Lotus is working on perhaps its most important car in decades: the Evija. The monstrously strong electric hypercar has once again hit its tail during test work. In addition, Lotus immediately reveals some details.
Since Lotus has been operating under the wings of the wealthy Geely, the British brand can once again look to the future with considerable ambition. That they mean business became clear when the brand pulled the curtain a year ago from the Evija, the first new Lotus in years. It is not only the first new Lotus in a long time, but also the brand’s first electric car. The Evija, limited to 130 copies, delivers performance that doesn’t lie: four electric motors release up to 2,000 hp on all four wheels. In less than three seconds the Evija is at 100 km / h from a standstill and even more impressive are the only nine seconds it takes to reach 300 km / h.
On paper, the Evija with its absurd power is the most powerful series production car ever, although it has yet to be launched on the market. We are now working hard on this. On the test track in Hethel, an Evija in a special prototype-like color scheme was kicked on its tail to try out the latest developments in practice. According to Lotus, the Evija is still on track when it comes to the promised figures. The Evija gets five different driving modes, in ‘Range’ mode ‘only’ 1,000 hp is transferred via the rear wheels, in ‘Tour’ 1,400 hp goes to the front and rear wheels, in ‘Sport’ that is 1,700 hp and in ‘Track’ the Evija uses the full 2,000 horsepower. Torque Vectoring must ensure that the forces are distributed intelligently over the wheels.
Range mode should enable the Evija to travel up to 400 km on one battery charge. The Evija draws its power from a 70 kWh battery pack behind the front seats, which Lotus says is perfectly placed for good weight distribution. This must of course contribute to the handling of this absurdly strong monster. The past shows that Lotus knows what it is doing in that regard. So a promising car, although it is still a question of when the curtain of the final production version will go. The production start was initially planned for this year and immediately after the introduction it was already possible to make a deposit of no less than € 277,000. The basic starting price of the Evija that was communicated at the time was a not silly € 1.88 million. Then you also get something, it seems.