You don’t need to be an engineering expert to understand the extent of work Lotus is having to undertake to create the Evija. For a car company famed for its pure and simple machines, embedding the character of a Lotus into a car using an all-electric powertrain, complete with unavoidable heavies like the batteries, is obviously going to be no easy feat. But the firm’s director of vehicle attributes, Gavan Kershaw, would have us believe the job’s going rather well – and this is a man who knows his stuff.
In a new video showing a pre-prod Evija bearing an unfinished interior and camouflaged panels, Kershaw explains why certain features – like good foreword visibility, a close physical connection to the front axle and middling weight distribution – are key. Because while the most powerful Lotus by a massive margin ought to be pretty exciting thanks to that electric powertrain, it’s in the handling department that Lotus must retain its USP.
Of course, there’s much more than just a potent powertrain and a finely tuned chassis in the Evija offering. Lotus aerodynamicist Richard Hill told PH earlier this year about how innovate the skin is, and how it reduces the need for cooling hardware, reducing complexity and saving weight. While also enabling the 1,680kg to generate heavy loads of downforce without any prominent moving aerodynamic parts. We don’t doubt that there’s innovation on every corner of the Evija.
Still, Lotus has made its name in vehicle dynamics, so whatever your thoughts of EV hypercars, it would be a strange world if Lotus wasn’t the producer of the best handling one out there. The Evija looks to be on form. Kershaw suggests that this could also be a stronger all-rounder than any preceding Lotus, but we’ll leave it to the man to explain why. Although not before we’re treated to some high-speed footage to demonstrate the sporting potential of Lotus’s upcoming halo. This one’s certainly worth the watch.
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