Produced by | Tiger sniff car group
Author | Zhang Bowen
Header image | IC Photo
There is a consensus in the car circle.
From zero to one, it is difficult to build a new brand, but it is more difficult to pick up an old brand for brand rejuvenation than to build a new brand.
Even if Mercedes-Benz, which now bears the Maybach logo, is the favorite of the rich, it is difficult for Mercedes-Benz to restore maybach to its former glory and sit on an equal footing with Rolls-Royce.
Audi revived one of the "four rings" of the Horch brand, but also in its own original A8L lengthened again, to create an A8LL, when reported by the media, it was only said to be Audi's "Maybach".
It is indeed difficult to revive an old brand, and it is even more difficult to revive an old brand with a legendary history.
Coupled with the fact that as we all know, the history and culture of the mainland car are compared with Europe and the United States, and there is still a big gap, and it is beyond the concept of giving an old brand with a legendary history to a group of Chinese to do revival.
This is almost an impossible task.
But that's what Li Shufu's auspiciousness is doing.
Before the 1990s, the most iconic supercar in people's minds, in addition to Ferrari and Porsche, Lotus, who was also known as the "Lotus" at the time, was the strongest contender for the third place.
However, with the death of his founder Chapman in 1982, Lotus declined. So much so that it had to commit to Proton Malaysia, selling a few small and light sports cars that have not been replaced for a long time, as well as providing chassis tuning services for other car manufacturers. It was not until it was acquired by Geely along with Proton that Lotus had the opportunity and resources to survive.
However, for Geely, Lotus is almost a hot potato, not uncomfortable, more uncomfortable.
Want to revive the brand, you get new models, sell more cars, but in the context of the modern era, the sales ceiling of single-sell sports cars is actually very low, coupled with the domestic double point system, the global market is gradually strict emission regulations, the more pure fuel sports cars are sold, the more companies lose, then they have to do electric vehicles.
But what kind of brand is Lotus?
Founded in 1948 by legendary racing designer Colin Chapman (a name worth remembering). Lotus began racing in Formula 1 at the end of the 1950s and won his first championship in 1963. Prior to exiting F1, Lotus had won six drivers' championships and seven constructors' championships, behind Ferrari, Williams, McLaren and Mercedes-Benz in the F1 all-time list. F1 car god Elton Senna grew up with lotus racing.
For decades, Lotus has been a sports car brand focused on sporty performance, and even for sports performance, it pays great attention to lightweight, and the interior can be unrelated to luxury, and it is known for its simplicity.
The customers we serve are also hardcore fans who are willing to give up other experiences for the sake of driving experience.
The biggest problem in Geely Group is that Lotus is a niche brand, and the car is too close to lotus style, ordinary consumers do not recognize, do not think that this brand is good, do not paste Lotus style, and have to be scolded by iron fans.
Dilemma, neither end is flattering.
In this context, Geely chose almost the most difficult path.
Let the Lotus brand release a pure electric SUV.
In fact, sports car brands are not ashamed to do SUVs. Porsche gave a sample to all the sports car brands in the circle, and then whether it was Lamborghini or Aston Martin, they all used SUVs to further increase their revenue, and Ferrari's SUV was about to be released.
In order to make up for environmental protection regulations and make up for the performance shortcomings, it is not shameful to do small displacement or hybrid supercar, and even reduce the cost through smaller emission engines, reduce the price of the whole vehicle, circle more potential customers, and increase the customer base.
But the sports car brand makes pure electric SUVs, which is a bit outrageous.
Whether it is the rather heavy battery of the electric car or the higher chassis and center of gravity of the SUV, it has nothing to do with the car-making concept of sports cars flying close to the ground.
And people who know a little about electric vehicles know that the first tesla in the real sense is actually a modified Lotus Elise, and then Tesla began to gradually move towards the regular, and began to continuously use electric vehicles to encroach on the share of fuel vehicles.
Take down the Lotus brand, build electric vehicles, once it is not done well, it is a double rout of business and face. You also have to bear the historical infamy of the scourge treasure brand.
But fortunately, Geely helped Lotus find a brand core that is fully compatible with electric vehicles: efficient aerodynamics.
In July 2019, Lotus released the Evija, Lotus's first hyper car, the first pure electric sports car, priced at up to 10 million yuan.
Leaving aside the distance between the car and consumers, and whether the rich are really willing to buy a pure electric supercar.
The Evija can be seen as a model room for showcasing Lotus's idea of building electric vehicles. It can even be called a design benchmark for pure electric sports cars for a long time to come.
At that time, when Evija was released, Hu Yang, the author of Tiger Sniff, had made a detailed technical analysis:
Evija designed two large Venturi Tunnels at the rear, the most special aerodynamic design of the car, which Russel Carr called "the killer view". The taillights are designed directly as two-circle strips at the huge airflow outlet.
In fact, in the field of sports car/racing aerodynamics, the Venturi effect is not new. The Venturi effect is that when the flow of fluid through the cross-section becomes smaller, the flow rate of the fluid becomes larger. We know that air is a fluid, and an increase in air velocity reduces air pressure, and when a pressure difference occurs, it produces lift or downforce. The diffuser commonly used in modern racing cars is to take advantage of the Venturi effect, and the tail diffuser section increases rapidly, which will increase the flow rate of air flowing through the small section under the car, thereby generating downforce to suck the vehicle to the ground.
The area between the Evija rear body and the two rear wheel arches opens up, creating two additional venturi passages, but their main function is not to directly generate downforce. The air resistance in the driving of the car is actually not just the front of the car hitting the wind. In the high-speed state, the air is too late to return to the rear of the car, and a low-pressure area will be formed behind the car, and the front and rear pressure difference will be formed with the high-pressure area at the front of the car, which will have a backward pulling effect on the vehicle. The Evija's Venturi passage allows airflow to pass through the interior of the body section at high speeds, replenishing some of the air to the low pressure zone at the rear to balance the pressure difference between the front and rear, thereby reducing the pull effect, that is, reducing drag.
In addition, on the surface of the passage and the inside of the rear arch, a blind opening is also provided. The wheel in the state of high-speed rotation will fill the rear and upper parts of the wheel arch with accumulated air, and the increasing sluggish air will make the body have an upward trend, which is obviously not what the driver wants. The air velocity and pressure in the Venturi passage increase, and the shutters opened here can extract the sluggish air (high pressure zone) in the wheel arch.
It can "dig" such a large two airflow channels in the rear body, because the Evija is a pure electric vehicle, it does not need to be crammed into the engine and gearbox in the rear body like a mid-fuel supercar, and the space utilization of the rear half of the body can be more flexible.
You see, electric cars and sports cars don't seem to have so much conflict, right?
On the Eletre, a pure electric SUV just released by Lotus, the design idea of the supercar Evija has been translated almost one-to-one.
The dents on the left and right sides of the front cover form a distinct two-layer structure. The passage of air through this gap has an acceleration effect, reducing the air that would normally accumulate at the turn of the windshield and the head hatch.
The side of the body leads directly to the opening of the front wheel, releasing the sluggish air flow in the front wheel arch, avoiding the downforce loss caused by the lifting of the head at high speed.
Similarly, the Eletre has two large openings in the rear wheels, and although the Evija is not exaggerated, the principle and function are almost identical.
Such a design will not reduce the wind resistance of the whole vehicle much, but it will directly enhance the driving experience of the car through the guidance of the wind.
Is it necessary? Not really. But Ferrari owners are not on the track, and Mercedes-Benz Big G owners are not going off-road every day.
Redundancy is an essential element of luxury and luxury.
In terms of performance parameters, Eletre also did it in place, with a front and rear dual motor layout, the maximum output power of the system is 600hp (about 447kW), and the zero hundred acceleration capacity is 2.95s. It is equipped with a power battery pack with a total capacity of 100 kWh and has an endurance of about 600 km under WLTP conditions. This is almost a level of parameter that can break Tesla's wrist.
More importantly, this car has a good interior design, and the whole vehicle will be produced in China.
After the release of Eletre, I deliberately went to see the evaluations of some overseas netizens, and the evaluations given were surprisingly consistent:
Lotus makes an SUV a little strangely, but this car looks good. Better than other all-electric SUVs, or even some fuel SUVs from ultra-luxury brands.
There is no doubt that Lotus, in the hands of Gilly, made a good move.
From my personal perspective, I still worry about Lotus's future in China.
This brand does not have a clear understanding among Chinese consumers, and even in the hands of countless car media, Lotus is a rare object, old editors throughout their careers, may not have driven a few times, and new editors who have just entered the society may not even touch it.
Not to mention that in most Chinese media reports, Eletre's brain-wrenching aerodynamic design will be simply summarized as "reducing wind resistance", or described more nakedly, called Lamborghini Urus Pan.
This is an insult to the Lotus brand.
Letting ordinary consumers pay nearly a million yuan to buy a Lotus is probably not bad as making consumers spend millions to buy a new force.
But Eletre showed me how Geely has made earth-shaking improvements to the brand since acquiring Lotus.
Let the original Lotus industry-leading aerodynamic design continue to shine in the era of electrification, and make up for the original rough and simple shortcomings of Lotus with the capabilities and resources of the entire Geely Group. Even endowed this old brand with a strong enough intelligent ability.
Admirable.
At the same time, it also made me personally start to change my mind about the Lotus brand.
I had driven lotus Evora, Elise before, and when I was test driving, I was very impulsive and wanted to tell everyone around me that this car was too good to buy it.
However, I will always give up the brand because of various excuses.
But the new era of Lotus, has gradually become a brand that people can't find an excuse, maybe when Lotus comes out with a pure electric sports car, I will really buy it with money.
Of course, it depends on the development of Lotus and the growth of my personal income.