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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday July 18 2019, @04:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-the-Evija dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

The first all-new Lotus in years will be a 1,971hp electric car

Depending how old you are, the name "Lotus Cars" will mean different things. For some, it's fast-but-fragile F1 cars in the 1960s and 1970s. Or perhaps it's James Bond's submarine car. Or it's the lightweight, nimble Elise, variations of which have made up the bulk of its range since 1996. Regardless of which era you identify with, throughout those decades a common thread has always been the company's precarious financial situation. But that changed in 2017, when Geely became Lotus' new corporate parent.

Geely is the Chinese company that has been responsible for Volvo's renaissance since it purchased the Swedish automaker from Ford in 2010. And ever since news of the Lotus purchase broke, we've been wondering what the boutique British brand might be able to achieve. After all, the company has never lacked ideas, particularly those involving making cars lighter or making cars handle better (often the two are related). Many industry watchers have worried that we'd be faced with a souped-up SUV, something derived from Volvo's SPA or CMA platforms. That may still come to pass; just ask Porsche whether the Cayenne was a bad idea if you're unsure.

But before that happens—and before the Elise gets redesigned for a third generation—there will be the Evija. That's the name for its new all-electric hypercar, which is to be a low-volume halo car for the rest of the brand. Its specs are eye-opening, even among this rarefied class of vehicles.

The Evija will get a carbon fiber chassis (supplied by CPC), which together with subframes weighs just 284lbs (129kg), and Lotus is aiming for an overall weight of 3,703lbs (1,680kg). The battery pack will come from Williams Advanced Engineering, a spinoff from the Formula 1 team that was responsible for the batteries that powered the first generation of Formula E racers and the batteries that will power the new Extreme E electric off-road racers. At 70kWh, you can be forgiven for thinking it's nothing special. But Lotus says the Evija's battery will have a power output of 2,000kW.


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  • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:30PM

    by epitaxial (3165) on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:30PM (#868491)

    Cars are fragile because they absorb the crash impact.

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