Brawn GP paint job in honor of his 2009 win<\/ins><\/a>.<\/p>\nLotus opted to put a lot of hardware in the middle of the car behind the two seats to retain that mid-engined weight distribution. The body is a single piece of carbon fiber, and it\u2019s obvious to all that this is a race car first, with Lamborghini-esque styling. To save weight, there\u2019s little sound dampening, so you can hear the roar of the gear, and the road, as you slice through the air. Put your foot down and you\u2019ll hear the power unit spin up to push juice to those four wheel-mounted 500W motors.<\/p>\n
What comes out the other side is eye-bleeding acceleration and enough g-force that you feel your lunch shift from one side of your stomach to the other. Yes, other EVs can go quickly, and some accelerate ludicrously fast, but the Evija is playing in different water. For car people, Lotus has always been synonymous with fast-twitch driving dynamics and slightly lackluster reliability. But the Evija feels mature, solid, stable and able to harness all of the pure grunt that only an electric motor can provide.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d go further and say that the Evija is terrifying, especially when Karl Eaton, one of the minds behind the vehicle, took me around the track in one. He waited until the car reached 201 miles per hour to start explaining all of the smart choices embodied in its design. I didn\u2019t recall much of what he said at the time since I was trying to keep all the fluids in my body.<\/p>\n
The Eletre and Emeya<\/strong><\/p>\nOf course, the Evija is the standard bearer for Lotus as a luxury EV maker that stands out from the crowd. It\u2019s not likely you\u2019ll have a few million lying around, but its existence will make you aware of the relatively more reasonably-priced options in its lineup. The Eletre is the first real Lotus EV, priced around $100,000 and again, something of a departure from the norm. Whereas Lotus prides itself on making zippy, mid-engined sports cars, this is a two-and-change ton SUV that just happens to be as capable on a race track as its E-named predecessors.<\/p>\n
On my first few laps around the track, I drove the Eletre like a high-sided SUV, which is to say, gently. After all, I didn\u2019t want to flip this thing over when I\u2019d need to save three years worth of paychecks just for a chance to look at the sales brochure. My co-pilot kept urging me to go harder, and eventually I did, realizing that Lotus has done something amazing. It\u2019s a car that you can fling around a track and feel like you\u2019re Lewis Hamilton, and then drive it home without missing a beat.<\/p>\n
The Eletre is already on sale, but we won\u2019t need to wait a decade to see what follow-up Lotus has planned. Next on the docket is the Emeya, a luxury hyper-grand tourer based on the same platform as the Eletre. You can see the shared design language and the emphasis on active aerodynamics in the body to help the cars zoom around the corners. There are gaps and vents all around the body to help push air past the cabin and keep all four wheels planted on the road.<\/p>\n
As for the interiors, Lotus is a company that has traditionally avoided fripperies like comfort and ease of use. These, after all, aren\u2019t conducive to Chapman\u2019s mantra of simplifying and adding lightness. But the Eletre and Emeya have gloriously un-Chapmanesque<\/em> cabins full of luxurious materials and physical dials and switches more reminiscent of a high-end camera. When you look at the price and see that the luxurious excesses of this cost the same as a Tesla Model X, you feel as though the incumbents need to get a lot better quickly.<\/p>\nThe Spirit of Lotus<\/strong><\/p>\nYou could argue that Lotus is just a badge under which Geely can slap components it\u2019s using elsewhere. But Mike Johnstone said the parent company has no interest in diluting what makes Lotus Lotus. \u201cMore than 99 percent of all of our development is done ourselves,\u201d said Johnstone, \u201cwhere we benefit [from being owned by Geely] is access to a supply chain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much has been made about what Lotus\u2019 role in the automotive firmament should be in the new world of electric vehicles. Colin Chapman\u2019s famous principles were to simplify and add lightness so aren\u2019t bulky EVs, shorn of their gas-powered engines, an insult to his memory? Thankfully, I only needed to cross the road that runs alongside Lotus\u2019 Hethel HQ to ask an expert: Chapman\u2019s son, Clive (pictured, left). Clive is the head of Classic Team Lotus, a heritage brand that keeps the company\u2019s former gas-powered F1 cars working. Despite the shared name and proximity, there\u2019s no financial relationship between Lotus and the Classic Team.<\/p>\n
Clive showed me around the facility, which maintains those classic F1 cars and races them at heritage events, like the Historic Grand Prix<\/ins><\/a> at Monaco. If you\u2019re a one-percenter with an old Lotus, you can also send it here to be restored by specialists. On the upper floor, there\u2019s a collection of classic Lotuses of every stripe. It\u2019s a rare and beautiful sight to see. I asked Clive how his father would feel about the shift to electric. \u201cDad was never sentimental,\u201d said the younger Chapman, and directed me to a pristine Lotus 56 in the collection. He explained that his father was never wedded to one technology or philosophy, despite what some Lotus fans may claim. The Lotus 56, after all, was equipped with a gas turbine engine more commonly seen in aircraft than vehicles, but Colin Chapman was very interested in the speed advantage it could have offered.<\/p>\nIt seems that what mattered to Colin Chapman then is the same as what matters to Lotus now: Pushing automotive design forward, no matter how unusual the method. Before I tried any of Lotus\u2019 EVs on its test track, I tried the (gas-powered) Emira and used that as my benchmark. My expectation was that the subsequent cars would all pale somehow in comparison to the last \u201ctrue\u201d Lotus to be made at Hethel. And yet, the new cars, despite their batteries and electric motors, are just as lithe and energetic as ever. This, I suspect, is why Lotus has a good chance of making a mark in the new world, because it remains enough of that uncompromising spirit to stand out from the crowd and make sure that, for those who need it, you can still feel connected to your car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A lot of EVs aren\u2019t that fun to drive, built as they are to glide around a highway like a swan on a river. Sure, like the swan\u2019s manic paddling, there\u2019s a lot of hardware and software sweating in the background to maintain that serenity. But the feeling can be so soporific that you wind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[759,56,48,758,760],"tags":[762,67,59,761,763],"yoast_head":"\n
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