NEW Lotus Eletre Review: Absurd Idea Or Game Changer? | 4K

simplify then add lightness the world famous quote by Colin Chapman the founder of Lotus Cars The Motto that the company lived by religiously helping them create some of the finest most lightweight sports cars on the planet but oh how times have changed this is the new Lotus Electra which is both incredibly complicated and enormously heavy it’s also not a sports car but rather a full-sized SUV designed to go up against the likes of the Tesla Model X Mercedes eqs SUV and BMW IX strange yes but Lotus has no choice but to make it this is the car that’s going to help the brand powered by its new Chinese owners geely return to profitability and relevance on the new Automotive landscape we’ve already shown you this car as aesthetic display in the studio a little while back and I’ll be honest with 

you at the time I didn’t think it seemed real here it is in the flesh we’ve come out to Norway to drive the thing and I can confirm it is very much real and it is very very nice [Music] thinking about it it honestly does make sense without this car and without gili’s investment we’d be left with a bunch of special edition sports cars that we’ve seen a thousand times before and no one would actually want to buy so what’s the story underneath this most strange of lotuses in terms of Core specs the electro will come in three versions all of which use the same 112 kilowatt-hour battery the basic Electra will cost 89 000 pounds this yellow Electra s which I’m driving on the street costs 104 000 pounds and will do the same 373 miles on a full charge but there’s also a top spec 120 000 pound Electra r [Music] and this is it now this bad boy also has two Motors and has access to an astonishing 905 horsepower now I don’t know about you but I want to see how that feels I have access to an empty Runway so let’s use it we are in track mode left foot break launch mode activated are you ready let’s do this oh nicely off the line come 

on 70 80 100 20 150 wow nicely done God it’s like a bullet so it’s incredibly fast in a straight line but how does it perform in the corners to find out we took it on lotus’s special handling course it is very responsive and agile and it handled so well the grip was surprisingly good and very confident inspiring especially considering these super wet conditions and thanks to its rear wheel steering understeer is not a problem it’s a different beast from lotuses of old but it’s impressive how easily it disguises its weight fast even faster in the corners let’s take a closer look shall we so often these new electric cars just look so boring but this has got so much going on it looks really Dynamic you’ll notice there are lots of cuts 

NEW Lotus Eletre Review: Absurd Idea Or Game Changer? | 4K

and vents which all serve an aerodynamic purpose through here for example air can travel up and over the Bonnet you’ve got active air vents specifically to cool the battery and the motor and this large cut out air vent here so air can travel up over the wheel Arch and along the side of the car these are 22 inch wheels Wing cameras which I’ll tell you more about shortly pop out door handles again for Aero in these rear pillars you have cut outs once again for aerodynamics these very funky winglets which actually raise up and down on the Electra s a nice boot lid spoiler very cool lighting strip and again these massive cutouts for aerodynamics and the side that you can actually see through it’s a very cool looking car all of that helps the Electra achieve a drag coefficient of 0.26 making it one of the most Aero efficient SUVs on the planet not quite as impressive as a model X with 0.25 but not far off in terms of practicality the boot is a healthy 611 liters in the four-seater version or 688 liters if you opt the five-seater that’s a lot more than in the eqs SUV and BMW IX unlike those cars you also get additional storage up front though it’s only large enough for a charging cable or other small items inside is really impressive the dashboard is designed to look like the rear wing with a cut out section in the middle as a nod to weight saving there’s this blade of light that spans the width of the car that will change color if 

you have a phone call of the batteries running low or simply if you want to change the color theme of the car the seats are very comfortable they even have a nice massage feature which is always a win from me and it just all feels very high quality it’s much better than any other Lotus that we’ve seen and I would say it’s on a par with if not better than the likes of Mercedes and BMW the steering wheel has a very nice feel to it has some physical shortcut buttons on it on the right side you’ve got a paddle that changes the drive mode on the left you can change the level of regen it’s not quite a circle but you get used to that pretty quickly the screens are very interesting so there are three screens across the width of the car there’s one very small one which gives you very basic information behind the wheel for the driver on the passenger side again a very small one which essentially tells you about the music that you’re listening to in the center you have this 15 inch infotainment screen which is pretty responsive the only problem is that you control literally everything through the screen including the climate controls so it can get a little bit overwhelming despite the fact that you have some physical buttons down below then those Wing cameras that I mentioned earlier the display is on the inside of the door it looks very 

cool but it takes a little while to get used to [Music] there are two cup holders on the center console which have pop-up inserts to make them look neater the door bins are absolutely enormous there’s an ample sized glove box a wireless charging map for your phone and a large Central bin with USB and 12 volts of power as for the rear there are a choice of two seats three seat bench or two sports seats that match the ones in the front these are heated they recline and in two-seater models you get extra storage in the center storage in the back a drawer between the seats and a pop-up tablet for controlling various features like media seats and aircon as for the seats themselves there’s very good leg room good knee room and plenty of room for your feet so what’s it like to drive well all versions have active air suspension so you can change the drive mode depending on your preferred taste but no matter what mode it’s in it always feels refined and composed the steering is super light so despite the fact that it’s a big car it still feels really agile which makes it really fun to drive saying that it’s electrically assisted so it’s not as good as the hydraulic steering you get in Lotus sports cars sound wise it is pretty quiet but 

you can definitely hear more road noise than you probably would be able to in other luxury electric vehicles speaking of sound though this does have the kef premium audio sound system which has 23 speakers and nearly 1 400 watts of power it is Mega the brakes feel strong and because you can choose your level of regen easily using the paddle on the steering wheel you can go from full one pedal driving or you can ease it off if you don’t want it the lecturer is quite Nimble on the road too with a tight turning Circle that helps it feel smaller than it is making it easy to drive like all modern SUVs it comes with a suite of driver assistance systems including automatic cruise control collision avoidance and it will even warn you if you leave your kid inside Lotus has even made the Electra ready for self-driving with a total of 34 sensors that gives the car a 360 view of the world around it this should give it even more autonomy than a Tesla with up to level 4 autonomy although this wasn’t ready for us to test all cars come with a 112 kilowatt-hour battery which gives you around 373 miles of range I guess the question is is that good enough for a family car I think it probably is let’s say you’re doing 70 miles an hour that will give you five hours worth of range which honestly you’re unlikely to be doing that often in one day 

especially with children in the back in real world driving obviously my economy figures are a little different as is the norm I managed 2.4 miles per kilowatt hour on a mixture of roads which works out to around 270 miles of range 100 short but still on par with the competition the car will recharge extremely quickly at up to 350 kilowatts meaning 10 to 80 percent is possible in 20 minutes right is it a proper Lotus well no but that’s no bad thing let’s face it people simply don’t want proper lotuses anymore this is what people want this is where the money is and that’s what Lotus have delivered and credit to them no it’s not a sports car but it is fun in its own special way the fact that it has up to 900 horsepower and can do not to 62 quicker than most petrol-powered Lotus that came before it is a reminder of this car’s performance credentials but honestly the most impressive thing about it is the stuff that’s not related to Performance but to luxury and quality this might be lotus’s first attempt at making an SUV but it’s knocked it out of the park they finally built a Lotus that the masses will want to buy and if that success allows them to build yet more sports cars then all the better thank you [Music]