Lotus charges up
600bhp Eletre – the world’s first electric super-suv – spearheads Lotus’s shift to high-tech EV maker
AFTER EMIRA COMES ELETRE, LOTUS’S first SUV, first four-wheel-drive car and first electric production car (since you can’t really call the limited-run, £2million Evija hypercar a production model).
It’s also the first Lotus to have been designed and developed on a truly global scale, utilising all of the firm’s existing and recently created development hubs: its new technology centre in Wellesbourne, Warwickshire, R&D centres in both Sweden and Germany and, of course, Hethel. And it will be the first Lotus to be built outside the company’s Norfolk home, with a new technology campus (they don’t really call them factories anymore) in Wuhan, China. Deliveries start in 2023, commencing with the UK, mainland Europe and, of course, China.
Lotus has developed a new platform on which to build the Eletre, called Electric Premium Architecture (EPA). Once the SUV is up and running, the platform will be further developed to create a Porsche Taycan rivalling saloon/gt car and an all-electric sports car in the spirit of the Elise, which will also form the basis for a new Alpine electric sports car.
At the Eletre’s core is an aluminium and steel architecture that includes an integrated 800-volt, high-voltage network with a tailor-made battery pack developed with British Volt that’s said to optimise cell density and charging efficiency. With the battery packaged between the front and rear axles, a motor will be positioned at either end to offer four-wheel-drive capability, with each motor, controller and reducer integrated in a single three
in-one package to optimise weight and reduce the overall size of the powertrain.
Lotus isn’t revealing all the numbers. In terms of performance and power, the only communication is ‘from 600bhp’, while three versions will be offered, all four-wheel drive. A target specification of a 100-plus kwh battery has been indicated, which on a 350kw charging network will allow a depleted battery to be charged in 18 minutes. A 162mph top speed and a sub-3sec 0-62mph time, with a range of circa 348 miles, have also been confirmed.
Air suspension will underpin all Eletre models, with active aerodynamics and ride height control also included as standard. Active dampers, rear-axle steering, electric active anti-roll bars and torque vectoring via an electronic limited-slip diff will be available as options, as will 23-inch wheels and carbon-ceramic brakes. All three variants will feature five drive modes: Range, Tour, Sport, Off-road and Individual, with all allowing a level of influence over the steering weight, damper settings, powertrain and throttle response.
If you are expecting a keenly driver-focused Lotus, you’ll likely be disappointed; as with so many of its ilk, this is a car with enough initialisms to sink a Scrabble board. There’s Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) to provide autonomous driving capability, an optional Electric Reverse Mirror Display (ERMD) replacing the external wing mirrors as per Audi’s e-tron Sportback, and then there’s the active safety systems, from adaptive cruise control to the hateful lane-keeping assist software.
All this tech needs to go somewhere, which explains to some extent why this is a Lotus that is as big as the outgoing Range Rover. It stretches to 5.1 metres long, it has a 3-metre wheelbase and it’s 2.2 metres wide if you don’t have the fancy electric mirrors fitted (it’s 2.1 metres wide if you do). A relatively low 1.6-metre roofline helps hide some of the bulk. Just. Interestingly, despite much talk in the media documents about ‘lightweighting’ and following Colin Chapman’s dogged approach of adding lightness, there’s no weight figure available other than that it will weigh ‘under two tonnes’. The same documents also reveal that prices will start at ‘under £100,000’.
After spending 25 years designing derivatives of the Elise, Lotus needed a new design language for the Eletre. There are hints of Lamborghini Urus in the nose and Kia EV6 in the rear, with a lot going on across every surface. In the isolation of a photo studio, proportions are hard to judge, but this is a Lotus like nothing we’ve ever seen before.
Inside there’s a similar quantum leap in terms of design and execution. Sustainable materials are used where possible; a large centre-mounted screen controls most of the functions, with a small, slimline instrument binnacle positioned in the driver’s eyeline. Quality-wise, it feels like a big step forward, even compared with the recently launched Emira.
This is a very different Lotus. It’s a global car that starts the company on its journey to electrification and a future where the British firm will no longer be a low-volume manufacturer of specialist sports cars. Just as the Cayenne set Porsche on its road to unimaginable growth some 20 years ago, Lotus will be hoping its first SUV and the cars that follow will have a very similar impact. ☒