The British car company with a Chinese majority owner planned to switch to electric drive. Weak demand for luxury zero-emission cars, however, forces her to reconsider this view.
One day we will definitely all drive on electricity. It will certainly not be in the near future, but at least in several decades. Automobile companies are becoming more and more aware of this, with the British Lotus, in which the Chinese holding company Geely owns more than half of the shares, being another of the “lookers”. After all, this is also why the traditional manufacturer of light sports cars was lined up with an electric future.
The 2021 plan called for new factories, dedicated platforms and a de facto complete break from the past, which was framed by very light sports cars. The Eletre and Emeya models were expected to set new standards within the brand, but the luxury electric car segment is small and growing slowly. Moreover, even in the markets from which Lotus promised a lot. That’s also why the automaker sold only 4,612 cars worldwide in the first nine months of this year, 40% less than in the same period in 2024.
Lotus Emira will survive the year 2027. With a hybrid and a traditional unit
That is why they ordered a turnaround at the headquarters in Hethel, UK. They still count on electricity, but to a lesser extent. The Eletre SUV will be presented with a plug-in hybrid next year, and a smaller SUV with a combined drive is planned for 2027.
Lotus intends to copy the path of Lamborghini or Bentley. Both luxury brands combine petrol engines with electricity with an externally charged traction battery. In their case, the use of this concept is motivated more by the desire to increase performance than to reduce emissions. With sales in the order of thousands of cars per year and high prices, they are not under as much scrutiny as significantly larger manufacturers.
Lotus Emeya • Source: Lotus
Thanks to access to Chinese technologies, Lotus intends to introduce a top plug-in hybrid system based on a high-performance 900V charging network, thanks to which you can charge the full capacity of the battery on an adequate stand in a matter of tens of minutes.
The plug-in hybrid Lotus Eletre will first be introduced in China, which is the largest car market and the largest outlet for electrified cars in the world. Along with that and the mentioned smaller SUV, we will also see a significantly electrified Emira sports coupe, which the automaker will introduce in 2027.
Source: Autoblog, photo and video: Lotus
