Lotus, the British brand was once the talk of the town. I mean it was the brand most of us preferred in Need for Speed and also, the team that won 7 constructors titles between 1958 – 1994 in Formula 1 as Team Lotus. Apart, from the stunt that they did with a truck and F1 car, Lotus also made it spotlight again with their latest 2024 performance sedan Emeya EV. This is the brand’s re-entry attempt in the performance sedan segment, after the legendary Carlton.
Lotus Emeya – Design
The Emeya shares/borrows its design elements, whatever you call it, from the Eletre SUV. The sedan sports two sets of narrow LED headlights on each side with creases and lines on the bonnet that give the car a muscular look.
The car has a more coupe-like appearance thanks to its sloping roofline and a sporty extendable rear spoiler.
According to Ben Payne, vice-president of Lotus Design, Emeya and Eletre’s designs are the brand’s deliberate effort to restructure the brand’s image around practical EVs, rather than its heritage of building uncompromising sports cars.
“Coming on to Emeya, we want to continue that. We’re quite mindful that Lotus needs to build an identity that makes sense and we have a properly joined-up aesthetic from the sports cars to the lifestyle product, so it looks like one complete range. At the minute, obviously, that’s in mid-process.”
Ben Payne, Vice-president of Lotus Design
However, Payne wants to avoid the “cookie-cutter” styling for future Lotus models. These include the Type 134 – an “already in development” Porsche Macan EV rival and Type 135, the Electric successor of the iconic Elise.
It doesn’t stop here. The performance sedan gets aerodynamic elements, including the big grille, rear diffuser, and rear spoiler.
Lotus Emeya – Interior and features
Even though it’s a more performance-oriented sedan, there’s no lack of luxurious elements such as carbon-bodies front seats, flat-bottomed steering wheel, individual rear seats, and digital rear-view mirrors to name a few.
The EV gets an expansive 55.0-inch heads-up display, which provides key information such as directions and driver assistance system warnings. There’s also a set-up of two digital displays, for the driver and passenger and a larger central digital touchscreen with 5G connectivity.
Lotus Emeya – Performance
The Emeya is based on Lotus’s new Electric Premium Architecture, which is adaptable to various car segments as well as battery sizes, electric motors, and intelligent driving technologies. Lotus doesn’t want to compromise in performance despite building on a different structure than their sports cars, and as a result, the Emeya’s fastest variant has a dual-motor powertrain that produces 918hp and 984Nm across all 4s. The Emeya is capable of doing 0-100kph in just 2.8 seconds, making it one of the quickest sedans.
Although the range of the 102kWh battery remains disclosed, Lotus claims it to be similar to the one offered by the Eletre.
Lotus Emeya – Will it be a hit or miss?
It depends, the car has everything a performance sedan needs: power, space, design, and speed, and making it electric makes its future opportunities infinite. It just needs to be priced right and marketed right by Lotus.
The Emeya will enter production at Lotus’s plant in China next, year. The variants are expected to be similar to Eletre.
