Lotus Evija hypercar on track for Australia
The world’s most powerful series production car, the all-electric Lotus Evija, remains on track for an Australian arrival, but not until 2021 at the earliest.
Lotus plans to hand-build up to 130 examples of the 1471kW/2000Nm hypercar, with 2020’s production allocation “already designated to customers around the world,” according to Lotus. It’s not been revealed how many will be built in this initial batch.
Lotus announced in February than series production and first customer deliveries would begin in the European summer, although it’s unclear how much impact the coronavirus crisis has had on timings.
Lotus Cars Australia boss Richard Gibbs said “None of 2020’s allocated build slots (for Evija) pertained to Australian prospects, but we did initially receive four expressions of interest, and those still remain current.”
No Australian deposits have been taken as yet, with Gibbs saying the car is priced from £1.7 million (before sales tax) in the UK, or roughly $3.2 million at current exchange rates. Lotus’s British website has an online car configurator for customers to bespoke build their Evija, and presumably add to the already stratospheric bill.
“We’re in very early stages of Australian compliance,” Gibbs said. “The first steps of the process have been completed, but right now compliance remains a work in progress.”
The hype surrounding the stunning-looking Evija is justified. Its name (pronounced E-vi-ya) means ‘the first in existence’ and is Lotus’ first electrified offering, and its first car developed under the stewardship of Chinese majority shareholder, Geely.
It claims a 0-100km/h time in under three seconds and 0-300km/h in under nine seconds – a Bugatti Chiron takes a leisurely 13.6-seconds for the latter – and a top speed of over 200mph (322km/h). Lotus claims it has a full battery charge capability in under 10 minutes and full EV driving range of over 400 kilometres. Battery power output’s a claimed 2000kW.
A 70kWh battery pack – developed in conjunction with Williams Advanced Engineering – is housed behind the scissor-doored Evija’s two seats, powering a 368kW-rated electric motor at each wheel.
A kerb weight of 1680kg would have Lotus founder Colin Chapman spinning in his grave, but with the Evija’s otherworldly performance capabilities even the master of weight reduction would concede this necessary evil.
Richard Gibbs hopes when current coronavirus travel restrictions ease that discussions with Australia’s prospective customers will resume. “Now’s not the greatest time as we can’t get the car to the people, or the people to the car,” he said. His ideal would be an Evija in Australia or at least the Asia-Pacific region for viewing as soon as possible.
“Everybody’s very excited by the Evija, and it’s very much a statement of capability and intent,” he said. “It’s a stunning looking car, and it’s a reasonable assumption there’ll be styling cues taken from this into (Lotus) products of the future.”
