From internal combustion locomotives to electrification, the automotive industry is undergoing a historic transformation that is once a rare one, and the high-performance engines that once roared and roared on the track have disappeared over time.
Porsche gradually began the electrification transition with the Taycan, and the Urus also provided an accelerator for Lamborghini's electrification transition.
Unlike friends who still start from the fuel era, Lotus organically combines the sports car gene with pure electricity, intelligence and ultra-luxury, giving Eletre the ability to "grab position" and "position" as a million SUVs in the era of pure electric intelligence.
The Eletre is also a key model for Lotus's transformation into an electrified, intelligent high-performance car brand.
01
Refactor the imagination
Since 1958, Lotus has competed in 491 races.
He has won 7 Formula One World Championship Manufacturers Championships, 6 Formula One World Championship Drivers' Championships, and 81 Formula One World Championship Races.
9-time Le Mans Grand Prix group champion, 1 Indy 500 Grand Prix champion, 1-time World Rally Championship champion.
In the era of the internal combustion engine, the Lotus sports car, which is based on the brand concept of lightweight, aerodynamics and ultimate driving pleasure, has become the king of the track.
In the second year of announcing the electrification transition, Lotus launched the pure electric supercar that can surprise the automotive world - the Evija, with an ultra-light weight of 1680kg making it the lightest production model ever, and 2000 super horsepower making it the most powerful model ever produced.
But Evija's astonishment is much more than that, it not only sets the industry benchmark for pure electric supercars, but also creates a set of "pore" design languages for the follow-up Lotus pure electric family products.
Lotus Evija
Driven by the "Vision 80" decade of brand revitalization, Lotus has released its first Hyper SUV , the Eletre, which is the first step for Lotus to become a high-performance SUV model, and also provides more Lotus enthusiasts with different model options.
Lotus reconstructed everything he learned about the automotive industry in this new era and bloomed more dazzlingly. As a million-level pure electric supercar performance SUV, Eletre gives enough surprises.
Hyper SUV Eletre
Lotus combines the world's top resources and 74 years of technology accumulation in high-performance sports cars. Lotus Automotive of Heissel in the United Kingdom, Lotus Science and Technology Innovation Center in Lauenheim, Germany, and the engineering team in Gothenburg, Sweden, coupled with Lotus Technology, which was established in Wuhan, China in 2021 and the upcoming Wuhan Smart Factory, Lotus has established a global layout.
Through the development model of complementary advantages and high sharing of teams in many places, Lotus integrates the ultimate track gene and the world's leading intelligent car technology, and bursts out the powerful potential of "combining East and West".
Wuhan Lotus Technology 02 reconstruction performance
Lotus Eletre can easily achieve zero-hundred acceleration of 2.95 seconds. But unlike other all-electric models that rely on high-power motors to push out the acceleration, the Eletre's 2.95 seconds comes from Lotus's 74 years of winning weapons on the track – aerodynamics.
In 1978, the Lotus Type 79 in the "Ground Effect" pneumatic kit was launched.
Through the body kit styling, the air passing through the bottom of the car accelerates into a low pressure zone in the narrow area between the body and the ground, and the underbody air is covered by side encirclement, which generates great downforce, "sucks" the car on the track, and greatly shortens the cornering time.
Lotus Type 79
Using aerodynamics, Lotus beat Ferrari in F1 races, while Eletre brought aerodynamic technology on F1 tracks to everyday life, interpreting "royal wind" as a key word in Eletre's body design.
Following the porous design language of the Lotus 10 million-level pure electric supercar Evija, Eletre applies aerodynamics to the extreme.
The design of the front face is driven by the porous concept to achieve a lightweight visual experience. The porous design runs through the car body, and the air duct under the front face effectively guides the flow of air and is discharged through the two air ducts above the hood.
In addition, behind the front arch, behind the rear wheel, and even at the top of the D-pillar, multiple pore designs can be seen.
Cover air duct
Eletre's application of aerodynamics is not only reflected in the body design, but also in the various "black technologies" that serve the needs of aerodynamics.
Below is the Eletre stepless variable active grille, which remains closed when the vehicle is stationary or needs to reduce drag during driving, and can add 15km endurance and 51kg downforce when closed.
When the motor, battery pack and braking system need to be cooled, it can be opened in a unique way with lotus petals spreading out, directing air into the radiator to keep Eletre absolutely cool.
Stepless variable active intake grille with speed
At the same time, the lidar located on the top of the vehicle and on both sides of the front wheel brow will be flipped and revealed when needed, and the daily indentation of the body ensures aerodynamics, thereby further reducing the wind resistance.
Flip the lidar on top of the vehicle
Used as the position of the car's lidar, three of which are flippable designs, and as can be seen from the design of the lidar, Eletre is still very useful for aerodynamics. In addition, the cleaning function is integrated inside the lidar on both sides.
The lidar positions are selected using red boxes, and it can be seen that the status of the official map is all hidden
On the side, a high waistline runs all the way to the rear of the car, and the combination of edges and curved surfaces creates an equally excellent side air duct, which also makes the whole car line extremely smooth.
The new car will adopt the design of electric suction door and hidden door handle, which better highlights the sense of science and technology of the whole vehicle and realizes the real "wind" and travel!
In terms of body size, the Eletre is 5103*2019*1630mm in length, width and height, and the wheelbase is 3019mm.
In order to more intuitively see the body dimensions of the Lotus Eletre, we also listed the dimensions of the Lamborghini Urus, Porsche Taycan and Tesla Model X.
From the comparison, it can be seen that Eletre has an advantage in parameters such as wheelbase, so that excellent data will bring a spatial experience that competitors cannot provide.
The tail design has always been a hallmark feature of Lotus products, and this generation of Lotus, the tail is still fighting, Eletre uses the popular through-style taillight design, in addition to the prismatic and curved surface plus the left and right side of the curved airway to achieve excellent wind resistance, but also provides a dynamic tail visual effect.
However, in order to become a truly "galloping" pure electric supercar SUV, in addition to the industry's top technology, it is equally important to have performance that can convince the public.
As the first model to apply Lotus's EPA edge evolution architecture, the Eletre offers the basic performance advantages of a wide body and low center of gravity. The high-performance front and rear motors empowered by Eletre have a total power of 675kW, and the torque at the end of the wheel easily exceeds 10,000, and the high power and high torque perfectly fit Eletre's identity as the "king of performance".
With two gears of rear-drive reducers at the same time, 0-100km/h acceleration is 2.95s, 0-200km/h acceleration is within 12 seconds, and the performance is not bad!
The Porsche Taycan and Lamborghini Urus, which also belong to the ultra-luxury array, also look nowhere to go when facing the Eletre.
In the field of pure electric power, the performance of Eletre is also ultra-luxurious. It is powered by an ultra-100kWh power battery that can replenish 400 km in just 20 minutes at 350 kW charging conditions and a maximum range of 600 km under the world's most stringent WLTP standards.
The Eletre chassis is independently suspended from the front double wishbone rear multi-link, with air suspension and CDC electromagnetic induction suspension system. From the vehicle responsiveness, vehicle linearity and chassis performance are adjusted by lotus UK team.
The chassis domain enables suspension control with 6 degrees of freedom and the Eletre is equipped with an active stabilizer lever that gives the driver more stable dynamic handling when cornering.
In addition, the rear wheel active steering function can be more convenient for U-turns and other operations at low speeds, and the Eletre chassis is used daily while maintaining the original driving taste of the track.
With such an innovative breakthrough, is the Eletre still a Lotus?
03
Refactoring intelligence
On top of the unique appearance and supercar performance, ultra-luxury intelligent technology completely distinguishes Eletre from a number of traditional supercar brands and new car manufacturers, opening up a blue ocean in the million-level market.
Adhering to Lotus's simple concept of lightweighting, the Eletre has a 5+2 screen layout in the car, equipped with 5 digital meters and 2 streaming mirror displays.
In terms of lightweighting, 95% of the functions in the car can be completed in less than three clicks. The gear handles are lightweight and minimalist, and although they are still arranged in the center console area, they do not take up much space.
The center-controlled solid keys include air conditioning solid keys, front and rear wind defogging, door unlocking, streaming mirrors, and dual flashing
The storage space under the central console works well with the mood lighting
At the same time, as an intelligent supercar performance SUV, users can personalize the functions of the vehicle, and the ritualistic "theater-style moment" runs through the whole process of the owner's car from beginning to end.
Eletre's UI/UX creates lightweight, intelligent, and immersive interactions. The screen is supplied with two 8155 chips, and the CPU and GPU hash power are apportioned to two SOCs, and the hash rate advantage can be maintained until the end of 2023.
In terms of functions, it can achieve full 3D imagery, image rendering, driving 5 or more 4K screens and other effects. The smart cockpit brings more new features into driving, and the multimedia central control screen in the car uses a 15.1-inch OLED screen with 1 billion color displays on the current mobile phone.
At the same time, the screen realizes the adjustable angle function, which is guessed to be linked with the vehicle driving mode, and the screen is upright during daily driving and the screen is flat when driving intensely.
There is a 9-inch foldable screen in the center of the rear, with a resolution of 1280 * 720, which can control the system of the whole car except driving, so the angle is also very ergonomic.
Folding display of the back screen
The interior process also uses a variety of material composition, and the interior also uses a variety of elements to mix, with the exterior and the central control screen to form an integration.
Among the many ultra-luxury brands, supercar brands are often the slowest group of electrification and intelligent transformation. The reason is not technology and resources, but more in the "brand baggage". "When the autonomous driving assistance capability lands, how do supercar brands sustain themselves?" was repeatedly asked by the public.
Unlike other supercar brands that avoid intelligent driving assistance capabilities, Lotus has chosen to embrace technology and reconstruct the track.
Eletre has a lot of black technology buried in the whole car. It is equipped with a hardware combination of 4 lidar, ultra-high definition camera and 4D millimeter wave radar for high-level intelligent driver assistance capability settings.
Retractable lidar on top of the vehicle
Retractable lidar on both sides of the front brow
Compared with the current Tesla Model X with cutting-edge driving assistance capabilities, Lotus Eletre has a more powerful driver assistance hardware system.
By combining intelligent driving assistance technology with lotus control technology accumulation, we have created a unique new era brand label of "track-level intelligent driving" that is unique to traditional car companies and new car manufacturers.
The so-called "track-level intelligent driving", Lotus has given the ultimate answer "with the assistance of Lotus intelligent driving assisted driving technology, as long as you have a driver's license, you can win the F1 championship".
And the real competition is in the software part.
Track-level intelligent driving proposed by Lotus is essentially a game algorithm, which introduces game theory into intelligent driving, so that the game and competition of the track enter daily life, which will bring more safety redundancy.
In daily life, such scenes that require gaming abound. The most typical scenario is to encounter the situation of congestion when driving, which will bring a safer and more comfortable driving experience if this phenomenon can be prevented in advance through the precision and game of intelligent driving.
In addition, Lotus will also benchmark top drivers, test each other's reactions to various unexpected situations, and actively redundancate through software and hardware performance, taking into account the two major indicators of performance and safety. With the gradual release of the function, Lotus is able to accurately plan the optimal driving route and make precise control during the driving process, just like experienced racing drivers.
So far, Lotus's track wisdom of the past 74 years has provided a safer and more convenient driving experience for every driver on the Eletre through intelligent driving assistance systems, and has also made the track a core foothold in Lotus's new era journey.
Editor's Summary:
In Lotus's planning, four new pure electric products will be launched by 2026. After Eletre, there will be an E-class pure electric intelligent four-door coupe codenamed TYPE 133, a new species of pure electric intelligence codenamed TYPE 134, and a pure electric trot codenamed TYPE 135.
And lotus launched a cross-era significance of ELETRE I believe will also capture the hearts of many consumers, whether it is in terms of appearance, or intelligence can be regarded as the best in the same level of models.
The Eletre, a blockbuster model for the start of 2022, will also be officially unveiled in China in May. It ends with "E" but begins with "E", ushering in a whole new era for Lotus.
Although the automotive market is still iteratively updated, many supercar brands are also working hard to consolidate their "position". In the two-wheel drive revolution of the track's historical advantages and cutting-edge intelligent technology, Lotus's new future has just begun.