Lotus is a Norfolk-based sports car manufacturer founded 75 years ago by Colin Chapman. The company was not known for large production volumes, but now that is changing. Owned by Geely, the British brand received around 17,000 car orders worldwide in the first half of the year. This figure easily beats the sales of only 576 units last year.
The biggest contributor to this huge increase was the all-electric Eletre SUV. Introduced in 2022, Eletre was made available to Chinese customers at the end of March this year. UK and European deliveries will begin later this summer.
Produced at the Geely factory in Wuhan, China, Eletre is equipped with a 112 kWh battery pack and can transmit energy to electric motors thanks to this battery. These engines, which can produce 603 horsepower and 710 Nm of torque in the base equipment version, can produce 905 horsepower and 726 Nm of torque in the R model.
Thanks to these features, Eletre can accelerate from 0 to 98km/h in just 2.9 seconds. It also costs around $120,000, putting the Eletre on par with heavyweight and flagship names like the Tesla Model X and the newly introduced Cadillac Escalade IQ.
Also, the mid-engined sports car Emira made a big impression, with more than 2,200 produced in the UK in the first six months of the year. Lotus states that this figure has increased by 2022% compared to the 381 fiscal year.
