Automotive

2,000-horsepower Lotus Evija becomes the world's most powerful production car

2,000-horsepower Lotus Evija becomes the world's most powerful production car
On the Lotus Evija giant venturi tunnels exit at the rear, rimmed by the taillights
On  the Lotus Evija giant venturi tunnels exit at the rear, rimmed by the taillights
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The Lotus Evija's retracting charge port flap
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The Lotus Evija's retracting charge port flap
Honeycomb dials on the central console of the Lotus Evija
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Honeycomb dials on the central console of the Lotus Evija
The Lotus Evija is the most powerful production car in the world
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The Lotus Evija is the most powerful production car in the world
I'm sorry, that's gonna fling mud
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I'm sorry, that's gonna fling mud
Holes form a large part of Lotus' design philosophy with the Evija
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Holes form a large part of Lotus' design philosophy with the Evija
Holy moley
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Holy moley
Discreet rear facing camera replaces a mirror on the Lotus Evija
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Discreet rear facing camera replaces a mirror on the Lotus Evija
Hrre's your dash, complete with G-force readouts
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Hrre's your dash, complete with G-force readouts
The Lotus Evija's steering wheel packs plenty of buttons
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The Lotus Evija's steering wheel packs plenty of buttons
Inside the Evija's cabin – a place we dare you to put yourself one day
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Inside the Evija's cabin – a place we dare you to put yourself one day
The interior, as with the exterior, places a focus on big holes
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The interior, as with the exterior, places a focus on big holes
Handle-holes in the seats should bring cooling air up through your crotch
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Handle-holes in the seats should bring cooling air up through your crotch
The Lotus Evija has 20-inch wheels on the front
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The Lotus Evija has 20-inch wheels on the front
The Lotus Evija's bi-plane front splitter
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The Lotus Evija's bi-plane front splitter
Floating wing dash helps provide a nice big hole
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Floating wing dash helps provide a nice big hole
WAE is the technical partner on the Lotus Evija, the world’s most powerful series production road car, and is developing its ultra-advanced all-electric powertrain
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WAE is the technical partner on the Lotus Evija, the world’s most powerful series production road car, and is developing its ultra-advanced all-electric powertrain
On the Lotus Evija giant venturi tunnels exit at the rear, rimmed by the taillights
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On  the Lotus Evija giant venturi tunnels exit at the rear, rimmed by the taillights
A wicked side profile
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A wicked side profile
Front-on with the Lotus Evija
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Front-on with the Lotus Evija
View gallery - 19 images

Until today, the world's most powerful production car was the all-electric Rimac C_Two, which makes a puny 1,914 horsepower. Now, British carmaker Lotus has introduced a proper, lunch-money stealing, wedgie-pulling 2,000-hp 'leccy hypercar with a name that you'll need help pronouncing.

E-vi-ya, that's how you're supposed to say it, and each of the new Evija's four wheels can lay down more power by itself than any car Lotus has ever made. Buoyed by money from its new owners, Chinese automaking giant Geely, Lotus has decided to augment its range of lightweight, sharp-handling sportscars with a terrifying electric hero car that can bludgeon any other production car on the planet into submission – at least, in a bench race.

Two thousand horsepower, folks. Wrap your thinking gear around that. The vast majority of people on this planet never get to drive a car with a quarter of that power. And make no mistake, electric horsepower always feels much faster than gasoline horsepower because of the instant, maddening rush of torque electric motors supply.

WAE is the technical partner on the Lotus Evija, the world’s most powerful series production road car, and is developing its ultra-advanced all-electric powertrain
WAE is the technical partner on the Lotus Evija, the world’s most powerful series production road car, and is developing its ultra-advanced all-electric powertrain

The Evija's peak torque will be 1,700 Nm (1,254 lb-ft), and you can have all of it at once from a standstill, if you don't mind your car staying completely still, making a whizzing sound for a few seconds, and then flinging shredded pieces of ragged Pirelli Trofeo R rubber in all directions before dropping you onto your 20- and 21-inch Magnesium rims. Totally worth it.

Williams Advanced Engineering is involved with the project, in particular supplying a monster battery pack capable of 2,000-kW discharge rates. It sits in the middle of the carbon fiber monocoque chassis, emulating the weight distribution you'd get from a mid-engined supercar, and holds 70 kWh of energy, which is enough to achieve a range of 250 mi (400 km), if you drive it like a WLTP (World harmonized Light vehicle Testing Procedure) test robot. Drive it flat-out like a lunatic, and Lotus says its four-radiator cooling package will keep temperatures under control long enough to subject you to the most horrifying seven minutes of your life. Again, totally worth it.

The battery also features a whopping 800-kW charging capability, which will enable a full charge in just nine minutes, should anyone ever get around to building a charger that fast. Until then, the Evija will be one of the first cars around that can take full advantage of the current world's fastest chargers, which at 350 kW will blast you from 0-80 percent in 12 minutes or fill you right up in 18.

Front-on with the Lotus Evija
Front-on with the Lotus Evija

Lotus hasn't tested it yet, so it won't be drawn on performance figures other than to say it expects the Evija to deliver you from 0-62 mph (0-100 km/h) in "under three seconds" – yeah, no kidding, Sherlock. The company goes on to say it should be able to get you from 0-186 mph (300 km/h) in less than nine seconds – or about the same time it takes the average family car to get up to freeway speed. Top speed is "over 200 mph (320 km/h)" – the electrics might smash it on acceleration, but they won't be challenging the Koeniggsegg Jesko, with its alleged 300-mph (483-km/h) capability, for sheer final velocity for a long time.

Power is delivered to the wheels through individual single-speed, helical gear ground planetary gearboxes on each drive shaft. Naturally, there's torque vectoring to keep things under a modicum of control – or, stated more accurately, to fire you even faster out of a corner – and in Track mode the Evija will even add power to individual wheels to help tighten up your cornering radius by swinging the rear around a bit. Good grief.

The "aeronautically inspired" body design features some interesting aerodynamic touches, including stonking great Venturi tunnels that funnel air in behind the doors, behind the smoothly molded insides of the rear wheel arches, and then out two giant holes in the back of the car, which are big enough to stick a volleyball in. Lotus says they help reduce drag by balancing out some of the low-pressure air behind the car at speed, but their main function is clearly looking sick. You'll want to check them regularly for barnacles and stowaways.

Holy moley
Holy moley

These two colossal holes are rimmed by glowing LED tail and brake lights, a touch Lotus hopes will remind you of a jet's afterburners and not the morning after a vindaloo. The headlights, for their part, are world-first laser units for both main and high beam. Don't expect old-school mirrors, either – the Evija uses low-drag extending camera pods for the side mirrors and a discreet rear-facing camera for the main rear view.

The doors open dihedrally upwards, as is customary beyond a certain price point, and they don't have handles at all, opening instead in response to buttons on your key fob. We expect the lower portions of these doors to be caked with decorative mud thanks to lewd openings in the backs of the front wheel arches, which will pull cooling air through the brakes and presumably fling road grime back along the scoopy door panels at the same time.

I'm sorry, that's gonna fling mud
I'm sorry, that's gonna fling mud

The interior is pleasantly technological-looking, with the dash designed as a "flying wing" that floats separate from the firewall to create an interesting sensation of space in front of the seats. The dash is joined to the center console by a slim ski-ramp crammed with sleek, hexagonal button-and-dialery. The great holes behind the dash and instrument panel, as well as the jaunty grab-handle ventilation holes beneath the crotch area of the seats, are there to echo the "porosity" of the car's exterior design, and underscore the fact that "no Lotus component goes along for a free ride," according to Lotus Design Director Russell Carr, who has certainly rustled up a nice car in this case.

Handle-holes in the seats should bring cooling air up through your crotch
Handle-holes in the seats should bring cooling air up through your crotch

Only 130 Evijas will be built, each personalized in terms of color, finish, interior trims and details, right down to sticking your own family crest on the C-pillars if your family is the kind that has crests. Which, heck, it may well be if you've got £1.7 million (US$2.1 million) to spend on garage candy like this.

We are most certainly in the midst of a new golden age for hypercars, folks. To be an auto writer in today's market is to subject oneself to what seems like a never-ending deluge of exotic press releases, each making promises more ludicrous than the last. Be they combustion-engined, hybrid or electric, there has never been more ultra-exclusive gear on the market, and the seemingly limitless performance capabilities of electric powertrains point toward a future where things like the five-thousand-and-something horsepower Alieno Arcanum may well actually walk the Earth in the next decade or two. We'd tell you to drink it in before somebody in government puts a stop to it – but then, governments rarely have the cojones to put a stop to anyone's fun at this end of the market, do they?

Enjoy a video below introducing the Evija below.

Source: Lotus

Meet the Lotus Evija

View gallery - 19 images
6 comments
6 comments
f8lee
Wow! I want two - one to drive while the other is charging up for those interminable 18 minutes (and perhaps getting a new set of tires at the same time)
Buzzclick
It gobbles the mind how tires can maintain contact with the assfault at 2000hp. Anyways, I care mostly about the looks. The overall design is pleasing, nice curves, not too overdone. The wheels don't do it for me and the venturi openings at the rear would be cooler if they weren't framed with the cheesy led outlines. With the batteries on the floor and the motors at the level of the wheels, this thing must have a lower center of gravity than even a mid-engine job.
Elite, Evora, Elise, Evija...so Lotus has a thing for the letter E like Aston Martin has for the letter V. Even car companies can have OCD.
Loz, we are all becoming blase with every weekly newcomer to the hypercar class right along with you. Will it ever reach a saturation point? As long as there's feelthy rich people with egos to match...there will be a neesh to fill.
Nik
Just the job for 75 year old grannies, to do their weekly grocery shopping trip with.😎
2hung2b
At some point in time, someone’s going to make an electric car with such crazy horsepower numbers that some regulatory agency is going to step in and mess it all up.
New Atlas had a story a few months back, about a designed (but so far not yet produced) electric car with a theoretical 5000 horsepower. If these cars like this ever hit the streets in any appreciable numbers, and hopefully they will, were unfortunately going to be hearing allot of stories of people parking these things around telephone poles, school buses etc… As an old hot-rodder, I love the roaring sound of 500-600 horses of Detroit muscle. And I thought that was plenty for the street. But I also like the technology in these electrics. They are the future after all. I’m just concerned that as these things continue to develop, some modern ‘Carrie Nation’ will try to save us from ourselves.
TomLeeM
I think that is really nice. I think it is the best that Lotus has ever done.
ReservoirPup
Excellent take on the subject, Loz! It's soo good we can't rate your writing. if we could, you'd get a better pay, with that you'd have more donuts, but donuts aren't good healthwise. It's a win-win for everyone 😁