Legendary British sports car manufacturer Lotus has entered the electric SUV market with the reveal of the Eletre. Lotus Eletre is a revolutionary plug-in crossover SUV that looks like the bigger brother of the Evija – Lotus’ latest hypercar. Lotus has announced that the Eletre will be the first of three new EVs that the company will be releasing including another SUV, a sedan, and a brand new sports car.
Lotus claims that the Eletre will be the world’s first hyper-SUV thanks to its impressive performance figures. It will be able to accelerate from 0-62mph (100km/h) in under three seconds granting Lotus a spot in the ‘Two-second SUV club’ alongside the Tesla Model S Plaid, which lets Tesla know there’s a new player in town.
Although incredibly fast, the Eletre has all of the features you would expect from a standard, run of the mill electric SUV including an all-wheel-drive system and a battery capacity of over 100kWh. This will provide the driver with around 250 miles of range in just 20 minutes of charging on a 350kW charger, while the maximum driving range is quoted as around 370 miles (or 600km).
When it comes to design language, Eletre features proportions you would expect from a standard SUV, combined with aggressive elements of a hypercar – specifically the Lotus Evija. This includes an aggressive front end combined with sleek lines all around.
The vehicle will also boast a plethora of futuristic features including camera side-view mirrors and lidar sensors integrated into the roof, as well as self-parking capabilities. This will allow the driver to summon the vehicle from a parking spot using their smartphone, and repark itself after the journey is finished. Lotus also stated that further updates to the vehicle will add more advanced autonomous driving capabilities thanks to the built-in 5G connectivity.
The Eletre is not just the first electric hyper-SUV for the company, it is also the first Lotus built entirely in China, the home of the company’s parent company – Geely. Geely became the majority stakeholder of Lotus in 2017, and over the last decade, and is the group behind the revamp of the stagnating Volvo brand with the launch of the Polestar company.
