MI – Sports car manufacturer Lotus is automating its body painting facility at its British headquarters in Hethel, England. Lotus contracted Dürr to install an automated paint shop boasting a number of extremely efficient processes.

Dürr beat worldwide competition during the awarding process thanks to its efficient technologies that produce less waste with a low environmental impact. The modernization includes an automated application line with special paint supply and conveyor systems. The contract was awarded in 2019.

Currently all Lotus cars are being painted manually, but for the future, Lotus will be embracing automation for the exterior painting with four Dürr EcoRP E133 painting robots. With six axes and rail, these robots are flexible enough for a number of applications. When designing of the new paint shop, the priority for Lotus was elevating process efficiency while maintaining the high quality of the current manual spraying process.

With the composite body panels coated with conductive primer, one pair of robots applies the primer and clear coat in one mixed spray-booth while a second pair of robots applies the color coat in another booth. The robots not only paint, but can also open the body doors and hoods thanks to their modular design.

Economical and Fast: Special Paint Supply Using Pigging System

The high efficiency and high quality is not only achieved through the use of robots, but also through technologies with low material consumption.

All Lotus cars are built to order with Lotus Exclusive. This allows customers to make their Lotus unique. Each vehicle is finished according to the customer’s individual requirements, including a choice of an almost infinite number of colors limitless on all of its model lines. Individualization, including stripes and highlights, are painted manually.

To be able to provide such a variety of colors in low quantities, EcoSupply P special paint supply systems will be installed. These units will pump the various paints to the painting booth hoses – with almost zero losses reducing paint waste. EcoSupply P also minimizes cleaning material consumption and color change times compared with conventional ring line systems.

Sixty Percent Less Energy

EcoDry Rack also helps to increase efficiency. The multi-stage overspray filter system, which is extremely compact thanks to its permanently installed filter walls, offers all the advantages of dry separation. It needs neither water nor chemicals, which keeps running costs low and has minimal impact on the environment. Up to 95 percent of the supply air can be recycled as recirculated air using this technology. This reduces energy consumption in the paint booth by more than 60 percent compared with a classic wet scrubbing system and has a positive effect on the CO₂ emissions. EcoDry Rack is easy to use and service. Once the filters are saturated, they can be replaced during production breaks or on weekends.

The new Lotus body painting facility is scheduled to be commissioned in 2021.