. All these cars were two-door two-seaters and continued a lineage that goes back to cars like the 1962 Elan and 1977 Esprit. , a brave zero-emission hypercar that is nearing the end of an exhaustive development cycle. Costing around £2m, the Evija is an EV with shattering performance and advanced aerodynamics, designed to showcase the sheer breadth of the company's abilities.
First up, the Eletre is being billed as a 'Hyper SUV', emphasising its spiritual and physical association with the Evija. Secondly, the new car has been engineered to encapsulate the driving characteristics of a 'classic' Lotus, with ultra-responsive steering and throttle and an almost telepathic connection with the road.
In the meantime, you can bask in the knowledge that the Eletre has a high degree of futureproofing. All the while, those sensor packs are busy gathering information – petabytes of it – to send back to base to school the system in the ways of the world. We’ll have to wait to pass judgement on the Eletre’s autonomous skills, but right now the most impressive achievement is the creation of a credible luxury brand from almost scratch.
The Eletre S will do 373 miles and the R version 304 miles – note that these distances were achieved using the smallest wheel size , not the 23in ones shown in these photographs. Using smaller wheel design may well have negative consequences for the Eletre’s proportions; it’s telling that Lotus neither provided an example, nor had any images to hand.