IT may sound a bit like a penalty kick against a blindfolded goalkeeper but the new electric rocket ship from Lotus has landed another high end styling gong.
This time the Evija, the world’s first fully electric British hypercar, has been honoured as Product Design of the Year at the prestigious International Design Awards.
Those sexy low slung looks apart, the Evija has some pretty jaw-dropping stats – like 2000PS of wallop, a 0-62 acceleration time of less than three seconds, top speed in excess of 200mph . . . and a price tag of a princely £2.4million.
It even costs £250,000 just to put your order in, but then that’s what it costs to lay your paws on the most powerful series production road car ever built, which will also be limited to just 130 models.
And here’s one for the range anxiety brigade. Lotus says the Evija will have an all-electric range of 215 miles and take just 18 minutes to charge from a 350kW charger.
Its energy-dense powertrain has been developed by Williams Advanced Engineering, of multiple F1 world titles fame, and has a mid-mounted battery pack behind the two seats and supplies energy directly to four powerful e-motors.
And it is the first Lotus road car to feature a one-piece carbon fibre monocoque chassis while the seats are inspired from motorsport.
The late Colin Chapman, who founded the company and built the first Lotus in 1948, would have been licking his lips.
