Showpiece of the Week: Lotus Evora 414E
Fancy the idea of a one-off, £23m hybrid Evora? We've obviously got you covered...
'You can't [buy one] and you're highly unlikely to be able to in the future,' concluded Autocar's review of the Lotus Evora 414E in 2012. Well, six years later, via the magic of PH, you can. Not heard of the 414E? Shame on you. This was a mostly government-sponsored go at a serial hybrid, and was primarily intended as a developmental showcase for emerging technologies; most notably, of course, those dealing with an electrified powertrain.
Lotus - or, more specifically, it's renowned engineering consultancy - was obviously no stranger to the concept of electric vehicles; it had spent the six years preceding 2012 helping Tesla perfect its first Roadster, a car based on the (somewhat re-engineered) underpinnings of the Elise. In many ways, the 414E was much more ambitious. It was a range-extender for a start, which meant that the engineers had to find room for both a 14.4kWh battery park (guess where the Evora's rear seats went) and a petrol-driven generator.
The latter was a bespoke three-cylinder engine of Lotus's own design, built to be as light and as compact as possible, and capable of running on methanol and ethanol as well as petrol. The 48hp unit supplies power to the dual electric motors when the battery charge drops below 30 per cent, helping to deliver a 'hybrid' range of over 300 miles (according to Lotus). Equally, the generator will chime in with its modest output under bulkhead-finding acceleration.
Without the help of internal combustion, the 414E's range is rather more limited (about 35 miles, give or take) but that's understandable when you consider that each electric motor supplies 207hp (hence the prototype's name)independent, single-speed transmission. Catchily named the Synchronous Axial Flux Drive Motor, it was their development, and the pursuit of a more accurate torque delivery, that demonstrated the usefulness of the Evora as test bed - not to mention the sophisticated control unit which judged how best to vector a small mountain of torque.
But Lotus did not stop there. Conscious of how detached the use of reduced gearing might seem to the enthusiast, the engineers also introduced a simulated seven-speed paddle shift system. This was no mere gimmick either: upshifts came with jolt to simulate somthing mechanical happening, while downshifts offered the driver a chance to decelerate the Evora by using charge regeneration to mimic engine braking. Hethel claimed the setup was clever (and precise) enough to reproduce the sensation of changing down two or three ratios at a time.
Also onboard is the HALOsonic system, the result of a collaboration between Harman and Lotus that uses a camera to judge the risk of collision with pedestrians and other road users, and then controls the volume on what the manufacturer calls the External Sound Synthesis (or car-noise maker). All of this, needless to say, made the 414E a little heavier than standard - 377kg heavier, according to AC - but it still quoted 4.4 seconds to 62mph, and the trademark poise of the Evora is said to be 'hardly troubled'.
The cost for all this innovation? Well, there was none originally because of course Lotus never planned on producing it - the government Technology Strategy Board's REEV project was more about helping to foster expertise among the UK's automotive suppliers than specifically developing a 133mph sports car with 55g/km CO2 emissions. But that's what you get now, with 3k on the clock, for the knockdown price of £250,000 - considerably less than it will have cost to design and build.
We'd quibble slightly with our advertiser's estimate of £23m (Autocar reckoned it was closer to £19m spread between a number of partners) but it was a lot at any rate - and as the advert adroitly points out, there won't ever be another one. On the one hand that makes the 414E a fascinating museum piece in its own right, but there is also some undeniable leftfield appeal in the idea of driving around in what is a fabulously rare former test mule, just for the zero-emission hell of it. That's an option according to St Andrews Autos, which says the car is 'up and running' and will be supplied with two spare power modules (each said to cost £70,000 on their own). Go on. We dare you.
I went to Lotus to film back in 2012 and captured the Evora 414 during 2 scenes in this short video. As you can see at the end it was LHD. Unless they then went to the trouble of later converting it my guess is that there are or were likely 2 about?
https://vimeo.com/70697632
Lotus Evora 414E by James Thorburn, on FlickrIt didn't actually have any real drive train, just some show and tell mockups.
I even helped spec the powertrain when I worked in performance simulation!
It was fun and amusingly fast.... range extender engine wasn’t exactly whisper quiet in that prototype mind you
ETA - in fact I’m not sure if that isn’t me in the bloody passenger seat!!
Regards,
Andy
Cutting edge technology.
The future, not the past.
For me I'm not 100% on range extenders as a concept.
(the vast majority of manufacturer prototypes are "tax exempt" as they are used for developing a product and then crushed. If they aren't crushed, then VAT and road tax need to be back paid on them for the years they have existed..........)
That said, usually with these sort of grant projects you have to make a declaration at the start that anything built as part of the project has minimal residual value at the end!
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