Lotus preparing to ditch combustion entirely
Monday, 15 June 2020
Lotus says it's ready to ditch combustion engines in favour of electricity, after the Evija debuts.
Talking to Auto Express, which says the change-up is the biggest in Lotus' 72-year history, company CEO, Phil Popham, suggested the next generation of Lotus cars will skip hybrid powertrains altogether and go straight to full electrification. Apparently, hybrid stuff is simply too heavy and going pure-electric means Lotus designers can have more freedom when it comes to packaging.
That means the rumoured Esprit revival will likely use a different powertrain than the hybrid V6 it was previously linked with.
'One thing we do believe in is the future of battery electric vehicles, and our intention is to offer BEV [powertrains] on our products in the future,' he said.
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“BEV [battery electric vehicle technology] is really well suited to sports cars – the torque characteristics, the weight distribution, design and flexibility of dynamics. For me it all leads to BEV as the ultimate technology for sports cars.”
Before the big change happens, insiders reckon there will be at least one more sports car powered by old dinosaurs.
Popham told Auto Express that the big reason this can happen is the financial backing of parent company Geely. “The money that is going into product development is something we could never, ever afford to do on our own if we hadn’t got the ambitious owner that we have.”
The first electric Lotus will be the Evija hypercar, due to hit production this year. It will be limited to 130 units worldwide and start at around 1.5 million euro (NZ$2.6m).
A video from the Petersen Automotive Museum hosted by Lotus' head of design, Russel Carr, has given us more of a deep dive into the Evija.
The man with the appropriate surname shows how Lotus is using the Evija as a testbed for new technologies but retaining the DNA of the company in efficiency, aerodynamics, and driving dynamics. It will be interesting to see how Lotus tackles the issue of battery weight, given on of its tenets is 'simplify, then add lightness.'
As for tech specs, the Evija will use four electric motors (one per wheel) to generate 1471kW of power. Thus, 0-100kmh takes less than three seconds and 200kmh flashes by in six seconds.