Lotus Joins The Electric Hypercar Club With The Evija

Lotus joins the near 2000-horsepower, 20 crore electric hypercar club with the Evija. The question evo asks is: why?

- Stuart Gallagher

To make ripples in any industry you need to make a splash. This is our splash.’ The words of Phil Popham, CEO of Lotus Cars, and his splash is the Evija, the first all-new Lotus for over a decade, the first since Chinese conglomerate Geely was handed the keys to Potash Lane in 2017 and the first all-electric British sports car. But will this latest four-figure-horsepower hypercar with a seven-figure price tag sink or swim? Does the world need another electric hypercar costing well into the millions and with a power output all but unusable on the road and not exactly exploitable on track?

We’ll find out next year when the first deliveries are made, and yes, it does sound incredibly ambitious for a company currently selling fewer than 2000 cars a year to develop and build its most technologically advanced car ever in such a short period of time. But the Evija was in fact placed on Lotus’s future product plan when Jean-Marc Gales was brought in to replace Dany Bahar and when Proton still owned Lotus. However, a huge volume of water has passed under the bridge since then. Gales returned Lotus to profit, and Geely bought Proton and therefore Lotus, while Gales has since left Norfolk for Essex to clean up the mess left by Derek Hood at JD Classics. Only 12 months to bring the Evija to market, though? Well, billionaires aren’t known for their patience, not when Ì€ 17.2 crore (price in UK, excluding Indian taxes and duties) electric hypercar announcements are as frequent today as news of a new VW Group SUV, and they also won’t tolerate half-baked toys.