And you thought the SUV was brave…
By Matt Bird / Thursday, 7 September 2023 / Loading comments
Imagine reading this line as the opening sentence of a Lotus press release even half a dozen years ago: ‘Lotus has today unveiled Emeya, the company’s first four-door hyper-GT, in New York City’. In less than 20 words there’s a huge amount of ambition and intent; a new car, a new sector, a new name, and a new reveal location that isn’t Norfolk. Sometimes, as we wait for Eletres to be parked up at Ionity chargers and Evijas to slope around Sloane Square, it can be hard to fully get to grips with the scale of the firm’s electric revolution.
And there’s no time to do so either because here comes the next model on Lotus’s Chinese conveyor belt. As we knew it would, the Emeya uses the same bespoke platform as the Eletre, and is primed to enter another fiercely competitive segment. Its maker hasn’t revealed all the technical details yet, but production should kick off as early as next year.
Further information about the car is promised by the end of 2023, though there’s plenty to be encouraged by for the moment. Shall we include the design in that? These things are all subjective, of course, but for a first go at this kind of car with some established design cues to include it’s pretty smart – if even bigger than expected. For those who find a Taycan too familiar, an EQ E too bulbous and an i7 just too weird, the Emeya seems like it could be the ideal alternative.
“This is a Lotus like you have never seen before. We’ve built on everything Lotus has achieved so far to create a luxury performance car for the drivers, designed to inspire confidence, exhilarate with raw emotion and pure joy – connecting them to the road,” reckons Ben Payne, Lotus VP of Design.
Active aero here features as it does on the Eletre, the grille aiding cooling when it’s open and aerodynamics when closed. The influence of the aero features is significant enough to affect the handling, with an active front lip said to contribute to ‘great front-end feel’ plus a rear spoiler and diffuser combo working together to enhance the Emeya’s ‘For The Drivers’ handling and stability’. While for the moment it’s not entirely clear what that means, if any company is going to make a large, heavy saloon get down a road well then it’s Lotus. The chunky rear spoiler here is 280mm wide, 100mm wider than on the Eletre, with net downforce claimed at 215kg.
With the same power offerings as the Eletre – up to 905hp – the Emeya is likely to benefit from the high-speed stability. Lotus is targeting 0-62mph in 2.78 seconds and a top speed of 159mph for the most powerful model. Like the SUV, there will also be 350kW charging possible for the 102kWh battery, meaning up to 93 miles in just five minutes, and we’re told to expect a similar range. (The Eletre’s best is up to 373 miles).
Elsewhere, the Emeya benefits from a ‘race grade braking system’ to go alongside that very motorsporty spoiler, as well as electronically controlled air suspension that can read the road ahead 1,000 times a second, to deliver ‘a thrilling new standard in the GT segment for ride and handling excellence’. Again, the bar has been set pretty high with the Porsche Taycan, but that car isn’t perfect, and you can bet Lotus has been furiously benchmarking it in the development process. Improving upon its chief rival would obviously make for a pretty compelling EV.
Sustainability is never far from an EV press release, and that remains true for the Emeya. Lotus is the first car maker in the world that uses a luxury thread for upholstery that’s made by repurposing cotton scraps from the fashion industry; it will also make use of Ultrafabrics PU, and more traditional materials like aluminium, Alcantara and Nappa leather.
Although perhaps nobody will care much about materials when augmented reality has made it to a Lotus – that’s thanks to a 55-inch head-up display that provides all the information a driver needs (and potentially some they might not), including navigation, driver assistance status and performance data. Lotus says the Emeya is ‘packed with intelligent and advanced technology features’ that give drivers ‘all the necessary tools to maximise the thrills from their Lotus.’ And for less thrilling occasions, there’ll be a KEF audio system and road noise cancellation to keep things calm.
And the name? ‘The name Emeya was chosen to embody the ambition and commitment which Lotus has for this new vehicle.’ So there. It will be the flagship model above the Eletre as the brand tries to make good on its Vision80 strategy of luxury lifestyle EVs, thereby ensuring its status as a global performance brand by 2028. The global reveal has taken place at Studio Emeya in New York City with lots of notable folks invited, but is open to the public this Saturday. We don’t have a price yet; that is due before the end of the year, too. For now, you just have to decide if you’re a fan or not.
- 2022 Lotus Evija prototype | PH Review
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