Lotus Wants To Build A £2 Million Electric Hypercar
Lotus isn’t mixing its messages when it comes to electric power: it’s going for the very highest target it can.
A report in Autocar suggests that the Norfolk-based maker of small, petrol-powered sports cars is set to change gear entirely and reveal a £2 million, 1000bhp+ hypercar to compete with anything its larger and wealthier rivals can produce.
The car would easily be the fastest and most expensive car Lotus has ever built, using the finest, lightest materials wherever possible. It’s not known whether Lotus is sourcing an electric drivetrain from elsewhere, but the report claims that power will comes from a ‘bespoke’ all-electric setup. Next-generation battery tech may be necessary if there’s any hope of keeping weight low.
Apparently named Project Omega, a concept is due for a debut sometime in 2019. Parent company Geely is said to be keen to raise Lotus’ standing among global car makers, shifting it into a seat at the very top table of performance brands to coincide with the real take-off of the electric era.
Its only rivals at the time of writing are the Nio EP9, which lapped the Nurburgring in just 6:45.9, and the Rimac C_Two. To gain similar performance Project Omega will need to utilise all-wheel drive, multiple motors and clever torque-vectoring technology. New tyres may have to be developed in order to handle the torque of this new generation of hypercars.
Omega’s chassis will be all-new and most likely made from subframes around a carbon tub in a similar way to McLarens. With Geely’s money behind Lotus, we can’t wait to see what’s possible.
Comments
Wouldn’t it be competing with the Rimac as well as the Nio? Sounds awesome either way, lets hope it works out!
Fair point, but I don’t think they’re actually for sale at the moment. I think Rimac is in-between models, but you make a fair point and I’ll add it into the article.
Lots Of Torque Usually Sideways
This is now even more appropriate
This^^
Or..
Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious
And then they will come out with like 10 different variants of this car
10? More like 47001
The age of HotWheels is upon us!
also Lotus : Why Don’t We Make the Evora and Exiges EV?
Well, if you take a base Elise in order to keep weight down, then electrify it the BMW i3 way to still keep weight down, if you manage to have at least 100 track kilometers (or miles, I don’t know) with it, it would probably be a very interesting idea, and also a “cheap” one compared to a ICE Elise.
They did make an electric Evora a few years ago. It was just a one off but they have shown the world they can do it.
May these five be grim reminders of lotus’ future planning.
Even though they are now making good money, have a brand new facility being built and they are a manufacturer of sports cars without a Porsche badge
This will not end well…
We need to tell automakers “it’s okay to start slow.” Running before walking is exactly what’s killing a lot of these electric start-ups. It’s okay to stay slowly, base your first and maybe second car off an established production vehicle (that is where Tesla got their start. Too many companies are trying to wow us out the gate with their fantastical designs. Where did that get Aptera? Faraday and Lucid are a foot out the door as well…
Just… Start…. Slowly.
Yes, Lotus is an already existing company but this is still too much out the gate for what they are doing. There are maybe three companies that could get away with this, lotus isn’t one of them.
The Germans are starting out slow, i still remember Maserati and Jaguar spontaneously saying we’ll go full electric in the next 2 years, but both are taking it back and starting slow
Yup, Lotus. Simplify and add lightness. Now it’s complicate and add weight of batteries.
Yeah right
Lots Of Totally Unexpected Suprises