The Weight of the Lotus Ethos City Car. WTF!
The Weight of the Lotus Ethos City Car. WTF!
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ESOG

Original Poster:

1,705 posts

178 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
I am on Lotus Cars.com right now reading about the Ethos City Car. They seem to be bragging about the weight and technology they use when they stated the weight of it being 1400kg. Being from the US I had to look up how many lbs 1400kg is. 3080lbs! Am I crazy in thinking that number insane for a car smaller than a Smart car and from an engineering company that is known for light weight vehicles?!? A 4 cylinder Esprit is under 3,000lbs!

From Lotuscars.com: http://www.lotuscars.com/us/our-cars/concept-cars/...

(on a side note, I really like the newly designed website!)

"With a total vehicle weight of less than 1400 kg and 240 Nm of torque instantly available, the Lotus City Car concept has class leading acceleration; 0 - 50 km/h in only 4.5 seconds and 0 - 100 km/h in 9 seconds, when operating as an EV under battery power. The top speed of the Lotus City Car concept is 170 km/h, with a charge sustaining top speed of 120 km/h and all this performance is achieved by a drivetrain that returns CO2 emissions of 60 g/km on the ECE-R101 test schedule."


mat777

10,693 posts

180 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
The key word there is batteries. The expensive, heavy, massively polluting heart of all such evil hybrids and electric cars

hardcorehobbit

1,103 posts

215 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
But the Esprit wasn't full of batteries? There's probably quite a lot to make it do that speed.

A Prius weighs over 3000lbs for example.

Maybe you're right, it likely won't ever be built though.




ESOG

Original Poster:

1,705 posts

178 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
I am all for it being built tbh, as I think its a great vehicle for exactly what its purpose for; the city.

I was just taken aback by the weight of it. I didnt realize batteries weighed that much!!

The performance is unbelievable! 4.5 sec to 60!

Another plus is that it can run off ethanol and/or methanol as well.

I am now reading about the Eterne. This car MUST be made!! It is stunning IMHO!!

ESOG

Original Poster:

1,705 posts

178 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
The new Viper weighs 3,343lbs!! Picture the Ethos and Viper side by side! So batteries weigh as much as a V10 full sized car FFS?!?

Speedracer329

1,507 posts

197 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
ESOG said:
The performance is unbelievable! 4.5 sec to 60!
No it's not. it is 4.5 seconds to 50kmh, which is 31 mph.

Staz88

9 posts

172 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
ESOG said:
The performance is unbelievable! 4.5 sec to 60!
Actually, 0-50kph in 4.5 sec is very believable.

ESOG

Original Poster:

1,705 posts

178 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
Speedracer329 said:
No it's not. it is 4.5 seconds to 50kmh, which is 31 mph.
Oh... frown

xRIEx

8,180 posts

168 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
ESOG said:
Speedracer329 said:
No it's not. it is 4.5 seconds to 50kmh, which is 31 mph.
Oh... frown
Yup - 9 seconds to 100km/h, 62mph

PumpkinSteve

4,231 posts

176 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
Well I'll just say what we're all thinking: it sounds fking st.

kambites

70,290 posts

241 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
It's really the one disadvantage with range extender hybrids - you need a fair chunk of the weight of two entire drive systems (and, of course, the cost).

0-60 in nine seconds is easily enough for a city car, I suppose. It'll be interesting to see how refined the range extender is when it fires up.

On the face of it, it looks like it could be a good "white goods" city car, but nothing more. I suspect it's more a proof of concept of their range extender engine than a serious attempt at building a car that will sell in large numbers.

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 13th June 08:31

kambites

70,290 posts

241 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
I guess the chances of Lotus existing for long enough to produce it are fairly slim the way things are going at the moment, anyway. hehe

Alfanatic

9,339 posts

239 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
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PumpkinSteve said:
Well I'll just say what we're all thinking: it sounds fking st.
You just said exactly what I was thinking!

The Wookie

14,180 posts

248 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
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As said, it's a range extender so has batteries, engine, generator, electric motors, etc, etc so it's always going to be heavy for its size.

Also, it was an engineering demonstration vehicle developed by Lotus Engineering rather than by Lotus Cars, I don't know if there was ever the intention to build it in that form as a Lotus.

GroundEffect

13,864 posts

176 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
The battery pack in a Tesla Roadster weighs 500kg.


k-ink

9,070 posts

199 months

Wednesday 13th June 2012
quotequote all
Just look at any 1/10th scale rc racing car. They weigh very little without the battery pack!

ESOG

Original Poster:

1,705 posts

178 months

Saturday 16th June 2012
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k-ink said:
Just look at any 1/10th scale rc racing car. They weigh very little without the battery pack!
True!