This is the Lotus Eletre, an all-electric sports SUV packing 447 kW and a claimed 0-100 kph time of under 3 seconds.

Lotus is the brand known for its light and agile sportscars. Products like the Exige and Elise have won many fans over the past decade, but its heritage stretches way further back. Lotus Esprit Turbo, anyone?

Thing is, sportscars don’t bring in the big money and carmakers have to resort to more mainstream models to fund the fun stuff. Porsche is the textbook example here, with the Macan and Cayenne offering luxury and practicality. Sales of these pay for the 911, Cayman and Boxster.

Lotus hopes to follow a similar model here and with the deep pockets offered by parent company Geely (who also owns Volvo, it may have the capital to pull it off. Impressively, the Lotus Eletre went from announcement to production reality in a short period of time, much quicker than the traditional process.

Eletre can be defined as ‘coming to life’ in some Eastern European languages and is the first model in a new chapter of electrification for the brand. There will be four EVs by 2025. Lotus claims Eletre will have the spirit of a traditional sports car but with the practicality of a crossover.

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Under the skin is the new Electric Premium Architecture platform from Lotus and the numbers make for impressive reading. There’ll be a few derivatives, but with outputs from 447 kW, it’s not going to be slow. A claim of under 3 seconds to 100 kph and a top speed of 260 kph should make this one quick machine.

The battery capacity is just over 100 kWh and it supports fast charging. A range of 600 km is claimed, and you can get 400 km of range in just 20 minutes. Other noteworthy technical elements include air suspension with active ride height adjustment, rear-axle steering and active anti-roll bars.

The cabin looks impressive and futuristic and the new Lotus Eletre will feature an augmented-reality heads-up display. There’s also a fair amount of semi-autonomous driving tech with 4 lidar sensors and cameras as side mirrors. There’s also support for over-the-air updates.

Lotus will build the Eletre at a new factory in Wuhan, China, with customers getting their cars in 2023.

Further Reading

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