Lotus reportedly developing $2.6M all-electric hypercar
Simplify and add batteries -- a lot of batteries.
The electric would mark a dramatic departure from Lotus' current models, like this Exige.
In recent years it seemed like the only new products from Lotus were special-edition cars, but next year we can apparently expect something much more exciting. According to Autocar, Lotus and parent company Geely will launch an all-electric hypercar "early in the next decade."
Autocar offers up few details, but says a concept of the new model -- apparently codenamed Omega -- will be revealed in 2019. Development work is reportedly already underway, with the Lotus electric car set to use an in-house-developed powertrain. The price of the car could be as high as £2 million, or about $2.6 million.
With that kind of pricing, the Lotus EV would look to compete with traditional hypercars from manufacturers such as Ferrari and McLaren . Perhaps its closest competition, however, would be the Nio EP9, an all-electric supercar that set a Nürburgring lap time of just 7 minutes, 5 seconds.
The hypercar would be the first all-electric Lotus, although the company did build a concept Evora hybrid, and the Elise platform was used for the original Tesla Roadster.
Geely, which has a 51-percent stake in Lotus and also owns Swedish automaker Volvo , has been rumored to spend as much as $2 billion to reinvent Lotus over the coming years. While today Lotus' three road cars are quite old -- the Elise, the Exige and the Evora -- the company has ambitious plans for the future. Former Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales said in early 2018 that the company would launch two new sports cars and an SUV over the coming four years.
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