At 2:30 a.m. on March 30, I was watching a live broadcast from London, England. Lotus officially released a new pure electric SUV code-named Type 132, the Eletre.
Yes, this is the pure electric SUV I'm most looking forward to in 2022.
Seeing the appearance, I was not disappointed
Speaking of Lotus, everyone may be more impressed by the Lotus sports car. Founded in 1948 by Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman, the British sports car brand was once called "the world's top three sports car manufacturers" alongside Porsche and Ferrari. Its models are known for their extreme aerodynamic design, lightweight structural design and pure driving pleasure.
Lotus's fuel sings Emira
Friends familiar with Lotus should know that their first pure electric model was the Evija released in 2019, which is the lightest (1,680 kg) and most horsepower (2,000 ps) pure electric supercar in production at present, which integrates lotus's ultimate high-performance experience on a pure electric basis.
In July 2021, Lotus launched the Emira sports car, a "pure driving machine" that bids farewell to the fuel era.
The launch of the Eletre, is the first pure electric SUV in the history of Lotus, while inheriting the high-performance genes of Lotus, the identity of the SUV is also more practical, filling the market gap of "million-level pure electric performance SUV", so strictly speaking, Eletre does not directly target competitors.
Of course, Lotus's future product planning not only includes SUVs, but also covers four-door coupes, crossovers, small sports cars and so on. Many people will wonder why Lotus would use an SUV as a precursor to its electrification strategy instead of a more "pure" sports car. All I can say is, my lord, times have changed.
Looking at history, Porsche and Lamborghini have launched SUV models, and the launch of these models has not hurt the influence of the brand, but has opened up more markets with high sales, and expanded the brand influence while obtaining abundant cash flow. In the era of pure electricity, the advancement of science and technology can ensure the handling and performance while retaining the original practicality of the SUV. Of course, there's a premise that you can build cars that perform great handling, and Lotus happens to be one of them.
01
This is aerodynamic design
This year, the Fia Resurrected the "Ground Effect" in F1, a technology that has returned to the top of the car after 40 years, and the reason for reintroducing this technology is to make the car go faster, while combing the tail turbulence to increase the possibility of racing entanglement. The inventor of the ground effect was Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman, the founder and engineer of Lotus.
The idea of the ground effect stemmed from Chapman's study of the aircraft's wingspan structure, and since the unique structure of the wing could create a pressure difference that would provide lift to the fuselage, turning it upside down and allowing the airflow to pass through the Venturi tube for accelerated decompression could be used to add downforce to the F1 car and make the car faster in the corners.
The first time this technology was applied to a Lotus Type 78 F1 car, it became a bug in F1 history: it provided 15% more downforce than the opponent's car in the corners, won the most 5 races of all teams in one year, and won the annual championship on the improved Type 79 later.
The ground effect is back in F1, which seems to imply that Lotus also wants to get back to the top in the era of pure electricity. Let's take a closer look at how Lotus's proud aerodynamic design manifests itself in the Eletre.
The Eletre body has a lot of "holes", through a complex test revision, the shape, location, area of these holes were confirmed, and finally formed 7 sets of air ducts to wrap the body. In terms of the number and size of the ducts, the Eletre embodies Lotus's pursuit of aerodynamics, and I could not have imagined other models with such a rich air duct in my mind at the moment. And their role is also very clear, that is, to comb the air for the vehicle and provide downforce.
For example, the air slot under the headlights feeds the front-running air into the tire, and many would say that not only combs the air, but also cools the brake system. But at high speeds, there is a serious turbulence here, which requires further channeling of the air here, and we see that the Eletre has an air slot at the front fender, and the air flow can be discharged smoothly, and the entire side line is carved along the trajectory of the air flow, while the door handle is designed to be hidden.
Many sports cars do not attach importance to aerodynamics, which I understand, after all, this requires a relatively rich experience to repeatedly polish the appearance of the form. But there are many models that add some "fake" air-moving kits to increase the viewing, which makes me have to cue the Toyota Supra.
Lotus's careful thinking about aerodynamic design is also reflected in more places.
For example, the multi-blade linkage type of active intake grille can achieve infinite opening and closing, and enhance the body unity when fully closed, and the official statement can increase the endurance by up to 15 km. If necessary, it can also be adjusted according to the heat dissipation needs of the motor, battery, and air conditioner, and in the fully open state, the holes in the cover can form an air duct, of course, under the soA (service-oriented architecture) as the guide, these leaves can also form a lotus pattern, which is a small easter egg.
For example, on the front fenders, on the roof, retractable lidar, when not needing to work, can minimize the disturbance of the air flow, ensure the integrity of the air movement, but also when necessary to extend to use, of course, these lidar is with self-cleaning function.
Of course, the lightweight embodiment of Eletre has been inherited, the vehicle structure is mainly composed of aluminum and high-strength steel, in the front shovel, side skirt, middle net, rear spoiler, wheel hub rectifier, split spoiler on the D-pillar, carbon fiber materials everywhere, and even a lot of recycled carbon fiber materials are used in the car.
Lotus's surprising aerodynamic design on the Eletre can also be described by one statistic: an aspect ratio of 1.24.
Here we need to mention the concept of aspect ratio, that is, the ratio of body width and height. The general SUV aspect ratio will be between 1.08-1.15, and the sedan will be mainly between 1.10-1.25, the larger the value, the flatter the shape of the vehicle, representing the relative width of the vehicle is larger and lower in height, in other words, the wheel spacing is larger, the center of gravity is lower, that is, the stability will be better.
The Eletre's length, width and height are 5,103, 2,019, 1,630 mm, the wheelbase is 3,019 mm, and the aspect ratio is about 1.24, which completely transcends the traditional SUV field, but approaches the sports car, which is essentially with the advantage of pure electric platform, in the SUV shape to obtain a physical size similar to a sports car. Similarly, due to the flexibility of the pure electric platform layout, a larger wheelbase will not only bring better interior space to the vehicle, but also lengthen the spacing between the front and rear axles, and the "horse step" of the vehicle will be more stable.
Such a well-crafted set of air-moving equipment did not fall into the theoretical trap, Lotus officially said that the Eletre's front axle can provide 54 kg downforce, the tail provides 36 kg downforce, and the active hidden tail wing, when fully opened, comes with 116 kg downforce. With up to 206 kg of downforce accumulated, the actual data speaks for the stability of high-speed corners, and I firmly believe that the Eletre will not have a "dolphin jump" like the F1 car under the FIA Way.
02
The performance parameters are also exploded
Based on the exclusive pure electric platform EPA, Eletre has a large battery of more than 100 kWh and is an 800 V high-voltage platform that can achieve 400 km (248 miles) of range in 20 minutes at 350 kW charging conditions. If measured according to WLTP standards, the Eletre can reach a maximum range of 600 kilometers (373 miles).
At the press conference, Lotus released a set of data to describe Eletre, which I felt necessary to pull out separately:
Zero Hundred acceleration in 2.95 seconds;
Zero to 200 acceleration within 12 seconds;
The G-value limit for the curve is 1.1.
The first two of these three values describe the acceleration ability, and the third describes the cornering ability, which belongs to the two benchmark parameters of cloud evaluation performance. Even if you put Eletre directly into the supercar ranks, you are not afraid.
To achieve such a fast acceleration, the core is the motor and gear. The Eletre will be equipped with higher-performance dual motors that drive the front and rear axles separately to form a four-wheel drive, with a total power of up to nearly 1,000 horses. The combined torque exceeded 10,000 to reach 11,334 N·m (wheel end). With such strong data, zero hundred acceleration is naturally not weak, and the two-speed differential of the rear drive can make the torque output of the motor spread more continuously, which is why the acceleration ability of zero to two hundred is still strong.
I was surprised by the 1.1 G acceleration in the corners more than the acceleration capability. With the Eletre in line are the Porsche 911 GT3 (991), Ford GT, Lamborghini Bull racing or supercar, can you imagine this is an SUV?
Running fast also has to brake, and the Eletre is paired with 10-piston carbon brakes. 10 pistons bring strong hydraulic braking power, and the carbon ceramic matrix can greatly reduce the under-spring mass, and will not be deformed by high temperatures in the track, the disadvantage is that it is expensive, and it is generally only on the optional list of high-performance cars or supercars.
And of course I care about more than that, equipped with a "One-Box" line control dynamic system on the Eletre, which can achieve full decoupling of the brakes. More intuitively, when you brake the ABS at full force, the ESP will "cluck" and pump oil to brake, and on the Eletre, this will not be fed back to the brake pedal. The electronic signal transmits faster, which means that the braking will have less reaction delay. Of course, if we open our imagination, the system can also simulate a variety of different foot senses to match the corresponding driving scene, and even define your own brake foot feeling.
The Eletre is powered by a front and rear five-link independent suspension, while also equipped with air springs and CDC, deeply tuned by the British team. I am more concerned about the electronic active anti-roll bar, and the traditional hard-connected anti-roll bar is different, due to the addition of the motor, it can be twisted to achieve the effect of preventing the roll, which is more rapid and meticulous than the ordinary anti-roll bar, and can be completely cut off, and the daily driving is more comfortable.
In the news of foreign media, I also saw that Eletre can be equipped with an active torque vectoring differential, which is a good thing. Not only can individual wheels be assigned the precise torque required, but the main process is that the torque output of the motor is basically not lost, and due to the torque difference between inside and outside, you will automatically turn. To put it bluntly, this thing can make your car pull up the cornering limit.
In terms of overall dynamics, Lotus Eletre integrates braking, air suspension, CDC damping, active anti-roll bars, rear wheel steering, vehicle stability control systems, called "6D chassis technology", which can fine-tune individual components to increase the overall control limit, and of course evolve five driving modes: energy saving, travel, sports, off-road and custom.
Of course, for the actual performance of Eletre, we can only "cloud evaluation" at present, the book parameters and configuration are very top, and about the P-Zero used by Eletre, the front width of 285 mm and the back width of 325 mm, the tire width ratio of 35 and 30 is very exaggerated, which also needs to be explained for the contribution to performance. Wider tire widths naturally help with grip better, and narrower tire walls can be more supported by thicker filling, but mass production of tires of this size is still difficult in itself.
03
Smart hardware to the top
On top of the strong performance, we can clearly see lotus in the Eletre jump out of the traditional frame, in the intelligent hardware on the load is not stingy, which is also the Eletre this car is unique.
Eletre's perception hardware in assisted driving is as follows:
4 x 128-line lidar;
7 x 8MP cameras;
2 x 200 surround view cameras;
6 mmWave radars (including 4D mmWave radar);
12 ultrasonic radars;
Plus 1 in-car camera.
Eletre's hardware on the Smart Cockpit is as follows:
5 digital meters in the car: 15.1-inch OLED material central control screen, 12.6-inch main co-driver 2 pieces with fish screen (resolution 2,240*182 ppi), rear 9-inch reversible screen (resolution 1,280*720 ppi), 29-inch AR-HUD;
The streaming mirrors are judged according to the regulations at the time of listing, and two displays showing the streaming mirrors are built into the door panel.
Yes, you read that right, Lotus's electric SUV actually went straight to the ceiling on the smart book, 4 lidar should be unique in the mass production of bicycle perception hardware, plus 8 million cameras, which makes me very curious, how the auxiliary driving ability of this "high-performance SUV" is performing.
But it should be noted that Lotus calls its perception hardware "track-level", which makes me very much looking forward to how Lotus will empower track driving through these intelligent equipment under the blessing of luxurious perception hardware and cockpit hardware. But from the rich perceptual hardware to the large area of AR-HUD, the power can be very much, and I have envisioned a scenario like a racing game: projecting the best route on the AR-HUD and the brake throttle force.
04
Write at the end
Lotus Eletre can write too many points, from the "smart, pure electricity, high performance, SUV" several labels to see, Eletre does fill a market gap, of course, but also for the million-level pure electric SUV set the first benchmark. But what really excites me is not Eletre's unique market positioning, but the "smart heart" based on strong performance, which makes Eletre's category completely jump out of the traditional performance comparison and become a "high-performance technology" product.
At a time when electric vehicles below 500,000 are becoming more and more rolled up and more and more similar, Eletre restores my imagination of a million-level pure electric SUV: Eletre has the practicality of an SUV, which can fully meet daily household use, and at the same time inherits Lotus's air-moving, high-performance genes, which can be said to "beat down" the price of supercars. And the blessing of intelligent equipment allows this car to get more capabilities through OTA, including a variety of "track modes" suitable for novices, which is simply a blessing for ordinary people who do not often get off the track.
This global debut in London, the focus is obviously on history, air, performance, and intelligence is where we pay more attention, but it doesn't matter, Lotus Eletre will also make a release in China, let's keep looking forward to it.
Written by: Liu Guangzhen
EDIT: Daji
These are also worth reading