Lotus Eletre

Going from diminutive sports cars to a posh hyper-SUV was a gamble by Lotus. Has it paid off?

The American state of Kansas has a reasonable amount in common with the English county of Norfolk. Both are predominantly agricultural provinces renowned for their flat horizons, and just as Dorothy famously departed one, so the Lotus Eletre would seem to belong an awfully long way from the other.This is Lotus’s mould-shattering electric ‘hyper-SUV’. The company used it as the fanfare and exclamation mark for the announcement of its bold new Sino-British, Geely-owned corporate era back in 2022. It manifested Lotus’s will to grow into new markets, to target new customers and to reinvent itself as a sustainable, global luxury brand. As such, in being utterly at odds with the sports cars that Lotus has spent the past seven decades making, the Eletre served its strategic purpose instantly – even if sales of this electric SUV and its Emeya saloon sibling have fallen short of expectations, to the extent the company has gone back on its all-EV pledge and announced plans for a new line of range-extender hybrids.The Eletre line-up has three main tiers: entry-level, mid-ranking S and range-topping R. All versions are dual-motor cars with the same 108kWh (usable capacity) battery and variously supercar or hypercar levels of performance but are sufficiently differentiated in their billing (and pricing) to appeal to different demographics. The standard Eletre costs around £90,000 and has a motor on each axle for 603bhp. The S asks another £15,000 for a wheel and brake upgrade, as well as active aero features and a KEF premium audio system. Up top, the £130k R adds a Volkswagen Golf R’s worth of power – courtesy of an uprated rear motor with a two-speed automatic gearbox – to take total output to a scarcely believable 906bhp and is marked out by lightweight carbonfibre body trim and four-wheel steering as standard.Both the S and the R can be had with individual rear chairs rather than a three-seat rear bench.

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