The Lotus Eletre causes a sensation at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

The Lotus Eletre is causing a sensation at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. This high-performance, technology-rich SUV, the same size as the Lamborghini Urus, represents the brand’s change of direction. The Lotus Eletre begins the reinvention of the historic British marque as a high-performance electric car manufacturer offering a range of vehicles, rather than just the sports cars for which it has traditionally been known.

The SUV is the first of four electric vehicles due from the Geely-owned British brand in 2025. Until now, the Eletre has been codenamed Type 132, and the subsequent electric models are currently known as Type 133, Type 134 and Type 135, the last of which is the Lotus Evija. The Lotus Eletre occupies almost exactly the same footprint as the Lamborghini Urus, measuring 5,105 mm long, 2,131 mm wide and 1,630 mm high, but it is more spacious thanks to its long wheelbase.

It is therefore a large car aimed at meeting demand in China and the US, although Lotus is also counting on strong acceptance in continental Europe and the UK, with a starting price of under 100,000 euros. There are no true rivals yet. The Urus is the closest but has a petrol engine, while the upcoming Ferrari Purosangue will be hybrid only. The Porsche Taycan is the nearest competitor, but it is a saloon rather than an SUV.

The Lotus Eletre takes on Goodwood

The Eletre’s platform is entirely new and created by Lotus, rather than an adaptation of existing Geely hardware. That means the aluminium architecture, which can be applied to smaller and possibly slightly larger models, must be widely used to justify the investment. In addition to being adopted by the other upcoming models already known and certainly more in the future, Lotus will also sell it to other car manufacturers to recover costs. It hopes to announce several major agreements in the coming months.

Called the Electric Premium Architecture (EPA), the design easily adapts not only to different car sizes, but also to different battery sizes, electric motors, component layouts and intelligent driving technologies.

The Eletre, whose name means ‘coming to life’ in Hungarian, will be offered in three variants, with different performance and specifications, but always with four-wheel drive. Confirmed technical figures are not yet available, but Lotus said the goal is a 0-100 km/h sprint time of under 3.0 seconds. Each Eletre will have a battery capacity of more than 100 kWh and an output of more than 592 CV.

Air suspension, active aerodynamics and active ride height will be standard, while options will include active dampers, active rear-wheel steering and torque vectoring via an electronic limited-slip differential. The Eletre was designed at the Lotus Technology Creative Center (LTCC) in Coventry, Warwickshire, the company’s new design centre for its “lifestyle” cars, which opened four years ago and now employs 120 people. The sports cars are still designed at Lotus’s headquarters in Hethel, Norfolk.