A Lotus Eletre in five days | PH Footnote
The Theory 1 shows what's coming for Lotus - but there's plenty to like about right now, too
MONDAY
I’m genuinely excited for the Eletre to arrive. Where an iX features recognisable BMW traits and the e-tron Audis are immediately familiar, this is my first experience of new, electric Lotus. And it’s immediately, pleasingly: there’d be no mistaking a Solar Yellow Eletre R in any situation, and while I’m still not sure I adore the looks, there’s a lot to appreciate. The paintwork is absolutely beautiful, the quality of the interior fixtures and fittings first rate, and the sense of occasion considerable. From nowhere, Lotus has created one of the best SUV interiors out there. You can’t help but sit and drink it all in, the expensive materials, crisp displays and clever features. It’s cavernous inside also (as might rightly be expected given the dimensions), and even if the dolphin grey leather wouldn’t be first choice, it feels so plush. As a Lotus Driving Academy demo it was clear a few people had been rolling over the bolsters, though the overall impression is very positive. The Emira was an encouraging start to Lotus interiors going forward - this is fantastic.
Foolishly, I’d suggested to Lotus not to worry too much about charge as there’s a local rapid charger, but it didn’t take long to realise that juicing the Eletre would be an expensive endeavour. The trip computer showed 40.2kWh per 100 miles (trust Lotus to use a weird metric) for the journey to me, or 2.49mi/kWh. Nothing special, though maybe not bad for the power and weight. For the 2,310 miles since the trip was last reset (and probably with a few Hethel hot laps), the score was 51.1kWh/100mi, or 1.95mi/kWh. That’s against an official WLTP score of 2.2mi/kWh. You don’t want to get bogged down in the stats when something this suave arrives, but even with a chunky battery - 111.9kWh, 109kWh usable - a couple of miles per kilowatt hour isn’t even going to get you 220 miles. Add all that to an 87p/kWh charge at my local BP Pulse and a reasonable 20-odd minute fill up (drawing up to 174kW from a 150kW charger) for an extra half a tank (59.29kWh) is basically £50. That’s for a hundred miles or so at current consumption. Yikes. I know most folk will charge from home, but it feels worth pointing out.
TUESDAY
Time for a proper drive. Which must begin, of course, with turning off the lane keep. It becomes near enough essential in the Eletre every journey; because it’s so large, it almost always thinks you’re at a boundary and makes an annoying correction. Or on smaller roads, it heaves you from what it reckons is too close to the hedgerow, only to carry on pulling the car across the road because there isn’t a white line. Not the only car to do it, just especially noticeable when it’s one of this stature. The autonomous emergency braking is paranoid, too, so that goes off.
Having both drive modes and regen settings on steering wheel paddles is a really elegant solution, and encourages the use of both. Oddly given there are five regen settings there isn’t one for just one pedal drive, but you soon learn to adjust and the settings are well calibrated. The brake pedal itself is pretty good without being great, actually more confidence inspiring once into the travel - all the more reason to use regen as much as possible.
Tour is the default drive setting, and feels most appropriate; like so many of these things, there isn’t a sports car buried in there however aggressive the mode (or the marketing) is. Track is tense without being a whole lot more engaging; with tyres up to 45psi on the 22-inch wheels, smaller intrusions always make their impact known. Timed right, the way the rear axle could fire the Eletre from a bend was pretty extraordinary; Sport never seemed like it could deploy the tech with such effectiveness (nor could Individual with everything to its max) though was used more frequently given the agreeable side to its ride. And the fact that Track would see the range plummet.
Despite the power, Tour just seems to suit best, the Eletre ideally suited to a more relaxed driving style. This isn’t something that rewards scruff of the neck driving - nothing of this ilk really does. The four-wheel steer is very nicely integrated, with good weight and speed to the wheel, the management of the considerable mass is pretty good, and throttle response is such that all that power can be metered out precisely. So you drive it accordingly, briskly and without forcing the issue too much. One launch control start was painful; another was a little scary, truth be told. It doesn’t take long to realise this doesn’t need more than 900hp. About half would be just fine.
WEDNESDAY
Time for a dog walk and a bit more exploring. As with the rest of the car, the Eletre’s boot is gigantic and, truth be told, probably a bit too lavish for a hound. The parcel shelf is like a piece of furniture. But once over a high load lip he seemed more than happy. As was I, enjoying how solid and premium the Eletre felt, how the KEF stereo made every drive feel like a concert, how it garnered attention and interest from just about everybody - dog walkers included. Many thought the Lotus badge was some kind of mistake, but were definitely intrigued by the huge yellow thing, particularly the various scoops and slats designed to better manage the air around a sizable car. Still can’t really improve on 2mi/kWh, though, and sometimes it’s less than that.
A word of warning to any Eletre owners heading on an adventure (or just a dog walk): the key is a beautiful triangular pebble, and feels great to hold. But a keyring can’t be attached to it so say, for instance, you get your phone from the same pocket as the pebble and it drops to the floor, you won’t hear it land. And then you’ll have to find it in a field. Not fun. Keep it safe!
THURSDAY
Another day, another charge, here at the excellent Podium Place cafe. VendElectric was a new app for me, but a little bit of prep - do the registration and card details on home wi-fi, not on mobile data - makes the process simple. Shame it’s still so pricey, at 85p/kWh. I spent £19.83 to get just over 23kWh back into the battery from their 50kW charger, so nearly 20 per cent of the battery, but only 40 predicted miles added. That would mean almost £100 a fill, and not very far either. Told you Track mode hurt it. I know it’s not a new thing, but it hardly encourages people to use public charging.
My girlfriend and I go shopping and for lunch - the Eletre is perfectly suited to the task. It’s just such a lovely place to while away the miles from, the interior brimming with rich details like the design of the speakers and the passenger display touchscreen that can change track or radio station. Lotus has even made cameras and screens for mirrors work, a feature that foxed both Audi and Honda. It’s refined (though such huge tyres do mean a bit of road noise), it’s fast, it’s luxurious and it’s nice to drive. Albeit while using lots of energy. The Eletre makes these sorts of journeys a breeze. If only parking could be so easy and enjoyable; there really isn’t a space it doesn’t overfill.
FRIDAY
A bit more confident with the Eletre’s size and performance now (it takes a little while), I take one last opportunity to drive it for the sake of it. Which sounds like a recipe for a disaster, though it only proves earlier suspicions - the Eletre R hasn’t transformed what we can expect from fast, electric SUVs. While always accurate and precise enough, it never feels anything less than very large and quite heavy; there’s not a lot to be done about cornering too fast, so much better to enter slowly then slingshot out the other side. The way that the tyres can fight for purchase when deploying a little too much power is unnerving. It probably should be more efficient, too.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed spending time with the Eletre. It would have been nice for the bold new era to begin with something a little less massive and profligate, perhaps a Macan rival rather than a Cayenne one, but there’s no doubt that lots of this is done well. The Lotus SUV drives really nicely (when not trying too hard), is beautifully built and makes all of its occupants feel very special indeed. Which is exactly what six figure EV GTs of any shape should be doing. While an R, much like the iX M60 and the EQE SUV 53, feels OTT in every sense, there remains a lot of appeal in the base package. That the giant EV SUV from Lotus feels so good bodes very well for future products, and its competitiveness in a comparison test in standard or S format.
One final thing on that key, too. If a ‘low battery’ warning light comes up on the dash, get it seen to ASAP. By Friday our car wouldn’t open, so I can’t give you a final rundown of efficiency stats (when the car was collected with the spare, I wasn’t around.) It also meant borrowing a car seat to get my son from nursery, which was far from ideal. Like I said, an eventful (and insightful) week, one way or another. But with a pretty positive impression left; the next Lotus EV, be it Eletre, Emeya, or something else, will be very gratefully received. Best get a home charger installed…
If you are reliant on public charging though... my back of an envelope workings shows that assuming the WLTP 2.2m/kwh its the equivalent of driving a petrol car doing 15 mpg.
In contrast, if you can charge at home at the price cap 22.4p/kwh its the equivalent of 60mpg (or 50 even at 1.8m/kwh). This seems a huge disparity, but I guess the public charging cos have to recoup their investment.
I guess it still works out massively cheaper in the round if you only need to use a pricey charger from time to time.
When home charging it's less of an issue that a car such as this Lotus is so ineffecient, but when you're paying literally ten times as much to charge out on the road, it's seriously painful.
The variation in efficiency between EVs can be rather large too - my Model 3 is about as fast as this Lotus, but uses roughly half of the energy to complete the same distance. Yeah, of course the Eletre is much bigger and heavier, but a BMW X5 M doesn't use twice the fuel of an M3, for example.
The Eletre is the only car in 8 years he's not changed after 6 months and the only EV he's actually enjoyed driving. They have a Cayenne Turbo S and Bentley CGT in the garage as well, and he'll happily walk past those to use the Lotus.
Yes, the car beards will moan ad nauseum about it not being a proper Lotus, not being a proper car...etc etc, but as a car in the modern world, in it's corner of the market, it is, it would seem, an incredible option.
I’ve only seen one on the wild. Looked like a Kia but not as nice.
An old EV runaround won't matter, but there'll be no reason to even look at this when there'll be stuff that's lighter with far more range and efficiency.
Seems like it's butting up against current limitations and expecting people to lump it. For the price, I wouldn't.
Don't really give a toss about about the actual marque.
Seen a few about tho. I think they are nice looking. I've seen some pretty reasonable lease deals too which must be using a very high final value vs. what we are seeing in the market at the moment.
This vehicle is an abomination.
Much as I'm a fan of EVs (owned Leafs for 7 years), manufacturers have gone down some very, very wrong roads in their development, trying to make them fit with the fashion for unnecessarily colossal and consumptive SUV style vehicles. This was a real opportunity for the world to get away from that paradigm, and re-imagine personal transport as light and efficient. I can't express how disappointed I am that this doesn't seem to be the case and we end up with horrors like this.
All that aside, it looks pretty good for what it is, which is something that I am not a fan of anyway, and that it's genuinely a joy to use and be in due to it's high quality interior and driving manners should put it good stead against it's competition. Whilst Lotus may now be owned by Geely? It's still designed by Lotus so they deserve credit for designing/creating something so competitive at their first try, first EV and large luxury SUV.
I think EVs are the future, but this current generation of massively heavy lumps are fairly ludicrous and if the solid state thing finally arrives in a few years they're going to look pretty laughable.
Might be academic. I don't think these things are selling well, they've arrived just as EV sentiment is taking a dip, the shine has come off the Emira (was always a tarted up Evora) and it's probably a fair question as to how long Geely will be willing to bankroll the whole thing.
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