Enlarge / Lotus has developed a new architecture for electric vehicles. The second EV to use this new architecture will be this, the Emeya four-door GT, which follows the Eletre SUV, released earlier this year. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)
NEW YORK—After languishing with a lack of serious investment for decades, Lotus Cars is now starting to show the results of its 2017 acquisition by Geely. After building a low-volume electric hypercar and then its last gasoline-powered sportscar, it debuted an all-new electric vehicle, an SUV called the Eletre. And next year another new EV goes into production, a new four-door GT called the Emeya that uses the same Electric Premium Architecture platform as that SUV.
Despite sharing a corporate parent and a very similar design brief, the Lotus Emeya is unrelated to the Polestar 5 four-door GT that we rode in a few weeks ago. Both cars clearly target the Porsche Taycan, offering high power outputs, very rapid charging, and an engaging driving experience. But there's nothing shared between the Polestar and the Lotus, which, unlike the Polestar 5, uses a more conventional chassis construction that's a mix of different strength steels and aluminum.
"This is a Lotus like you've never seen before," said Lotus Group Vice President of Design Ben Payne. "We've built on everything Lotus has achieved so far, creating a luxury performance car for the drivers, designed to inspire confidence, exhilarate with raw emotion and pure joy—connecting them to the road."