Lotus is entering a new era and a new market of the market with its first-ever SUV, the all-electric Lotus Eletre. Retaining the British brand’s naming convention of models starting with an E, the Eletre has been described as “a momentous point in our history” by the brand’s managing director, Matt Windle.
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Based on an all-new 800-volt platform called electric premium Architecture, the new model is powered by a battery of a lot more than 100kWh (an exact figure for available energy hasn’t been confirmed) that feeds a pair of electric motors – one on each axle – for a targeted minimum total power output of 592bhp. This will rise for higher-spec, even a lot more performance-focused versions, with Lotus aiming for the fastest Eletres to deliver a 0-62mph time of less than three seconds.
‘I’m sure Colin Chapman would be very pleased of the Lotus Eletre’
By their very nature, EVs are heavier, and while the Eletre is a departure from Lotus’s standard models and company founder Colin Chapman’s principles of a low kerbweight, there are plenty of advancements in keeping with the marque’s ethos. Lotus’s technique to minimizing mass has still been at the heart of development, and the Eletre “takes the core principles and Lotus DNA from a lot more than 70 years of sports car design and engineering, evolving them into a desirable all-new lifestyle car for the next generation of Lotus customers”.