Lotus Eletre

[NedaSay]

On 6/10/2017 at 10:26, C8RKH said:

@nerobi just confirms if you want a fat, sloppy, SUV then go to Porsche. If you want a lean drivers machine, go to Lotus.

Or Jaguar... in the case of a Sporty SUV. Cause the soon to be launched I-Pace is a bit of a looker inside and out 

I hope Geely can complete the purchase soon (acquiring more than the 51%), and if Lotus gets the green light from Geely on the SUV, they already know what's the new yardstick. 

I thought the F-Pace looked good, well this is one serious step above it. It is Macan sized and which means exactly the category Lotus said the SUV would be. In addition it has 400bhp, it is fully electric and is going to have all the latest bells and whistles JLR has been working on. The pics from the cabin are promising as it does not look to far removed from a full production version, it all looks like they've been hunting for unnecessary weight.

   

[C8RKH]

It must be seriously porky, I mean they've, even added three new steering wheel holes to help reduce the weight!

Does look nice though I will admit. And as an ex XJ owner I do like how Jaguar can combine a sporty ride with luxury. My XJ was an absolute dream to drive for 1000 mile round trip journeys for work....

[Vulcan Grey]

anyone see the design patent filed by Lotus for the SUV?

https://autorai.nl/lotus-suv-patentfotos/

[Bravo73]

Well, I’ve seen worse looking SUVs. 

 

(I’m looking at you, Mr Porker). 

[Vulcan Grey]

yes... that could definitely look better than my 2004 Cayenne Turbo (aka the P!G).

Though the Cayenne does have the bumps on the hood and the bumps for the front wheels and headlights that remind me of the Elise a bit when you look out the windshield.  looks better than a flat hooded SUV.  Looks like this Lotus design might have that feature as well.

[DaveC72]

Um.  I quite like it. 

I like the look of the thing and you can see the design cues from the current Lotus line up.  Petrol cap's on the "wrong" side, mind... 

Forgive my ignorance, but is it usual for a manufacturer to file a design at this stage? (I'm looking at you Nico for a sage answer on this one).

[Vulcan Grey]

Lotus filed design patents for the Europa and Evora IIRC. I can't locate them now for some reason.

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, Vulcan Grey said:

yes... that could definitely look better than my 2004 Cayenne Turbo (aka the P!G).

Though the Cayenne does have the bumps on the hood and the bumps for the front wheels and headlights that remind me of the Elise a bit when you look out the windshield.  looks better than a flat hooded SUV.  Looks like this Lotus design might have that feature as well.

Cayenne and Elise in the same sentence. Shame on you.

The Cayenne was the most fook ugly abomination of a car I had ever seen. Until Bentley came up with the Whyiayefookyouoh or whatever it is called.

[Vulcan Grey]

@C8RKH

[C8RKH]

Yup. Would take Kermit over miss piggy any time.

You can put a ring on a pig but its still a pig!

The Cayenne Turbo S is just a pug ugly total waste of metal for people with more money than sense.

You want a sports car then buy one. You want a 4x4 with luxury then get a Range Rover.

Sorry but I passionately hate the Cayenne S. It's like a BMW X6M. Just totally bloody pointless and pure chav.

But. It's a free country and we can all buy or loathe what we want. 

[NedaSay]

5 hours ago, Vulcan Grey said:

anyone see the design patent filed by Lotus for the SUV?

https://autorai.nl/lotus-suv-patentfotos/

That leak is timely. Now they just have to show the prototype at the 2018 Geneva motorshow or the Beijing Autoshow later in the year. 

These patent drawings look pretty good, It looks really distinctive from the Lynk 01 and Volvo XC40 and 60 which could provide underpinnings. t does look better than the Maccan but I may be biased. The fascia is distinctively "new" Lotus and the rear of the car in interesting. The roof line looks very low not too unlike the recently launched Jaguar E-Pace and actually based on these drawings  the comparison with the E-pace will be unavoidable, which is not that this is a bad thing.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2017 by NedaSay

[Andyww]

13 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

 

The Cayenne Turbo S is just a pug ugly total waste of metal for people with more money than sense.

You want a sports car then buy one. You want a 4x4 with luxury then get a Range Rover.

Sorry but I passionately hate the Cayenne S. It's like a BMW X6M. Just totally bloody pointless and pure chav.

But. It's a free country and we can all buy or loathe what we want. 

A few doors away from here someone broke into their house and the only thing they stole was their Cayenne Turbo S from the drive. We suspected it might have a planned job to get rid of the dreadful thing having seen the light but a few days later they bought another one to replace it! 

Cars like this are simply a total waste of the Earths precious natural resources and should be made illegal.

[NedaSay]

3 hours ago, C8RKH said:

Cayenne and Elise in the same sentence. Shame on you.

The Cayenne was the most fook ugly abomination of a car I had ever seen. Until Bentley came up with the Whyiayefookyouoh or whatever it is called.

It's called the Bentayga and I regret to say that it sells like hot cake. 

[NedaSay]

3 hours ago, Vulcan Grey said:

Lotus filed design patents for the Europa and Evora IIRC. I can't locate them now for some reason.

Europa ? a new Europa ? Interesting! And a patent design for the  future Evora is already out... That is really surprising. 

[Vulcan Grey]

25 minutes ago, NedaSay said:

Europa ? a new Europa ? Interesting! And a patent design for the  future Evora is already out... That is really surprising. 

No the previous Europa, and original evora.

 

[NedaSay]

1 minute ago, Vulcan Grey said:

No the previous Europa, and original evora.

 

^^^ I remember these there was also a Proton Europa/Lekir patent rendering ...  

[Vulcan Grey]

https://paultan.org/2005/06/12/proton-ultimate-updates/

[hedgerley]

JMGs current view post Geely takeover. From this week's Autocar.

 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

That's not an SUV, that's a Monster Truck.

By the way, whoever made those patent Lotus SUV sketches above didn't learn anything at Primary School art classes about perspective. Things look smaller, when they're further away, not bigger. Think Father Ted....

[C8RKH]

11 hours ago, NedaSay said:

It's called the Bentayga and I regret to say that it sells like hot cake. 

Regrettably, the number of people with more money than taste continues to increase. 

The spirits of the Bentley Boys must have turned in their graves when that carbunkle was born from the backside of a mutated sperm whale.

[hedgerley]

Seconded. Strolling round Cannes harbour a months ago, parked up behind the biggest, blingiest yacht were two of the monstrosities. In gold wrap with black bonnets. OMG.

[NedaSay]

more stories now blooming about the SUV rendering first show by the autovisie publication.

 

https://jalopnik.com/heres-whats-likely-the-crossover-that-will-save-lotus-1819895362

https://carnewschina.com/2017/10/26/leaked-patent-drawings-new-lotus-suv/

https://paultan.org/2017/10/26/lotus-suv-patent-drawings-leaked-what-do-you-think/

 

Paul Tan provides us with a side view with a very distinctive Evoraesque side window design a very interesting front door design

a front view pretty much inline with the Evora 400 mouth, not quite as sharp edged as the mouth of the recent Elise, Exige and Evora GT430,

 

and a rearview

Not the dual exhaust at the corners and not the center of the vehicule and the round rear lights

Edited October 27, 2017 by NedaSay

[Frickin_idiot]

Looks promising. It will be interesting to know the price point.

[Mister_Tad]

Now that looks rather excellent - I was trying to visualise something the other day and I just couldn't, but that's perfect. I can't quite figure out how they're going to make it work though. The arse has strong FF overtones, and that's amongst my favourite cars of the last decade.

I think other sports car manufacturers have gotten away with it because of a) badge appeal and b) creature comforts. I.e. The cabin of a Levante is a really *really* nice place to be and you get to tell your mates "I have a Maserati", at half the price of one of their "real" cars as a bonus.

We (royally speaking) give Lotus a pass for having an aftermarket infotainment system, using certain interior furnishings befitting of a 15yo supermini, and on-paper performance stats that aren't always up to the rest of the pack in an £80k+ Evora because of the personality of the car and the drive.  I don't see how they can give an SUV a Lotus personality, and I don't see the the market tolerating what I'm assuming to be a £50k+ SUV that ins't up to scratch inside the cabin and on paper with rivals. If you're making a car for the mass market, you need to actually satisfy the mass market, than that means things like whizzy animations in a fully digital binnacle, indicator stalks that aren't made by Fisher-Price, HP/Torque/0-60 figures that are lined up the the rest.

There's always Volvo for the interior and infotainment problem, but then there's the challenge of not ending up with what's basically an XC60 wearing sportier clothes. What happens with the drivetrain will be interesting as well - to me the S/C Toyota V6 is out (at least on its own) because mass appeals means lots of mid-range turbo-punch, but maybe some torque-fill from electrification? I don't think since Volvo standardised on 2.0 4-pots that they have any engines fitting of the Lotus badge - even if the total system power of the T8s are ~400bhp, they're just not sports SUV material IMO.

I'm not naysaying, actually quite excited about the prospect and hope it works, I just think it's going to be *really* interesting to see how it pans out.

 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I fear Lotus will be much too late to the SUV party. Too much established big-hitter competition out there already. When the owners of these cars realise that they're only getting 30-something MPG and that the only off-roading they do is parking on someone else's verge outside Amelia's school, they'll no longer be flavour of the month. This may be a controversial view, but I think they should just knock the SUV on the head before it's too late and leave that to Volvo.