Lotus goes all electric with $2M halo Evija

LONDON -- Lotus said its Evija full-electric hypercar has a power output of nearly 2,000 hp. Just 130 cars will be sold at 1.7 million pounds plus taxes each ($2.11 million).

The Evija will be the most powerful series production car ever built, Lotus said. It will be a halo model for the British sports-car maker as it aims to reestablish itself as a global player under its new parent, Chinese automaker Geely.

The Evija "will re-establish our brand in the hearts and minds of sports car fans and on the global automotive stage," Lotus CEO Phil Popham said as the car was unveiled on Tuesday

The car "will pave the way for further visionary models," Popham said.

The Evija is by far the most powerful and most expensive car produced by Lotus, which is better known for lightweight, stripped out sports cars such as the Elise that compete with lower-priced Porsche models.

Lotus says that despite to a switch to electric, which increases weight via the batteries, the Evija conforms to Lotus's tradition of building lightweight cars first established by its founder, Colin Chapman.

The car is the first Lotus to use a carbon-fiber monocoque chassis to offset its 70 kilowatt-hour battery pack, meaning that the company is confident of hitting a 1,680 kg (3,704 pounds) target weight.

The Evija will achieve a range of 400 km (250 miles) as measured under Europe's WLTP testing cycle, Lotus said. Heavy use of the accelerator will dramatically reduce that, but Lotus said that the car will run for "at least" seven minutes at full power on the car's 'track' without the battery 'derating' or reducing power.

The battery pack, developed with Williams Advanced Engineering, would be compatible with a future network of 800 kilowatt chargers, but can be recharged to 100 percent from zero in 18 minutes using the latest 350 kW charge points, Lotus said.

The pack sits behind the two seats and is the "most energy dense ever fitted to a road car," Lotus said.

Total power of 2,000 metric PS (1,973 hp) is delivered by four electric motors to drive the Evija from 0 to 100 kph (62 mph) in less than three seconds, Lotus said. Its top speed is "more than" 322 kph (200 mph), the company said.

The four electric motors allow the car's electronic brain to split the torque to the wheels with the most traction at any one moment. This gives "exceptional dynamic response and agility on the road," Lotus said.

The Evija's design was inspired by Le Mans racers to include two 'Venturi' tunnels either side of the rear of the cabin, which help reduce air pressure and reduce drag. This creates both visual drama and better dynamic performance, Lotus said. The outtake of each tunnel at the rear is ringed with a red ribbon-style light to create an effect that Lotus likens to afterburners on a fighter jet.

The interior of the car is accessed via doors that open in a dihedral manner, similar to scissor doors. The driver holds a rectangular steering wheel similar in shape to that used by F1 drivers. At the base is the controller for the five driving modes, Range, City, Tour, Sport, and Track.

The single information screen faces the driver and includes information on speed, battery charge and sat nav directions. Updates to the car's information system are carried out wirelessly over the air, which also enables Lotus to offer an app that shows the owner information about the car on their smartphone.

The center console stack is fitted with a range of honeycombed shaped buttons with haptic feedback that control elements like the car's temperature. The effect created by the cabin was keep the driver connected to the car at all times.

"It almost feels as if they are wearing it," Russell Carr, Lotus's head of design, said in a statement.

Lotus has struggled financially for years under a series of owners, most recently Malaysia’s Proton.

The Evija is the first model to come from the 1.5-billion-pound investment Geely has poured into Lotus since buying Lotus in 2017. The investment includes a $1.3 billion factory in Wuhan, China, where Lotus will build models more suited to the Chinese market, including an SUV, according to reports.

The Evija will be the first electric-only sports car from the more established group of sports-car makers such as Porsche, Ferrari, McLaren or Aston Martin, underlining that the technology is still regarded warily for its range and weight compromises.

"Electric power has some advantages for sports cars but also some significant disadvantages," Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer told Automotive News Europe in March this year. "The most obvious is when you use the full performance, it drains the battery very rapidly. It's counter intuitive to make the battery bigger and heavier."

Aston Martin's first electric car, the Rapide-E, is a four-seat sedan.

Famed sports car engineer Gordon Murray, who is designing a V-12 supercar for delivery in 2022
told Autocar magazine he was dead against using battery power. "Just about the most ridiculous thing you could do at present is make an electric supercar," he said, citing the heaviness of the batteries.

The Evija instead will compete against cars from less well known electric sports-car makers such as Rimac's 1,914 hp C_Two, the Nio EP9 from China, and Pininfarina's Battista hypercar, which uses technology from Rimac to make 1,900hp. The Battista uses a much larger battery pack at 120 kWh vs 70 kWh for the Lotus.