RE: Lotus and Alpine team up for EV sports car

[SWoll]

ChrisCh86 said:

I'd love something to come of this, but I can't help think that this might be an impossible task. The batteries are simply too heavy.

Please prove me wrong Lotus / Alpine.

Lightweight single motor, 2 seats, low drag and plastic body should allow a 35kWh battery to provide sufficient performance and range I'd have thought?

A110 weighs 1100-1200kg and has 250-290bhp so surely something similar is achievable? Model 3 SR+ is 1600KG with 5 seats, a big boot, 50kWh and no clever materials?

Olivera said:

An EV sports car - oxymoron.

Hopefully we'll find out but with the battery low down and within the wheelbase and the instant torque/response of an electric motor it could be good fun in a different way to current ICE offerings?

Edited by SWoll on Thursday 14th January 11:20

[bobbylondonuk]

Question I have is - we all know a road going sportswear with a decent range for a sunday drive - 150-200m is achievable. But can it do a full trackday with a quick charge on arrival at the track and another charge after 5pm to get you home? if that is a yes - then we have a winner!

[RudeDog]

CharlieAlphaMike said:

I thought Lotus were all about 'adding lightness'...?

Electrons are pretty light

[Mannginger]

Oh good. I hope they can create an Evora scale platform as part of the partnership. A decent 2+2 sportscar/tourer with full EV or range assisted would be very interesting to me in a couple of years

[dgswk]

leglessAlex said:

This is one of the key bits for me, I highly doubt Lotus and Alpine are looking at releasing something imminently.

I'm not mad about the idea of an electric sports car, but it will happen, and when it does I'd be pretty happy to buy something that was a result of a collaboration between these two companies.

Sure, it probably wont be light in the way the current Elise is, but it should be lighter than whatever the competition is making at least. I think that in future car enthusiasts will just have to take whatever wins we can get.

Rather than a flat 6 howl, more instantaenous almost silent wall of torque when exiting a corner..... upsides and downsides I guess, just a different take, and I'm sure coming from a renault / lotus alliance, it will be a pretty decent steer

Added: 50kwh battery on a rapid charger trackside should do your 20-80% charge between sessions too, and then get you home if that floats your boat! I'm more of an early sunday AM blast person and 200 miles will more than get me to the Brecon Beacons and back even at 60-70 leptons.

Edited by dgswk on Thursday 14th January 11:40

[ate one too]

Playing on the anagram solver to create a new name for the joint venture.


Pollinate Us

Toenail Plus

Elation Plus

Spaniel Lout

Aliens Pluto

Opiates Null

Ale Unspoilt

Alone Tulips

Unseal Pilot

Pulsate Lion

Nuptial Sole

Ani Pollutes

Utopian Sell

Pain Sellout

Opal Utensil

A Lentil Soup

[pycraft]

rodericb said:

CharlieAlphaMike said:

I thought Lotus were all about 'adding lightness'...?

Now it'll be electric lightness.

Synthesised engine note by the Electric Lightness Orchestra.

[KJH]

SWoll said:

ChrisCh86 said:

I'd love something to come of this, but I can't help think that this might be an impossible task. The batteries are simply too heavy.

Please prove me wrong Lotus / Alpine.

Lightweight single motor, 2 seats, low drag and plastic body should allow a 35kWh battery to provide sufficient performance and range I'd have thought?

A110 weighs 1100-1200kg and has 250-290bhp so surely something similar is achievable? Model 3 SR+ is 1600KG with 5 seats, a big boot, 50kWh and no clever materials?

Olivera said:

An EV sports car - oxymoron.

Hopefully we'll find out but with the battery low down and within the wheelbase and the instant torque/response of an electric motor it could be good fun in a different way to current ICE offerings?

Edited by SWoll on Thursday 14th January 11:20

Ryan at Rywire have already shown it can be done with his S2000 with Tesla/Bolt drivetrain.

[GroundEffect]

highway said:

Are solid state batteries, which will have superior range, lighter than lithium ion?

Well the Wh/kg at the cell level is higher. So for the same energy, you can have less weight (around 20-30% from what I've seen from the latest state of the art).

What's not clear is how solid state cells need to be engineered in to a pack. Can they be discharged to the same depth? How do they swell in comparison? What is the durability/degradation over life? What is their heat-rejection requirements? etc etc all needs to be worked out to see how much benefit they might bring.

By 2025 we should see solid state cells in packs. That should hopefully bring reasonable pack-level Wh/kg and Wh/L improvements over where we are now.

[Miserablegit]

Good luck to them.

Seems a bit odd - Alpine have their platform and Renault have an EV platform but I suppose Lotus offer the high performance EV platform.

Use the current Alpine platform and drop in an EV unit with a 250 mile range. Batteries go where the fuel tank is and where the engine is. Job done.Please pay me £140m

Any other issues?

[danp]

bobbylondonuk said:

Question I have is - we all know a road going sportswear with a decent range for a sunday drive - 150-200m is achievable. But can it do a full trackday with a quick charge on arrival at the track and another charge after 5pm to get you home? if that is a yes - then we have a winner!

I’d guesstimate you’d get about 1.5 miles/kWh on track if you weren’t going too mad, so if this had a mid size battery of circa 60 kWh that’s 90 miles.

If the average track is a couple of miles long that’s 45 laps, you’d probably want to nip out at lunch to the nearest rapid charger but I’d imagine they’ll have them on site eventually.

[NDNDNDND]

I'm sure they'll produce good performance numbers.

And that'll look good on the spec sheet, which is enough for most.

[Lotobear]

Clever move by Renault - the Lotus link to chinese battery tech was probably not lost on them!

That said, call me a dinosaur, but the idea of an electric sport car Lotus or otherwise does absolutely nothing for me

[romac]

bobbylondonuk said:

Question I have is - we all know a road going sportswear with a decent range for a sunday drive - 150-200m is achievable. But can it do a full trackday with a quick charge on arrival at the track and another charge after 5pm to get you home? if that is a yes - then we have a winner!

Just pack a portable "Honda" generator with you!

[otolith]

Consider what was done with the Tesla Roadster 3.0 upgrade, which was basically a 2014 battery pack and some aerodynamic tweaks to a 2006 design loosely based on an Elise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster_(firs...

Something built now, to a clean sheet design, using the latest tech, should be some advance on that.

[CedricN]

CharlieAlphaMike said:

I thought Lotus were all about 'adding lightness'...?

Its no "adding relative ligthness" compared to others

I wonder how they think with regards to drivertrains etc, Lotus is already in the Geely group, so they should logically look at the volvo tech for batteries, motors, sensors etc. In a weird way Volvo meets Renault again, after the pretty long period of collaboration from the 80s to the 90s

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this, even though EVs arent my thing for toy cars it should end up good if these two companies does something.

[MiseryStreak]

This is fantastic news. I’ll be ready for an electric sports car by 2030, possibly before, and Lotus and Alpine are sure to deliver the best possible.

They just need to find a way of reintroducing a clutch and manual gearbox to an electric powered drivetrain. No, I’m just kidding. I’m going to hold on to an ICE car for that reason. Even if it means sitting in it in the garage and waggling the gearstick whilst making engine noises as petrol will be classified as a biohazard.

[Xfe]

EV zzz...I am not at all convinced that it's possible to make a fun EV (fun in the same way that ICE sports cars are)

[anonymous-user]

Jules Henry said:

Sounds like the final throes of the ICE lightweight sports car, I can't get my head around a light electric sports car, also with further news from Groupe Renault it's inevitable that the Alpine brand will be used on hatches, crossovers & SUV's, Alpine will just become a badge like Cupra or Abarth, Luca de Meo has form here. Fill your boots on the A110 while you still can

I agree with you. I'M OK with batteries to power e.g., S-classes, Royces, VW Buses, etc etc. In those cars, the primary appeal is luxury / quietness / space / comfort etc. In a big Merc, you hardly notice what's under the bonnet so long as you can stretch out and dictate the meeting notes while James deals with the traffic hassle and the trick camera suspension keeps your posterior insulated from the pockmarked reality of modern roads as you glide impressively past the zombie hordes of 'grotesque peasants stalking the land' [Editor: you can guess what Manchester band he likes.], pitchforks waving in vain, etc. But in a sports car, the appeal primarily is an immersive and sensory one - interactivity, adjustability, responsiveness, sounds etc. With an EV, it seems to me that you get massive torque and very little else that appeals.

[otolith]

Boring

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aY3uhARp0A

Exciting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnr3Uzgb3ns



Honestly, nobody has really had a proper crack at an electric sports car yet, there was the original Tesla Roadster and there have been some track cars like the ID-R above and Nio, there are the Evija and Rimac hypercars, but nothing you'd really call a sports car.

Let's wait and see what can be done. With ICE sports cars increasingly turbocharged four cylinder automatics, all you're going to lose with electric on the drivetrain side is a nasty soundtrack and crappy throttle response. Weight is the only real issue, and we shall see what can be done there, though weight distribution can be very good.