Lotus has this week, introduced its first electric car and at the same time, it is its fist SUV. The fully electric Eletre will be the first of four EVs to come from Lotus by 2025 and marks the move from only producing sports cars for the historic British brand.
The Eletre is about the same size as the Lamborghini Urus, at 5102mm long, 2131mm wide and 1630mm tall. However, inside it has more space thanks to its longer wheelbase. Reason for its large size is down to where Lotus wants to sell it, it’ll be focusing on China and the US but the company has said it should have strong sales here in the UK and Europe – with a price tag of around £100,000.
The Eletre basically has the market to itself at this stage, aside from the Tesla Model X – there are not many fully electric, performance focused large SUVs out there.
Lotus is owned by Chinese company Geely, which also owns Volvo and Polestar. However, despite this the Eletre isn’t built on an existing Geely platform – instead Lotus has been given the freedom to create its own, bespoke platform for the Eletre.
Every version of the Eletre will have around a battery with 100kWh, 592bhp and a range of 348 miles. Around the car, there are no door mirrors, instead it uses cameras to provide a wide angle of coverage and also help with the assistance systems.
The new Eletre won’t be built here in the UK, instead being built in a new Lotus factory in Wuhan, China. Customer deliveries are due to start in 2023 with prices from around £100,000.
