The new Lotus Eletre is plugging the brand into an electric future

30 March 2022 - 10:58 By Hannah Elliott and Siddharth Philip
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The Eletre may be a major pivot from the British heritage brand’s sports-car roots, but it still goes from 0-100km/h in under three seconds.
The Eletre may be a major pivot from the British heritage brand’s sports-car roots, but it still goes from 0-100km/h in under three seconds.
Image: Supplied

British carmaker Lotus’ bid to move from bit player in the racy roadster market to mass relevancy rests on a 447kW electric SUV. China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, which in 2017 purchased a majority stake in the heritage brand, unveiled the Lotus Eletre on Tuesday evening in London, where it was driven onstage by 2009 Formula One champion Jenson Button.

The Eletre is part of Geely’s pitch to pivot Lotus to “lifestyle” vehicles beyond its sharp-handling, track-tuned 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 four 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 the last model to run exclusively on petrol.

The Lotus Eletre rides on 23-inch machine-cut split-finish five-spoke alloys with carbon fibre inserts to aid air flow.
The Lotus Eletre rides on 23-inch machine-cut split-finish five-spoke alloys with carbon fibre inserts to aid air flow.
Image: Supplied

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 electric cars for the British motoring brand. Lotus’ EV pipeline is important in CEO Feng Qingfeng’s plan to boost sales from 1,710 vehicles in 2021 to about 150,000 annually, half of which may be in China.

“It’s a British brand in China — that’s going to be produced in China — so I think that’s going to have significance for them,” said Lotus Cars MD Matt Windle in a roundtable interview after the debut. “It’s going to cross boundaries.”

The four-door SUV will be built on an 800-volt 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 400km of range with a total driving range of 600km when fully charged. The Eletre will be priced under £100,000 pounds (roughly R1,894,951) in the UK.

Unique Lotus design ‘porosity’ means air flows through the Eletre for improved aerodynamics, speed, range and overall efficiency.
Unique Lotus design ‘porosity’ means air flows through the Eletre for improved aerodynamics, speed, range and overall efficiency.
Image: Supplied

Top speed is 260km/h with a 0-100km/h time of less than three seconds, according to Lotus. The figures beat other premium electric EVs such as the Audi e-tron and Mercedes-Benz EQC by a large margin.

“We’re not aiming at the same segment as the sports cars,” says Windle, who calls the SUV a proper family vehicle. But “it’s still got to have that Lotus dynamics magic dust. If you want to drive the car a bit spirited, shall we say, you can”.

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. Both four- and five-seater configurations will be available. 

In front of the driver the traditional instrument cluster binnacle has been reduced to a slim strip less than 30mm high to communicate vehicle and journey information.
In front of the driver the traditional instrument cluster binnacle has been reduced to a slim strip less than 30mm high to communicate vehicle and journey information.
Image: Supplied

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 US.

Asked whether Lotus has the wherewithal to scale from less than 2,000 cars a year into a competitive segment of the car market, not only EVs but also SUVs, Windle is confident.

The interior uses premium feel and durable man-made microfibres on the primary touchpoints and an advanced wool-blend fabric on the seats.
The interior uses premium feel and durable man-made microfibres on the primary touchpoints and an advanced wool-blend fabric on the seats.
Image: Supplied

“We have invested heavily in the UK and China in our manufacturing systems and our quality,” he says, citing the brand’s turnaround strategy which commenced in 2018. "The cars will be right and hopefully they’ll deliver what customers are expecting.”

First deliveries of the Lotus Eletre are planned for 10 markets across China, Europe and the UK starting in early 2023. Sales in other world markets, including the US, will start in 2024. 

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com


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