Lotus Group, which started out when the late Colin Chapman started out building crude contraptions for trials and hillclimbs, eventually grew into one of the world’s premier producers of ultra-light, delightfully driveable cars for both the road and the race track. It’s now a holding of Geely, the mega-volume Chinese automaker. In London, Lotus just showed a pre-production model of its all-electric Type 130 Evija hypercar, which Lotus is flatly claiming will be the most powerful production vehicle in automotive history.
Full disclosure: I’m not sure if I’m doing the math right when it comes to calculating the apparently incredible capabilities of the Evija (it’s pronounced eh-VEE-yah), which will be released as a 2020 model. The Evija gets its power from a 2,000kW battery array, which feeds current to four tiny electric motors, with torque vectoring, that are located inboard of each wheel. Here’s where it gets sticky: I found an online converter, into which I plugged the Evija’s factory-claimed output of 2,000 PS – it’s a German acronym for pferdestarke, a Siemens measurement of electrical power – and the total calculated horsepower was 1,971.8. Even if I got the arithmetic awry, this will undeniably be an incredibly fast and quick car, with Lotus promising zero to 186 MPH (300 KMH) in three seconds flat, along with a top speed somewhere on the far side of 200 MPH, 250 miles on an electrical charge, and a recharge time of just 18 minutes. Just 130 examples of the Evija will be produced, each with a retail price of 1.7 million pounds Sterling. Put down a deposit of 250,000 pounds Sterling and you’re guaranteed a spot in the queue.
Jim Donnelly On Wheels 