Lotus electric SUV is a lean, mean, China-made machine
The model is the first EV released by automaker
British carmaker Lotus's bid to move from bit player in the racy roadster market to mass relevancy rests on a 600-horsepower electric SUV. China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., which in 2017 purchased a majority stake in the Norfolk-based heritage brand, revealed the Lotus Eletre on Tuesday evening in London.
The Eletre is a key part of Geely's pitch to pivot Lotus to “lifestyle” vehicles beyond its sharp-handling, tracktuned sports cars, such as the lightweight, relatively affordable Elan and Exige. The SUV, which will be built at a new factory in Wuhan, China, is the first of a range of new Lotus EVs planned for the next five years, including a sedan in 2023, a smaller SUV in 2025, and an electric sports car in 2026.
The Emira, which starts deliveries later this year, will be its last model to run exclusively on gasoline.
Last month, Group Lotus teased the Eletre — then code-named Type 132 — to car dealers and bankers to spur interest in a possible initial public offering of Lotus Tech. The China-based business is developing the electric cars for the tiny British motoring brand. Lotus's EV pipeline is key to Chief Executive Officer Feng Qingfeng's five-year plan to boost sales from 1,710 vehicles in 2021 to as many as 150,000 annually, half of which may be in China.
The four-door SUV will be built on an all-new 800volt dedicated electric vehicle architecture with a flat “skateboard-style” battery pack and two electric motors positioned close to the ground, one driving the front wheels and another driving the rear. Twenty minutes on a DC fast charger will give 248 miles of range, with a total driving range of 373 miles when fully charged.
Top speed is 161 mph, with a zero to 62 mph speed of three seconds, according to Lotus. The figures beat other premium electric EVs such as the Audi e-tron and Mercedes-Benz EQC by a significant margin, though the all-new Hummer EV boasts a three-second zero to 60 mph split, and the most expensive versions of the Tesla Model X Plaid SUV can do it in less than three seconds.
Much like the Aston Martin DBX and Maserati Grecale SUVs, the Eletre has a gaping front grille, high shoulders above the wheels, and a sleek sloped roofline. The vehicle comes with four drive modes to adjust the steering, damper settings, powertrain, and accelerator pedal response; the interior
includes sustainable textiles and lightweight wool blends as primary trim options.
Eletre, which means “coming to life” in Hungarian, is an apt name for the 74-year-old-brand that's shown few signs of life in recent decades, despite its storied history--James Bond drove a white Lotus Esprit in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me. In some recent years, no Lotus cars sold in the U.S. Details about pricing and additional specs such as weight will be released later, a spokesperson says.
First deliveries of the Eletre are planned for 2023 starting in China, the U.K., and Europe; North American sales have yet to be announced.