Type 130 - Lotus Evija

[ramjet]

Fair enough. I thought they may have had an idea with all the wind tunnel footage that had been shown.

[The Pits]

They do have a very good idea but they’re not releasing any numbers yet.

[PascalM]

Well, received today my copy of The Roadrat Special Edition signed by Russell Carr, Anthony Bushnell and Barney Hate.

 

Strange to see it's limited to 260 copies, while initially it was said to be limited to 130 as the Evija.

Nice drawings and still need to read the article. Almost 20 pages for Evija. Yet, my expectation was a more extensive elaboration...

 

[Dan.G]

Late to the party but wanted to comment..

Im watching the carfection review of the car as we speak. Its the first time ive seen the car.

I am really impressed, lots of innovation and looks next level. 1.7 million however.... if the badge was equal to the big boys then maybe theyd fly out the door. But that kind of money for a first attempt hyper car... hmmm.

Again, happy to be wrong, as it does look stunning

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

A little bird tells me that Lotus has so far received 20 firm (hefty) deposits on the Evija globally. So if they all get delivered in 2020, that’s about £40 million extra turnover, so equivalent to about an additional 500-600 “normal” Lotus sales. The skeleton building is still being prepared for production but there’s still time. Does anyone think they’ll get anywhere near the planned number of units?

[Stuart Monument]

I think the productions plan sounds far to many for a car at 1.7m . It’s not exclusive enough, especially as the brand sells cars from £40k ish. I hope Lotus achieves its numbers as it’s a awesome project. Turnover isn’t related to profit 

[Smapmap]

I assumed they'd sell all of them - most powerful car in the world has a lot of cache if money is no object?

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, Stuart Monument said:

Turnover isn’t related to profit 

Agreed. One is vanity, one is sanity!

I had heard they were taking a steady stream of orders.

Mine would have been for an exposed carbon weave in green with yellow highlights, but the wife wanted a new kitchen....

[The Pits]

Popham is being intentionally vague about production numbers. In the highly unlikely event that they sell 130 with ease then expect another 130 of some future variant to be announced shortly afterwards. If they sell 20 like the show car then you can expect other variants to be announced to bring the total combined number up to say 60, thereby maintaining ‘no more than 130’. They all do it, 675LT sold well so along came the 675LT Spyder, La Ferrari Aperta and so on.

I would be amazed if they have orders for as many as twenty cars, it’s also standard practice to exaggerate your hypercar’s success but good luck to them if they have. Geely certainly won’t want to write off a huge loss on the program, Lotus will  be mightily relieved if they can hit or surpass the break-even number of sales. I think this goes some way to explain the woeful neglect of the current range.

[NedaSay]

Well if the VIP sales specialist hired cannot get more than 20 cars sold, he is a bit of a waste of money. The initial run was going to be 20,  20 was and is a fairly easy target, 130 is a different ball game. if they end up with 60ish car made it will be a lukewarm success ... it will take quite a lot of spin to make that into a positive if they get to the low 80 cars then I would deem it a franc sale success. but it should sell over 20 on looks alone, the car is the best looking one out there. However they do really need to do a better job at getting the car to meet its potential buyers, the road tour did not include Russia! I believe not even more than a day in China - for now - this is nuts! 

[C8RKH]

Why don't we wait and see? Why in this internet age is every one so damn inpatient and quick to focus on the down sides of everything. The fact is, given where the company was and still is really, just to have the ambition, the wherewithall, the skill, and the vision to get the Type 130 this far is amazing.  I for one will be happy to wait and see what Lotus does with this and will then judge it a success or not based on real fact, rather than anything else.

[The Pits]

How will we ever know how many have really been sold? Every hypercar is a tremendous success according to its maker. Lotus aren’t ever going to admit to it being a failure are they?

Oldest trick in Ferrari’s book is to tell you that you can’t have one and the waiting list is 2 years. A month later the phone goes, ‘we have great news, a cancelled order has just become available here are the bank details for your deposit’.

Evija’s success will have a real bearing on future Lotus cars which will be more relevant to more people here. Those who like the way Lotus are going had better hope it’s a success.

[ramjet]

9 hours ago, C8RKH said:

Why don't we wait and see? Why in this internet age is every one so damn inpatient and quick to focus on the down sides of everything.

And here I was thinking I was the only one that thought this. 

[jonwat]

More in Autocar. 

[BC007]

Nice piece about the Evija on BBC news programme Click this morning. Available for catch up on iplayer.

Brendan

[LotusFella]

Does anyone know if the Evija will use the new glass battery technology invented be John. B. Goodenough.  Looks like it will be a game changer.

[Likuid]

Probably not, but I believe Lotus did say that they installed the batteries in a way that they could be replaced in the future if better tech came along.

[Bibs]

Takes about an hour to swap them out I believe. The battery tech is from Williams Advanced Engineering, it's the only part of the car from them. 

[electro_boy]

What about the motors and the control electronics?  Are those Lotus / Geely group developed? 

[Bibs]

All in house as I understand it, the legend that is Louis Kerr is the Principal Platform Engineer.

 

[C8RKH]

11 hours ago, Bibs said:

Takes about an hour to swap them out I believe. The battery tech is from Williams Advanced Engineering, it's the only part of the car from them. 

That's a bit of a game changer to be honest, I also recall part of the objective was that owners would be able to swap batteries on track to get more value time on the track (i.e. as one pack is being used, one is being charged). I  might have recalled that wrong.

[Bibs]

It only takes 8 minutes to fully charge, there wouldn't be much point in swapping them over. 

[C8RKH]

9 minutes ago, Bibs said:

It only takes 8 minutes to fully charge, there wouldn't be much point in swapping them over. 

8 minutes if you have a portable nuclear power station!  The charging speed is directly linked to the KW rating of the charging point and for the 18 minute charge you would need 350KW which is some going on a portable unit. (and only portable if you have a very large truck)

[Bibs]

Why would it be portable? I'm sure many race tracks will soon be installing chunky EV charging points soon, I'd imagine the 'Ring will be one of the first places as I'm sure they already have Tesla Superchargers there. 

[Techyd]

Solid state battery tech is a little way off yet, certainly promising from what I've read, but still be validated as a technology I believe?