Lotus EV saloon 2023 - Taycan rival to nudge 600bhp
Lotus primes hot Taycan rival Lotus benchmarked Taycan in developing its EV architecture Electric saloon will arrive next year as a driver-focused car with 4WD and 592bhp
CARLTON IS BACK!
New Lotus saloon for 2023
Having unveiled its crucial Eletre SUV, Lotus will now shift focus to readying its second Chinese-built ‘lifestyle’ EV, the Type 133 saloon, for launch in 2023. The Type 133, which will follow Lotus convention in getting a name beginning with ‘E’ in production guise, will provide the brand with a more direct rival to the hugely popular Porsche Taycan, which company bosses confirmed as one of the main benchmarking influences while developing the Eletre, despite the two cars’ different positionings.
Gavan Kershaw, Lotus’s director of attributes and product integrity, said dynamic development of the Eletre was “really, benchmarking the platform”, rather than the car itself, with a view to then rolling it out to the Type 133 and a future Type 134 crossover.
Kershaw referenced the suspension technologies – “active roll control, CDC [continuous damping control], air-sprung independent active rear steer and active aero” – as features that most obviously mark the aluminium Electric Premium Architecture out as the more dynamically oriented platform in the Geely Group stable. He also said they have been ‘package-protected’ for “everything we want to do” with future electric cars, suggesting the Type 133 will follow suit with a similar set-up. “Our type of car – that we want to drive as well as it looks – requires all that technology,” he said, hinting that the ‘lifestyle’ positioning of EVs built by Lotus Technology in Wuhan, China, will not come at the expense of driver engagement.
Further details of the Type 133 remain under wraps, but using the 592bhp twin-motor drivetrain from the launch-spec Eletre would line the saloon neatly up against the Porsche Taycan GTS, leaving ample room above and below for both softer and more hardcore additions to the line-up.
Indeed, Lotus managing director Matt Windle confirmed that 592bhp is “where we’re starting at – there’s more to come” from Lotus EVs. Design work on the Type 133 is understood to be approaching the sign-off stage in line with Lotus’s plan to accelerate product development time frames, but it will not simply take the form of a lower-slung Eletre. Lotus senior vice-president of design Peter Horbury was keen to emphasise that while “there has to be some continuity and family identity” across the range of Lotus EVs, “families aren’t made up entirely of triplets or quadruplets. Every member of a family can have their own character.” The Type 133, then, can be expected to borrow cues from the Eletre but adopt a distinct overall design, albeit one that is still heavily influenced by Lotus’s preoccupation with aerodynamic efficiency.
The Eterne saloon was one of six aborted Lotus concepts shown at the 2010 Paris motor show. Planned for launch in 2015, it was set to rival the Aston Martin Rapide with a supercharged 5.0-litre V8 and a £120k list price.
Lotus benchmarked Taycan in developing its EV architecture. Type 133 saloon will draw on tech used by Eletre SUV