British sports car maker, Lotus has entered the electric vehicle segment with the reveal of the new Lotus Eletre. This electric SUV features the new design language, which is inspired by the brand’s Evija hypercar. The Eletre will be the first of the three new EVs that Lotus plans to launch in the next 3-4 years. The company is developing a sports car, a coupe-sedan and a new SUV.
It is based on the brand’s new Electric Premium architecture that’s flexible to accommodate different battery sizes, motors and smart driving technologies. The Lotus Eletre is the Geely-owned brand’s second EV and features several advanced tech like camera-only side-view mirrors and a lidar sensor (laser scanning or 3D scanning) fixed to the front and rear of the roof.
The Lotus Eletre is a performance oriented Hyper Electric SUV. It is claimed to achieve 0-100kmph acceleration in less than 3 seconds. The all-wheel-drive, 5-door electric SUV comes with a battery pack of 100kWh and offers 600bhp. The company claims that it supports a 350kW charger, which will deliver 400km range in just 20 minutes. It is claimed to offer a maximum range of 600km on single charge. The EV also supports 22kW AC charging.
The Lotus Eletre features an aggressive design with forward-leaning front and a coupe-like roofline. It is the brand’s first 5-door production car and is also the most “connected” Lotus SUV ever made. The new model will be produced in China.
The new hyper SUV will be equipped with “end-to-end autonomous driving technology” and OTA software update features. It will have a self-parking capabilities. In a press released, Lotus stated that “a customer can use their smartphone app to request Eletre to drive them autonomously from a nearby parking space, and then autonomously repark once the journey ends”.
The SUV will have multiple ADAS features such as intelligent adaptive cruise control, collision mitigation support front, traffic sign recognition, rear cross traffic alert, front cross traffic alert, lane departure warning, parking emergency brake, lane change assist, etc.
