Lotus Emeya takes fight to fastest Porsche Taycan

Electric super-saloon packs 905bhp, active aero and fast-charging 102kWh battery

- CHARLIE MARTIN

The ground-up reinvention of Lotus continues apace as the brand takes a bold leap into another new segment with the Emeya - a sleek electric sports saloon conceived to rival the Porsche Taycan and Lucid Air.

Taking the torch from the 1990 Lotus Carlton into the electric era, the Emeya arrives just 18 months after Lotus revealed its first SUV, the Eletre, as part of a new family of lifestyle-oriented electric cars engineered and built in Wuhan, China.

The Emeya is based on Lotus's new Electric Premium Architecture. This bespoke structure is adaptable to suit various car segments as well as different battery sizes, electric motors, component layouts and intelligent driving technologies.

Although these new-era EVS are entirely unrelated to the sports cars Lotus still builds in Hethel, outstanding performance remains a priority for them. As a result, the fastest Emeya packs a dual-motor powertrain that sends up to 905bhp and 726lb ft through all four wheels. That's sufficient for 0-62mph in 2.8sec, matching the toplink Taycan Turbo S and making the Emeya one of the quickest four-doors on the market.

The Emeya has a 102kWh battery pack that yields an as-yet-undisclosed range. However, Lotus claims it is "broadly similar" to that offered by the Eletre, which achieves 373 miles in entry-level and S guise and 304 miles in high-power R cars.

Charging is possible at rates of up to 350kW, enabling a 93-mile range boost in just five minutes at the fastest chargers, according to Lotus. Refilling from 10-80% is said to take as little as 15 minutes.

The Emeya is not solely about big numbers and brute force, though. Its standard-fit air suspension system scans the road ahead 1000 times per second and actively responds to the harshness of its surface by priming the dampers at each corner of the car appropriately.