Lotus Evija EXCLUSIVE First Drive: fully electric hypercar prototype track tested | Top Gear

okay let's stop here for a bit, got a front of me and see what this car can do, you don't need to bother with launch control, just stay there, holy, oh my gosh, that's fast, oh my gosh. Because there are no

gear

changes, the thrust is completely relentless and feels naturally aspirated, the acceleration actually increases the faster you go, so that's our answer to the

first

question, isn't it the charge that survives fast ? Yes it is and this is a the

prototype

is only running at 70 75 of its maximum power, there is more to come, this is the

lotus

avaya, the

first

electric

car from

lotus

and one of a trident of

electric

hypercar

s arriving this year ; the others are the closely related rimac c2 and pininfarina batista in finish.

Of the 130 examples they will cost 2.4 million pounds each, but Lotus promises 1972 brake horsepower, not 62 in less than three seconds, nothing at 124 miles per hour in six seconds and perhaps most surprising of all is that it will go from 124 to 186 miles per hour. hour in half the time it takes a bugatti chiron, but those target numbers are for today. We are the first in the world to get behind the wheel of a

prototype

and experience this extraordinary machine first-hand before customers take delivery of their cars later this year or early. Next, yes, this is a prototype, which means it comes with certain limitations.

Power is limited to just 1,600 brake horsepower and we get just 1,250 pound-feet of torque. I think we probably won't hit 62 on this prototype. The maximum speed is 3.3 seconds. with a limit of 140 miles per hour and then you get to the safety system, so we don't have esc, we don't have traction control, we don't have active aerodynamics, we don't have torque vectoring on, we still just have I have an abs system very basic so I need to keep my width and as you can probably see the interior is not finished yet but it doesn't matter because today we are at the Lotus test

track

in Hethel and sewing leather and infotainment screens that can wait . one more day, we're here to find out what this car is like to

drive

, how it moves, can an electric car ever really feel like a lotus, the elephant in the room then, its weight. finesse, precision and feel far above sledgehammer performance, but the Avaya seems to have gone the other way, so what Lotus has done in a bid to make it the lightest car in its class is equip it with a 69 kilowatt hours which is a smaller battery than yours. getting a high spec vw id3 is much smaller than the 120 kilowatt hour battery you get in a rimac c2 and much smaller than the supposed 200 kilowatt hour battery that elon musk wants to install in the tesla roadster if that car ever comes to pass Of course, now the decision is logical.

Lotus' priorities are handling and agility as they have always been, but it's a decision that comes with obvious drawbacks when you have a car that's this fast. Nowadays we have to plan our entire schedule around the fact that in a single charge it will only go 15 laps at full speed, about 30 miles or will last about an hour, if we keep the speeds low it will eventually be able to make a charge. completes in 18 minutes, but it all depends on having a 350 kilowatt charger. in the pit lane of your local

track

pad, but on the other hand it only weighs 1680 kilograms, which is about the same as a new 911 turbo, so when you start moving the car it really starts to come to life, there's actually a bit of There's body roll here, something I wasn't expecting, but the car has a beautiful natural balance, it feels like all four tires are working evenly and a big part of that is down to the fact that Lotus made the decision not to put the batteries under the floor, where most electric cars put them, but to leave the stack behind us, so it has a more traditional mid-engine handling balance and corners very well, who knows, after Anyway, there might be a little bit of lotus DNA here, so the direction, um. always so crucial in a lotus, they always do it very well and it's the only thing that worried me a little with the avaya, but they have it absolutely great, it weighs wonder

fully

in the corners.

I really know what those front tires are. making a plus in the brakes, yes, so when this car is in its full production version, you will have several driving modes, city tour, sport and track and, as you enter the more extreme modes, it will be pure Friction pad on the disc at the bottom. modes, for starters it will be regeneration, that's bleeding in friction, we have full friction today and they feel great, like a lotus is easy to modulate, I know what's going on under me again, one star for that, so we have quad engines four engines two on the front axle two on the rear axle for four wheel

drive

at the moment the torque split is 25 front 75 rear, so in the wet it feels very leaning back and wants to oversteer.

I was hoping to tell you about this. very neutral feel, there's tons of grip despite having quite modest 265 wide front tires, but here we go, look, I just tickled the accelerator and with all that torque it wants to go sideways when we're unleashed on the finish. It's going to be a lot of fun and when it's not raining it's going to be a lot of smoke too, oh my gosh, but here's the funny thing: I've been driving this car for I don't know an hour or so and to begin with, it was a little overwhelming, don't get me wrong, this Car is fast, appropriately fast, but now I'm used to the spectacle.

I've recalibrated my brain and I actually wouldn't mind that extra 400 horsepower the Lotus has. I went into the locker, bring it in, but the only thing I'll notice is that I always have my eye on that annoying little range bar down there and actually, yeah, actually, we're at uh, we're at 15, it's probably time for a load again now if you're wondering why this car looks like a prop from the tron ​​legacy set that's because it was designed by us at top

gear

magazine well not the actual car but the wrap see , we have named it ours. to see it at the 2021 top gear electric awards, so lotus let us loose with the crayons to create a cover star for our amazing glow in the dark electric awards magazine and if you haven't bought one yet, do so immediately.

You join us in a place that has a pretty special place in Lotus history, this building here is called factory three, much like the special operations department, it's where they will build the avaya, but in the past it's where I also built the vx-220 and the lotus box and we are here inside this inspection tunnel because it is better to inspect the design of the lotus evaya and it is a beautiful and beautiful car, some of the panels are a little worn in this case because it is a prototype of pre-production, but you can see the shape in all its glory.

I love the nose, just low, simple and flat. We have selected the most characteristic lines with this reflective green tape with our top team livery and you. You'll notice there's no steep angle in sight, they all flow along the side of the car with these beautiful organic shapes and not only have they stuck in arrowheads here and there, cuts in the wing vents, no, the arrow is does taking tips. away, so you have these huge venturi tunnels that run up the side of the car and help the rear diffuser do its best work and create all those dips.

You get a pop-up rear spoiler, but other than that, you get this. unbroken flowing shape and is absolutely beautiful to me is proof that you can use the classic proportions of a mid-engine supercar but still produce something that is interesting and different and this shape will not be unique either. There's plenty more to come from Lotus, including a new combustion engine sports car due to launch this summer and there's also a new boss in the hot seat, Matt Windall, previously head of engineering, is now the new CEO and we caught up with him to find out what his plans are, so, Matt, thank you.

Much to bring us down and congratulations on the new job. Thank you so much. How long have they been? Two months. A few months. Yes that's fine. First let's solve the really important questions. What do you think of the top? gear rap ah this is excellent this takes me back to my childhood because tron ​​was the first movie I saw in the cinema. It's amazing, I can't wait to see the cover photo too, so anyway, Violet is out. Today at the track, I came here with the big question in my head: can an electric car really be a lotus?

I feel like we've been there for about an hour. I already answered that it really handles wonder

fully

. My big question is. This is very much a prototype. When do customers get their first cars? Unfortunately, not as soon as we hoped. As we know, with the pandemic in which we are all involved, we actually have to do many of these tests abroad. High speed testing. uh, Apple testing has to be done in Germany, stuff like that and we just can't get the cars there right now. We're hoping to do it this year as restrictions ease with the virus there, so our plan is to be in production this year and then we'll get deliveries to customers as soon as we can after that, okay, what's up?

What is the schedule? Is there another prototype stage after this? Yeah, these are VPs, so the validation prototypes then we do a tt, so that's where we call that tool in test, so it's going to be all the pieces of the production tools that are actually already there anyway, so it's only then adjust those tools to be suitable for quality, um, we'll do that later. year, so we are refining the production specifications and the problem with this is that they will all be quite unique, so each one will be quite individual to the customers, so we will develop them. as we move forward, but we're talking today in the track production room, it's ready to go, we'll just build the prototypes here that way, we'll get manufacturing and technical working closely together, so that when we get into the production phase is just an easy handover and they are ready to go, in a nutshell Avaya, so you know this project was going on before you became a doctor, but of course, you are also working on it, it's a halo car Obviously, just give us the kind of elevator pitch about why you're doing Avaya, yeah, what we wanted to do was when we started with our vision 80 plan, as we call it, which is our 10-year strategic plan at the beginning.

We realized that we needed to do something that could show that Lotus is what the brand is. And I've said it before; We were pretty agnostic about the powertrain at the time; However, we realized that the opportunities were electric and how great we could match them. to the aesthetics and then what we could do with the weight, very soon it became a lotus for us. I think you've seen that today with the dynamics you know the inputs are the same and the exits in the corners you can still see that it feels like driving. a lotto and we knew with the product plan that we were going to move to electrification, everyone would have to do it with legislation, so this was another great halo product to get us started on that journey, so before we move on to the Complete electrification, what's next? so it's type 131, what can you tell me about that?

When when will it arrive? Give me all the information you can. So the type 131 is a next generation sports car. Now we have announced the end of our existence. All the launches and demands served us fantastically well for the years they are, but we have to move forward so that the type 131 is a sports car that is to a large extent the continuation of those in the range, the same dynamics, the same performance, the same feeling, but much more. more usable on a daily basis much more comfort new electronics so it's practically a new car from scratch.

I'm very excited about it. It's great to start with. When can we see it? June this July 6th. July 6th. So there we go, there will be more news later this month, on April 27th, when we will name it and then on July 6th it will be the public exhibition and then we will be at Goodwood, on July 8th, the dynamic exhibitions and then . That's when people will be able to get closer to the cars and if all goes well we'll see a big jump in volumes for you guys, 1500 cars a year right now and what's the goal with the yes etc.

I just received them and we showed them very quickly the new production facility, so once again it's another new factory that we are setting up in an automated paint shop. We need to improve the quality. We need to set a new quality target for Lotus and we have the ambition to be on par with the majors.OEMs, but we also have volume aspirations and that starts with the type 131. We will peak at around 5,000 a year in a single shift if they sell like hot cakes. I hope that we can make another change and we can increase that volume so that it is at least three times the volume jump for us and that is where we need to get to as the volume of the brand gives you income that then allows you to reinvest in the product to that we can continue making sports cars sports cars yes, we see in the cars that we love um, so one write one by one the last combustion engine car that you will ever make um so what comes after that?

What are sedan SUVs where is where where is the At the end of the Lotus brand, we will enter new markets and new segments. I won't go into detail about that today, but they will remain at the core of Lotus, whether it's their design, engineering, attributes, the driver feels that we want to keep them there. You said with this that it is the heaviest car Lotus has ever produced, but it is still the lightest in its class in some ways, it weighs 16,1700 kilos and that is what we will always do. You know, those core DNA elements for us around light weight and dynamics and handling of you, people say well, how could you do that in a different product?

But I think we've proven that here, as long as you keep those basic principles and, uh, the one thing that I love to talk about here. This is the dash beam that is structural but it also carries the HVAC components and supports the steering column so it does two or three jobs and that's when we get excited and just generally to wrap up where do you want to take it? The brand Where do you see the brand in 10 years in terms of volume? Awareness of market positioning. The type of range of cars you are going to produce.

Are there brands you think you know? I want to be where Ferrari or Porsche is. or others, yes, I am very careful not to compare ourselves to other brands because I think Lotus has always been quite individual and we will do our own thing, but the goal is that we are going to have to be a global company, we will have global manufacturing facilities, we already have global engineering and design facilities that are within the lotus business, but also with our sister companies that, under Julie's umbrella, we have the investment only in lotus throughout the year.

The next 10 years will be measured in billions, not hundreds of millions, billions, so the range of products that will emerge from that and the investment in facilities is enormous and that's where we're going. You know we want to be, we want to talk about it. tens of thousands of cars in the future instead of where we are, you know, 1500 cars, we have a lot to do, we have to grow our brand, we have to grow our retail strategy, we have to, we have, we are changing everything and we've done, we've done the things that maybe aren't as sexy, we've done high voltage rings, we've done that, the systems process all that stuff, now you're going to start seeing the products that I've seen this and experienced it today , you only have three months, you'll see write one by one and then towards the end of the year there will also be more news about what's coming next, it's all about the products. at top speed so thank you for having us, it sounds tremendously exciting and I'm sure we'll catch up very soon, yes it's an absolute pleasure to have you here and I'm glad you enjoyed the car.