Speaking of Lotus, many people may be more impressed by the Lotus sports car. It is a sports car brand from the United Kingdom, once on a par with Porsche and Ferrari, and the three are known as the world's top three sports car manufacturers.
In the civilian car market, Lotus is a marginalized brand, but in the field of racing, Lotus has achieved a lot of results, starting in 1958, Lotus has won 7 F1 manufacturers' annual championships, 6 F1 drivers' annual championships, 81 F1 race championships and many other victories.
Because of its superior track technology and experience, Lotus also applies racing technology to mass-produced sports cars, which are known for their extreme aerodynamic design, lightweight structural design and pure driving pleasure.
Unfortunately, Lotus's models are too pursuit of pure driving control, poor driving comfort, coupled with high prices, and eventually became a niche model, the global annual sales of only more than a thousand, and Lotus is also in a state of loss for a long time, and finally it is difficult to escape the fate of being changed hands many times.
"International Superstar"
The two aces of the Lotus brand are aerodynamics and lightweighting, and if you think of the brand as a fighter brand, it's not hard to understand its success.
In 1963, with the world's first F1 car with a single cockpit structure, Lotus won the F1 constructors' championship that year, which was also the first world championship in Lotus's history. Since then, the Type72 has been one of the most successful F1 cars in history, with its wedge-shaped nose design being seen as a model for F1 design for many years, winning titles in 1970, 1972 and 1973.
In the history of F1, the 70s and 80s were the craziest years, when cars were all chasing high horsepower, and only Lotus's Type 79 was unique, it was the world's first F1 car with "ground effect" technology, it was born in 1977, this major breakthrough was a major technical breakthrough for Lotus or the entire F1 car.
Founder Colin Chapman
Behind all this is the passion and aerodynamic dedication of the founder, Mr. Colin Chapman, who was a RAF pilot during World War II.
The Success of the Spitfire is due to excellent aerodynamics, a small turning radius, good maneuverability, and suitable for entanglement. The aircraft was retired in 1957, and a year later, a young man designed a car called the Seven, the greatest car of the 50s.
This model is the originator of lightweight sports cars, and to this day Carterham still produces and sells this model. And this young man is Mr. Colin Chapman, who shares the same historical status as Ferdinand Porsche and Enzo Ferrari.
Mr. Colin Chapman has also won the title of Chassis Magician and Pneumatic Emperor, not only that, he has also deeply influenced other British sports car brands such as MINI Cooper, McLaren, Jaguar, MG. To this day, the world's sports car and racing aerodynamics experts, vehicle tuning experts are gathered in the UK.
Embrace electrification
"The power boost can only be faster on the straights, and the light weight can be out of reach at any time." Colin Chapman said. To this day, Lotus still influences the world's automotive industry, especially the design of aerodynamic bodies.
Because of this, whether it is Esprit, Elise, Exige, or Evora, Emira, any sports car in its own represents Lotus's understanding of extreme lightweight in that era.
However, when Lotus transforms into a pure electric SUV, a heavy battery pack and a huge body, which has nothing to do with lightweight, will Lotus turn its back on its original beliefs?
From the perspective of model product strength, Lotus plays the two dimensions of electric and intelligent to the extreme. Eletre's 0-100km/h acceleration is 2.95 seconds, the corner G-value limit is 1.1, the data is very scary, and the intelligent configuration is also armed to the teeth, with 34 driver assistance sensors, including 4 128-line lidar, 12 ultrasonic radar, etc., and even the overall computing power level reaches 2.2 GFLOPS. From these products, it is not difficult to guess that Lotus wants to do the ceiling of the smart pure electric vehicle market.
In pursuit of extremely low wind resistance, Eletre's aerodynamic design can be described as all over the body. For example, there is also a double-layer large-size tail diffuser device under the rear surround, which can well rectify the air flowing through the chassis and increase the downforce; the tail active electric rear spoiler can generate up to 116 kg of downforce.
Indeed, electrification and intelligence have become a new trend in the automotive industry, and the more advanced the intelligent networked vehicle technology, the more it can attract consumer attention and effectively translate into market results. Lotus is still Lotus, a once niche car brand that has created one miracle after another with its extreme paranoia about extreme control. And now, when the electric sunrise beckons to it, it bids farewell to the fuel era without hesitation.
Many people may say that building an SUV is a compromise for a sports car brand, but this is not the case. Eletre for Lotus, it only changes the body shape, the unchanged is still the Lotus brand car philosophy.
Write at the end
Under the leadership of Geely, Lotus has gradually compromised to a wider market, bringing a practical SUV model Eletre, which is a good thing for consumers and Lotus itself, consumers have more choices, and Lotus is expected to gain more market share, and lotus-made SUVs with racing genes have outstanding performance in driving control, if the price is reasonable, or can become a benchmark product in the million-level SUV market.
In the future, relying on the strong strength of Geely Automobile Group, Lotus will also bring more new products under the era. With the landing of Eletre, Lu Tesla opened the prelude to its own era of pure electricity.
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