First Eagle Picture's?

[Boggy]

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0...

Boggy

[TonyHetherington]

ooooo

[S Works]

That's been knocking around for a while, the Proton thing isn't it?

We've all seen the Eagle already anyway.

[Boggy]

TonyHetherington said:

ooooo

Boggy

[TonyHetherington]

I know - it's been at least 4 months since you've had a new car, hasn't it! You must be getting itchy feet

[Gooby]

TonyHetherington said:

I know - it's been at least 4 months since you've had a new car, hasn't it! You must be getting itchy feet

[rfoster]

S Works said:

We've all seen the Eagle already anyway.

I haven't - not that I could afford £45k for one anyway! Still - seeing that test mule is giving me naughty thoughts about buying another Esprit...mmmm

[Gooby]

S Works said:

That's been knocking around for a while, the Proton thing isn't it?

We've all seen the Eagle already anyway.

[coff]m250[coff]?

[Boggy]

TonyHetherington said:

I know - it's been at least 4 months since you've had a new car, hasn't it! You must be getting itchy feet

The Eagle will most likely be our next car for sure, Mrs Boggy's going to sell her car and then the Exige can stay, it won't be for a few year's thou

Boggy

[Gooby]

Boggy said:

TonyHetherington said:

I know - it's been at least 4 months since you've had a new car, hasn't it! You must be getting itchy feet

The Eagle will most likely be our next car for sure, Mrs Boggy's going to sell her car and then the Exige can stay, it won't be for a few year's thou

Boggy

You are going to keep a car for a few years?

[Boggy]

Gooby said:

Boggy said:

TonyHetherington said:

I know - it's been at least 4 months since you've had a new car, hasn't it! You must be getting itchy feet

The Eagle will most likely be our next car for sure, Mrs Boggy's going to sell her car and then the Exige can stay, it won't be for a few year's thou

Boggy

You are going to keep a car for a few years?

Deffo!

Love OUR Exige

Boggy

[Gooby]

Boggy said:

Gooby said:

Boggy said:

TonyHetherington said:

I know - it's been at least 4 months since you've had a new car, hasn't it! You must be getting itchy feet

The Eagle will most likely be our next car for sure, Mrs Boggy's going to sell her car and then the Exige can stay, it won't be for a few year's thou

Boggy

You are going to keep a car for a few years?

Deffo!

Love OUR Exige

Boggy

Will anyone give me 50:1 ?

[greysquirrel]

if it looks like that im buying one!
Back looks like an aston and front a bit like a 599 - looks the mutts nuts.

[Lawrence5]

Be a launch at the July moshow next year if the Norfolk rumours are to be believed....

[AlexT]

I love the look of the PMS, but not sure if that is going to be it. Looks too stubby for a 2+2 mid somehow. If it does look like that and has L O T U S in big letters on the back I would be in the market for one for sure!

[NathanE]

greysquirrel said:

if it looks like that im buying one!
Back looks like an aston and front a bit like a 599 - looks the mutts nuts.

Doesn't have any Lotus design cues though ..

[Spunagain]

Hi All

I have a theory about this new 2+2...
When it was first announced about a year ago it was to be a front wheel drive car using a V6. The latest release says it is a mid engined car using a Toyota 3.0 V6. The other interesting point is that there will be 7 variants. Seven?

So far my guess is:

Coupé Manual
Coupé Flappy Paddle
Convertible Manual
Convertible Flappy Paddle

So where does the other 3 variants come from.. possible an S version with supercharger or come form of power boost, but what if we speculate more wildly?

Lotus have been doing loads of electric car development for the likes of Zap and Tesla and they love to use what they learn in their own models, look how they used the VX220 work to help improve the Elise S2 production quality...

Now that the Eagle is a mid engine car, the power pack and motor from the Tesla would drop straight in.

Now why would they do that you ask?

Well first of all it is in Tesla's interest to ship as many motor and battery packs as possible to leverage the cost from volume discounts. Also by shipping more batteries they can persuade the cell manufactures to optimise the design for Tesla's needs i.e. replace the steel case with an Aluminium one saving a few grams per cell which will amount to tens of kilos saved from a battery pack with 6800 batteries!

Secondly the UK market is potentially a huge one for a battery powered GT because We are now paying over £1 per litre of fuel so the fuel savings per year are real. I currently drive a Lotus Elise which does an average of 40 miles per gallon. If I drove a Tesla I would save over £1000 per year and my Elise is pretty frugal! The saving would be more like £1500 if I was comparing with a BMW Mini Cooper S!

I would also save another £200 in car tax as EVs are zero rated here.

Now the kicker, the big part of the UK market is the London area (Most of the potential customers with £50-100k to spare live around London and work in London sorry but that is the way it is IMO.) Our public transport system is frankly embarrassing so the Mayor of London has introduced a congestion charge to drive into London of £8 per day to force people to use public transport and it may go to £25 per day for gross polluters (e.g big 4x4s and sport cars and let's face it any thing with more that a 2 litre engine

Parking in London for a day costs between £20 and £35 (season ticket)!

So if I was to commute 20 miles to London each day for 46 weeks a year to get to work it would cost me in fuel parking and taxes over £7500.

The congestion charge is zero rated for EVs and many car parks allow you to park an EV for £200 per year (just an admin charge!) Not only that you can charge your EV for free.

If I commuted to London in a Tesla I could save around £40k over 5 years in fuel, parking and taxes.

Suddenly the an performance electric is no longer just a toy but a real commercial alternative to an ICE vehicle.

In the UK Lotus have a ready made dealer network that understands low volume specialist cars and remember Lotus expected to sell a total of 1600 Elises in total, and sold over 10,000 series 1 cars up to 2001 so we shouldn't underestimate the UK market for innovative sports cars!

Or is it that I an just an uber-nerd who wants a very fast electric GT car with room to drop the kits at school in

Spunagin

[Monkey boy 1]

Spunagain said:

I have a theory about this new 2+2...
When it was first announced about a year ago it was to be a front wheel drive car using a V6. The latest release says it is a mid engined car using a Toyota 3.0 V6. The other interesting point is that there will be 7 variants. Seven?

So far my guess is:

Coupé Manual
Coupé Flappy Paddle
Convertible Manual
Convertible Flappy Paddle

So where does the other 3 variants come from. possible an S version with supercharger or come form of power boost, but what if we speculate more wildly?

Ah, that's easy, the other Three to make it up to Seven variants are:
Estate / shooting brake
MPV
All Terrain 4x4 Diesel

[NathanE]

I think the prospect of an Electric Lotus isn't far off. I doubt very much if the Eagle or Esprit will have anything to with electric motors at all. But it wouldn't surprise me if Lotus' next project after these is to do with electric motors. In fact I could see the Esprit being delayed for such a project since the market is expanding so rapidly and I think by the end of 2008 will be a viable market for Lotus.

Hell they wouldn't even need to spend much - just reuse the Elise chassis, make some subtley different clamshells - hey presto

But hey, don't get too optimistic Lotus as our economy is not looking too stable long term at the moment

Edited by NathanE on Monday 19th November 20:42

[cyberface]

Sorry for being cynical, but whilst electric vehicles are nerdy, unattractive, short range, slow, and are the ultimate in anti-status symbols (can you imagine a hedge fund manager tooling around in a G-Wiz???? Yeah right) then they will remain cheap and subsidised by 'green policies'.

As soon as desirable, fast, attractive sports cars come out with electric engines (e.g. the Tesla) - I will bet £1000 that suddenly the EVs will be taxed similarly to ICE cars. It's the politics of envy, not environmentalism. Battery powered vehicles are more damaging to the environment due to the production and disposal of batteries. They shift carbon dioxide (tree food) to the power station rather than the city, but modern catalysed cars don't put out much pollution anyway.

As soon as £50k sports cars become available with electric engines, they'll be in their own 'special' tax group. Can't see it any other way.