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@@JonathanBurnhams I think any advantage given there is taken away by the weight of it. I think the public is fed up with ridiculous vehicles like this where the cost and actual usability of it is prohibitive and the only party trick is the 0 to 60 time.
@@JonathanBurnhamsif that is the car’s drag coefficient then yes, that’s pretty amazing they achieved that (very little else about the car is amazing, except the price)
What we desperately need more of right now in the UK on our narrow, badly maintained roads is 2.7 tonne cars that have more BHP than an F1 car and cost as much as a one bedroom flat.
I just drew up a Venn diagram of people in the UK who want an electric SUV, are prepared to pay GBP160k for it, and are OK with it being in the repair shop more than it's on the road, and there might be as many as three.
To me, this typifies the modern car. Too big, too heavy, needlessly complicated with no tangible benefit, remote to drive yet stupidly fast and soulless at the same time with the EV powertrain.
Except new MG's are at least cheap and reliable, have decent after sales support, reasonable depreciation rates, and don't weigh as much as a small neutron star.
@@DavidBrown-bs7gg depreciation is incorporated in the terms…somehow,somewhere, someone is taking the depreciation, and my guess is that this is not the lender.
167,000 for a heavy SUV shitbox that looks like some random Kia? This is the product of a thousand bad decisions, the car companies are all going to bankrupt themselves at this rate. Utterly depressing.
I thought we were trying to save the planet,these monsters contain more materials than the old petrol cars and are so fat the brakes are working overtime to stop them and generate a bit of electricity back so the brake dust is wrecking the planet so badly you can easily measure it.
@@SDK2006balso, of course it doesn't drive like a KIA; a KIA GT is 2.1 tons; this overweight tank has 500-600 kgs of extra mass; by comparison to this monstrosity, that KIA is a "lightweight driver's car". For ppl who don't care, don't want or simply aren't capable of driving, more power is always the answer; they don't care if that power is made by a luxury cruise boat of a svelte trimaran; in fact, in 99.99% of the times, they will prefer the luxury boat. - Lotus cars should not be for those kind of people - What makes me have faith is the fact that buyers are starting to fight back and they are doing it with their wallets!, this is a real Lotus in the same way your mother is a young Monica Bellucci; calling it a KIA means to offer and have a very positive view on this vehicle; the sad truth is, this is just a rebadged mundane geely platform used on numerous other vehicles and made to look "classy" to new rich from Asia. It can be whatever you wanted to be but, never a Lotus!
Chapman was trying to get an S-Class Mercedes rival up and running when he died. If he thought there was money to be made, he'd have been right behind this product.
Ooh, you beat me to the Colin Chapman spinning in his grave gag by three hours!! I said he was spinning in his grave to drill himself out and replace some panels with cardboard sprayed silver... Hehe! 2.7 tonnes is most definitely not adding lightness!
Me too... we literarily lost everything that makes cars and driving them fun.and few exceptions are also corrupted and wattered down, loosing feel, and general experience being just underwhelming or as lame as some pedestrian mdoenr cars due to either cluelessness of newer engkneers, nvh focus or part sharing with such. Even 911 is somewhat comprommised in terms of steering feel.and those cost a fortune... a basoc 2.0L zetec Mk1 Focus from 2001 was far more exciting to ring out than vast majority of "sporty offerings". We are in the dark times... Heat death of automotive hobby...
I wouldn't be so quick to blame the chinese people and their market. I know it's the trendy thing to do but in the words of bruce lee, "boards don't hit back". truth is, crossovers spread like wildfire globally, not just china, due to a manufacturers' arms race where no company wants to 'fall behind'. one key component of the crossover push was/is based on the idea of increasing safety (among others). unfortunately, it's a one-sided 'individualism-driven' idea of safety that only considers the occupants, at the cost of everyone else (and the environment).
I've delivered a few of these when I did a car delivery job. They are absolutely massive. How they put a lotus badge on this baffles me If u go to bca in Milton Keynes there is 100s n 100s parked up there doin nothing
I've just got back from Shanghai, and it all makes sense. Lotus has these exclusive hyper posh little boutique dealers right next to Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga, etc. They even have doormen as if you entering a luxury hotel... seriously. Cheely needed something with a high class feel to stand out amongst all the other super high tech EVs, so they've gone for British royalty, so to speak. This is not car for Europe.
I was in Norway on holiday this summer and you have a lot of electric cars on your roads. Presumably your cheap electric is a big incentive unlike the UK who have some of the most expensive energy in the world
@@hTyKn1 Yes. Many years of solid and genuinely valuable incentives has tipped the balance. Annual sales are now well over 82% fully electric and over 25% of cars registered on the road are EVs. There are actually more EVs than petrol cars here (though diesel still wins in overall numbers). To get to that point took a decade and commitment to policy by successive governments. Good luck getting that in the UK
@@horvathr95 They've sold 26 in 2024. For comparison, in 2024 Audi has sold 877 Q6 e-trons, BMW has sold 1036 iX's and Mercedes has even sold 125 EQS's.
I just drove home in a Lotus tonight. Esprit V8. The Eletre weighs twice as much and is twice as high as my Esprit. I think my Esprit sounds better too. Erm looks better. Light, nimble and much better steering. Oh, and finally, it was actually built by Lotus in Norfolk UK.
I'm calling it. I'm officially old. These new cars just leave me cold. A car tells me a lorry is in the road... great... Dumb (or is that smart) SUV's, hypercars with a gazillion pound service bill, others with screens and electronic gizmos that fit in with the increasingly vapid world. I remember seeing a Lotus, Ferrari or Lamborghini that would make my adrenalin soar. Posters on walls and dreams in Biology class. Now they are a disgrace to the brands.
im in my early 30s I agree , evs are boring , range is disastrous , too quite for peds i could barely hear them in car park , not enviro friendly at all , all the mining then disposing of those batteries , thermal runway , expensive , boring , silent , there is nothing like the character and spirit of an ice
James, this is not a 160k car. That is the retail price. It is actually a Chinese 40k car, but they try to make you pay 4x that for the privilege of them glueing a Lotus badge on it.
Obviously 160k is ridiculously expensive,but 40k sounds too low. the 112kWh battery, at $150/kWh would already be $15k. no idea what that sweet Kef sound system would cost, but probably more than $5k. Dual motors also not cheap. I don't think you can buy the rest of the car bits for $20k.
@@UKMike2009 - ahhh yes, those have literally appeared up for sale today. Price history : added 4/12/24 A drop of 31% against RRP isn't too horrific. Also, the original owners wouldn't have paid full price for them.
@@SDK2006b But that’s simply what the owner is selling / advertising the car for. What the buyer ends up paying after negotiations (and the buyer would be in a good position to bargain) may actually be less. Those are the figures i would want to know.
James this is the first video of yours that I stopped after a few minutes. I think that speaks volumes about how interesting modern electric SUVs are. I may give it another try if I have trouble getting to sleep.
Engineering is dead when you just throw a bigger battery and bigger motor into anything. An EV made by Bugatti and and EV made by Kia or Ford will drive exactly the same. They'll both have a bazillion horsepower, weigh as much as the Knock Nevis and be as exciting to drive as after school detention as a kid. Engineering, character and passion in cars dies with the EV when they all go full appliance.
@@matrinezkevin11492 Yup, opening up a car used to be fun because you would hear the engine come to life and feel it revving. Now with an EV, driving them fast is just being irresponsible and reckless, you're simply speeding and putting other people in danger for no good reason. Performance figures with these things is pointless.
It looks cool, its unique, spacious, its a lotus,... Plenty of reasons. Id rather take a risk with one of these instead of the generic Cayenne, Q8, X7, etc... Its also not a badge engineered car either. Im not sure you know what that means. The car is built from the ground up for Lotus. Its been set up at the Lotus research center in Raunheim were they still develop and upgrade them daily. Its a proper international effort.
@@AI-qd4vb Nah, it's literally built on a variant of the Geely SEA architecture. Lotus of course designed the look, and no doubt had input into the fitout, twiddled with the suspension, driveline, brakes and steering etc - but they didn't "engineer" any of it - it's mostly Chinese, or at least more Chinese than British.
There is an issues with camera door mirrors no one seems to address. The cost of repair or replacement. I am a HGV class 1 driver, in my company we have trucks with traditional mirrors and 1 truck with cameras. Damage a mirror, the cost to replace is less than £200, the cameras £2000, and it has to go to a main dealer. There is little to no depth perception, and can flair out at night if the vehicle behind has high beam on or especially bright headlights, and rain, forget it if you get rain drops on the lens, complete distortion making them useless. They are tech for the sake of trying to appear cutting edge. Oh if you use glasses for reading, you need to use your glasses to look at the screen, but not to drive.
There's another issue to add - those of us who have lost our short focus can't see what's in the digital display, cos it's too close. no focusing problems with an optical mirror as the focus is set at infinity, instead of two feet away. I need reading glasses to use wing mirror displays. but then I can't see a bloody thing on the road ahead
One look at the deappreciation trends on higher-end EVs should tell you to walk away and buy something else. Taycan's are losing something like 40% in their first YEAR. Crazy. You might as well pile up your money and light it on fire...
Though not as expensive, my EV6 had the same heating issues (broken heating element, they said), which was fun in the dead of winter and with a frozen windscreen inside the car! Everyone inside was frozen too. 12v battery died and I had to jump start the car EVERY time for 2 months before KIA could fix it. The recall then came 5 months afterwards... Got rid of EV6 in Sept and got an NX450+. After that experience, I will not contemplate an electric car until I am forced to after 2030.
Eh, I'd say at least Volvo has still retained their identity for the most part with the new cars. And as a C30 owner I do like that they finally were able to move to their own platform and try and do their own thing instead of reworking a Ford.
Most Volvo's are made in Sweden and Belgium, with also a factory in the US for the big EX90 SUV. They also have a factory in China which supplies the Chinese market, nothing wrong with that. Along with this they do their own platform development. SPA1, SPA2 and future SPA3 is not shared with anyone but Polestar. CMA platform was developed in Gothenburg and is shared with some brands in the Geely umbrella such as Lynk & Co. Geely is barely involved with Volvo Cars. Volvo has a lot more autonomy than a lot of people seem to think.
In the London motor trade of the 60s and 70s, the word was that Lotus cars carried a "no quibble guarantee". This translated to "We won't quibble with you, sir, just f**k off."
In truth, this truck has nothing to do with Lotus Cars, the UK company. It was designed in Geely's Coventry studio (not in Hethel), engineering was done in Frankfurt (again, not Hethel) and it is built in a Wuhan Geely factory under contract. Lotus Technology (the company selling the EVs) doesn't even own Lotus Cars in Hethel- they hold an option to acquire it which they haven't exercised yet.
I'm gonna name my first kid Siri -- only a computer geek would be so stupid to use the lotus name as the calling card to the computer. oh and by the way did they not test this with the public, or they did, but they just chose to ignore the very first person who used it and said; every time I say the word Lotus. Absolutely amazing
"I have a BMW convertable, I converted it myself, from a Cortina." I know it's old joke but that is not a Lotus, it's a Chinese EV SUV converted into a Lotus by sticking badges on it. It's got Chinese technical build quality to boot.
Excellent and honest review, as always. I'm struggling to think of a more loathsome vehicle from a brand that should know better, maybe Alfa's Junior is even worse, but this car basically represents everything that is wrong with the car industry. It's deliberately offensive and alienates the brand's customer base, it's ugly, heavy, impractical, inefficient, unreliable and expensive.
@@joshuanishanthchristian5217 I guess one big reason for me is the looks, which are very generic and ugly, without any of the typical Alfa Romeo strange beauty. Looks are subjective to be fair, but I also don't like how it's an SUV without any exciting engines and feels very contrived and soulless. It may be a better car than the eletre, I just feel it still doesn't represent the brand we are used to and love.
@@eugenux- yeah, very few people actually wanted those light Lotus cars. Lotus have sold more of these in less than a year, than the last 20 years of Lotus sales combined
@@D1ARBO Chinese Lotus and Indian Jag 🤮 Mitsubishi is in the same boat with Nissan.. I wouldn't put VW in this pile they actually have a decent lineup and massive resources
If the UK could connect their power grid to Collin Chapman's grave, they could have free electricity for all. A giant SUV-thing is the absolute antithesis of everything Lotus should stand for.
These cars are for executives who are in the 50% tax bracket, who can write the car off against tax basically making it half the price. They want a new and expensive car for the status.
It's not _for_ you. Once your democracy has finished banning all the cheap alternatives, you'll be confined to your 15 minute city, where you belong, like the serf you are. -- Keir Stalin, WEF puppet
Drive an f80. Best car ive ever owned. Gor a mk7 gti ,and a jeep wrangler.but the f80 is a peach its got around 600, 625 .fox the crankhub and rock in roll
O yes. It just looks like anything else. I think he said so in order to avoid views going down or being banned by somebody. I miss Top Gear with the 3 boys: ok, they did many things wrong, but at least their reviews were sincere.
@@nakoma5 In the UK if a car, or any consumer good, is not of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described, you have a legal right to hand it back for a refund. That even applies to used cars as well. It would be hard for lotus to argue that a car which broke down on the drive home and was then off the road for 4 months thanks to a botched update is of "satisfactory quality".
Met one of the interior designers talking about using ‘porosity’ on the interior trim panels to create the feeling of lightness. No amount of ‘porosity’ can hide the kerb weight of any EV. Feels completely polar opposite to the Colin Chapman ethos imo.
@@AI-qd4vb A model 3 might be light for an EV, but it's far from a light car. Most modern cars are bigger and heavier than ever, that's why I care about very few of them.
"Colin Chapman ethos"...??? Oh you mean the fake simplicity &:lightness quote he never actually said...?!? 🙄 The major reason Chapman built lightweight sports cars is that they were cheap to build. Simple as that.
2.00 this is a common problem with voice recognition software, they never understand what you say unless you are talking to someone else which it repeats perfectly.
Essentially, the Eletre is a £30k Geely SUV isn't it, redesigned by Lotus...? You got to admire the patience of the owner, as the car could so easily be rejected as not fit for use, and get a refund. I hate to think of the depreciation, if even Porsche Taycans are going half price after a year or two...
It used to be, back in the day that is, that the USA made big huge heavy beasts of cars that were sport models and all and Europeans would laugh knowing what a real sports car was. Now Europe is starting to flood with these massive heavy rigs like those across the pond during our save the planet day and age. This move to electric rides would be better served if they weren’t so massive and heavy imo Great review J. Been waiting for you take on one of these.
remember when GM bought lotus - remember when ford bought jaguar -- well maybe some one will rescue Lotus after this failure and get back to actual sports cars. -- or wait I'll buy a Loyus minivan (mis spelling on principal}
Oh dear, British automotive industry is really getting lost. What’s next? 3t electric Morgan SUV with 5000 horsepower? Lotus has so much heritage to keep on doing well in ev era, by making what is , or was, in their dna , small lightweight sport cars. Everyone and their mother is producing these ridiculous suv monsters and with the Chinese in the game, no one can tell them apart any more. Not everyone however can make what lotus was best at. Well said in the beginning they should fix quality and customer service, that’s all they need to be successful.
Britain is dead, it has no future. The spitfire nationalism stuff is so cringe. The dismantling of our industries, economy, history, culture, is the natural consequence of allying with globalism and international finance, gleefully cheered on by the sorts of boomer liberals who deride Chinese shite like this.
Nobody bought the original ones, what makes you think people would buy a warmed over version? There are not enough enthusiasts out there to keep the light on. They need to cater to the mass market to survive.
@@heiner71i bought six of them during the 1990s and early 2000s, still have my V8, but i recognise they can’t build an entire market around just me ;-)
Lotus doesn't want traditional Lotus buyers No one wants traditional Lotus buyers. Traditional Lotus buyers aren't numerous or profitable enough to sustain a company, and leads to financial ruins. That's how Lotus got into this goddamn mess in the first place. It isn't built for the British market. Too small, irrelevant, and shrinking. There's no growing middle class. Infact you could say the middle class is collapsing. The Eletre is pretty competitive in its market segment. It's much better than the BMW IX M60, and the new Macan EV. Especially as a luxury car. The entry Type-S 620hp model is the best pick, with a decent range. And it could be had for £74k in China. Though personally, I'd buy a Zeekr 7X over it, and still have enough left over for a BMW M2 (just saying, not that I'd ever buy a European car anymore)
@@heiner71 Well, you suspect wrong, and even if it was true, no shame in it. Chinese engineers have proven more in the past 10 years than english ones in the past century. Theres not been single decent mass manufacturer in the UK for decades now.
@@AI-qd4vb , I am not saying that the Chinese engineers don't know what they are doing but they don't have the Lotus heritage/experience. If you give a bunch of them the task to design a new Ferrari, it will not have all the Ferrari specific tweaks and features, people expect from a Ferrari. Many characteristics are based on experience and tribal knowledge within a company. You can't just expect a different company to pick that up and run with it.
No. Some very brave people kept the company going despite disruptive changes in ownership. We had the development of the Esprit, the Elan M100, then the Elise, Exige and Evora.
As you Say, It looks like any Other Evoke/Qashqai SUV Boring Blob. I just hope that I never get to the point where I have to buy something that looks as dull as everyone else
If one can afford this car, go for the Lambo Urus!. This car is made by Gelly so it is priced lower in my country, Malaysia, rm450k, the Urus is cost more than double of that here!!!. In the UK 162k quid, urus is 200k.😅
I love an engine, manual handbrake, no driver interfering tech like steering or brakes. I prefer clutch and manual gears. With Lotus handling, steering feedback and a narrow width 175cm or less so i can park easily. Less than 1200 kg please.
@EvoraGT430 thanks. I think you are right. Is the Exige bigger than an Elise ? Im 186cm tall, unfortunately I could not get into an Elise years ago when I tried to. I think need about 10cm more leg room.
A little side point: When a car manufacturer like Lotus claims their car has a 2 kW hi-fi in it, divide that figure by at least 4 to get something more like a real (RMS continuous) rating. When Lotus says the hi fi in that Eletre is 2Kw, it's really around 250-500 watts.
Yeah, they all quote the "PMPO" figure, which is nowhere near the actual sustainable output or "RMS" - divide by 4 rule is about right...but often still overestimates the real performance. Cheers!
I've got one . I'm also a former professional sound engineer . I can tell you , you're wrong . The KEF sound system is immense . Best car system I've heard by a country mile . The specifications are also accurate.
@@markfrombarnsley It might sound 'immense', but Phillip is right, the 2kW is a PMPO (Peak Music Power Output) rating, which is usually 4 times the correct RMS (Root Mean Square) Continuous rating, though sometimes it can be even more. Car and car stereo manufacturers are forced into giving these wildly exaggerated power ratings because everyone else does it.
@@paulzon I'm sorry , I thought I mentioned I was a professional sound engineer ? I still own three full PA systems in my live music venues . I'm therefore fully aware of the difference between RMS and PMPO . As someone who uses and owns professional equipemnt , I can tell you that RMS figures are always used for pro speakers and amplifiers . Always. This is also true for the vast majority of high end HIFI kit . KEF speakers power ratings are always given as an RMS output . It might be an idea to have a listen to one , then you can hear just how immense it sounds :) Phillip isn't right , he has just chucked out a sound bite he's heard somewhere that doesn't actually apply to this car.
I could swear that the car sounded ever so slightly annoyed at getting cancelled when it said "Alright". Feels like foreshadowing, great way to open the video!
Was a pleasure meeting you good sir. Didn’t realise I wasn’t subbed. That’s been corrected. UA-cam must like you, been watching your vids for years thusly my presumed sub. The interrupting sat reminded me of a classic Clarkson Mercedes review and he’s not bad.
The thing is - cars this big and wide just seem to spend most of their time on the wrong side of the road. Which is a worry when they weigh as much as they do and move as quickly as they do.😬
“Simplify, then add lightness” is the famous Colin Chapman quote. Now we have: “Complicate and add weight”. Colin must be on the red line in his grave. I wanted to hate it and I wasn’t disappointed. 😂 Thanks James for just saving me £160,000. I wonder what it’s worth now at 1 year old? Must be in five figures and not six I’m guessing. That’s definitely going to smart a bit. Slightly more seriously, I just wonder if we’re starting to see the end of the road for the car? Most new cars now are too expensive, too complicated, too big, too heavy. Then there’s too much traffic on our roads, there’s the environmental concerns, there’s government legislation wanting us to move to electric vehicles that many don’t want or try and then go back to internal combustion, many young people don’t view cars in the way previous generations did; it’s not an aspiration to own a car in the way that it was. Even as a car lover, I’ve used quite a bit of public transport or simply walked, because for what I was doing and where I was going it was more convenient. Like many businesses and areas of life that seem in decline recently, it’s not one thing dealing the death blow for the car, it’s more like death by a thousand cuts.
Well said, the other thing is, that most younger people are far more savvy about financial matters, when I bought my house in the early '90's, no one talked about interest rates, now if the interest rate moves it's national news ! Cars are increasingly becoming known for the financial disaster that they represent, and in these times high cost of living, for many people, the pleasure of having a shiny new car just cannot be justified purely on the basis that you are making a negative investment.
Colin Chapman never said this... it's a Lotus Cars marketing line from the 90's that was conveniently misquoted to him...& whilst producing only Elises, no-one in Lotus PR was hardly going to correct this detail.
No James. Yet another pointless over expensive EV with no real world use. I’m sure it’s performance is unusable in the real world, it’s range is equally not practical. What makes it better than my 230hp diesel Volvo estate with its 600+ mile tank range?
@JayEmmOnCars. Lotus should have offered to replace that car. £162,000 and all that hassle is totally unacceptable. Give me a slightly used Bentayga any day of the week
Had a choice of the Eletre R or an i7 as a company car.. having owned 7+ Lotus in the past I was sorely tempted by the Eletre and then I read owners' experiences on the forums.. like one guy whose Eletre has been bricked for 8 weeks with no sign of it being fixed. The BMW was the right move
Before I watched this video, I looked at the title, and the first word that came into my head was "suspension". The ONE PART OF A CAR that you expect Lotus of all people to be good at, but I sensed that they had cocked up. I wasn't that far out when I watched the video ... But then, my thought when this was announced, was "Oh no ... Lotus of all people are building an SUV". That was IMMEDIATELY filed under the heading "BAD MOVE". Admittedly, I thought the same when I was told that Ferrari of all people were building an SUV, but [1] I don't think they cocked it up, and [2] given what Ferrari would charge for the end product, they had better bloody well get it right. But the real killer is that price tag. A HUNDRED AND SIXTY GRAND for a car with Windows 95 level bugs? One whose own dealer network can't maintain properly? I'm sorry, but HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ... are Lotus taking the piss? Does anyone else here think that Geely are using Lotus as their beta testers (and by extension, Lotus customers), so that they can bring out an electric SUV that WORKS, under a Chinese brand name for a third of the price two years later? Which is the REAL intended end user for that mega capacity factory? If I hadn't watched this car being driven by an actual human being, I'd have dismissed it as vapourware. Thought it was bad enough when Ford decided to stick the Capri name on an SUV. That was a travesty of epic proportions. This, on the other hand, strikes me as well into Götterdämmerung territory.
Even Lotus can't hide the immense mass. Can't cheat physics. Just like the new M5, these bloated cars can't go around a corner to save their life. No thanks... I'll buy a used ICE car and bank the savings. 160k? Lolololol.
Let's hope that lotus has a future in spite of this monstrosity. A SUV is the acronym for a stupid ugly vehicle and it pretty much applies to the taste of those that drive them. If you bought an SUV you should've bought a minivan they would've worked a lot better
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Use this link or code "JAYEMM" for a discount!
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Some say, that on a quiet night you can 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳 these depreciating.
In space you can hear this car depreciating.
... and that he has a driver’s license in every country
All we know is its *not* the Stig..., but it is the Stig's Voice Assistant cousin.
🤣
You really can
Yeah, especially because these run around $250000 USD (yikes)
I love the idea of putting drag reducing wing mirrors on a car with the frontal area of a bus, it's like drilling the pedals on a challenger tank.....
@@boing615 this comment deserves far more attention! Absolutely brilliant analogy, it’s such a pointless thing to do.
And they're not exactly small and inobtrusive though, are they? When I saw them from the interior view I was convinced they were full sized.
it has a drag coefficient of .26 - that seems good to me?
@@JonathanBurnhams I think any advantage given there is taken away by the weight of it. I think the public is fed up with ridiculous vehicles like this where the cost and actual usability of it is prohibitive and the only party trick is the 0 to 60 time.
@@JonathanBurnhamsif that is the car’s drag coefficient then yes, that’s pretty amazing they achieved that (very little else about the car is amazing, except the price)
What we desperately need more of right now in the UK on our narrow, badly maintained roads is 2.7 tonne cars that have more BHP than an F1 car and cost as much as a one bedroom flat.
Yesterday, I just bought a one bedroom flat in Warwickshire for £45k.
So almost enough to buy the block of four! 😂
Seriously. The UK seems to be one the worst places to own such cars - poor weather, poor visibility, narrow roads, low speed limits... I don't get it.
S'funny how with all this technology nothing ever goes down in price except wages 😅
I just drew up a Venn diagram of people in the UK who want an electric SUV, are prepared to pay GBP160k for it, and are OK with it being in the repair shop more than it's on the road, and there might be as many as three.
So it's absolutely nothing like a Lotus apart from being completely unreliable? Brilliant work Geely. Brilliant.
A new Lotus broke down and took 4 months to get fixed? So it is a *real* Lotus!
I concur with the cycling. I live in France, TDF coming to your village? New road surface.😊
Ooh, painfully accurate!
its land rover
Lots of Trouble Usually Serious
that is true!
To me, this typifies the modern car. Too big, too heavy, needlessly complicated with no tangible benefit, remote to drive yet stupidly fast and soulless at the same time with the EV powertrain.
New cars: speed has never been so boring!
It's not a Lotus, it's a Geely wearing the flayed skin of Lotus as a trophy. Similar applies to MG
Except new MG's are at least cheap and reliable, have decent after sales support, reasonable depreciation rates, and don't weigh as much as a small neutron star.
Yep: just another Geely group sanitary pad wagon
and Volvo... and parts of Mercedes...
You can tell its Chinese by the way the marketing on the website shows how well it can cut someone off.
It looks so fugly it makes newest ugly BMWs look like instant classic
A car manufacturer with a long history of electrical problems makes an electric car. Sounds great
This car has depreciated £180.52p in the 26 minutes of this video
Oh dear
It's just a Geely with Lotus badges.
That's why you lease. Was £500 pm
@@DavidBrown-bs7gg depreciation is incorporated in the terms…somehow,somewhere, someone is taking the depreciation, and my guess is that this is not the lender.
@@mickc7388 ...and that's a Volvo. So, not bad at all.
167,000 for a heavy SUV shitbox that looks like some random Kia? This is the product of a thousand bad decisions, the car companies are all going to bankrupt themselves at this rate. Utterly depressing.
All by design.
Tell me you haven't sat in, or driven it, without tell me !
Once you have, then you know it's nothing like a Kia !
I thought we were trying to save the planet,these monsters contain more materials than the old petrol cars and are so fat the brakes are working overtime to stop them and generate a bit of electricity back so the brake dust is wrecking the planet so badly you can easily measure it.
@@SDK2006btell me you aren't interested in driving without telling me you aren't interested in driving!
@@SDK2006balso, of course it doesn't drive like a KIA; a KIA GT is 2.1 tons; this overweight tank has 500-600 kgs of extra mass; by comparison to this monstrosity, that KIA is a "lightweight driver's car".
For ppl who don't care, don't want or simply aren't capable of driving, more power is always the answer; they don't care if that power is made by a luxury cruise boat of a svelte trimaran; in fact, in 99.99% of the times, they will prefer the luxury boat. - Lotus cars should not be for those kind of people -
What makes me have faith is the fact that buyers are starting to fight back and they are doing it with their wallets!, this is a real Lotus in the same way your mother is a young Monica Bellucci; calling it a KIA means to offer and have a very positive view on this vehicle; the sad truth is, this is just a rebadged mundane geely platform used on numerous other vehicles and made to look "classy" to new rich from Asia. It can be whatever you wanted to be but, never a Lotus!
You could power the factory that thing was built in with how much Colin Chapman is spinning in his grave over this
Comment of the year right there
It is rediculously large and only its mother thinks it is beautiful.
The spinning of chapman is louder than the washing machine motor in this abhorrent Chinese monstrosity.
Chapman was trying to get an S-Class Mercedes rival up and running when he died. If he thought there was money to be made, he'd have been right behind this product.
Ooh, you beat me to the Colin Chapman spinning in his grave gag by three hours!! I said he was spinning in his grave to drill himself out and replace some panels with cardboard sprayed silver... Hehe! 2.7 tonnes is most definitely not adding lightness!
I hate what modern cars have become, it's so depressing.
Me too... we literarily lost everything that makes cars and driving them fun.and few exceptions are also corrupted and wattered down, loosing feel, and general experience being just underwhelming or as lame as some pedestrian mdoenr cars due to either cluelessness of newer engkneers, nvh focus or part sharing with such. Even 911 is somewhat comprommised in terms of steering feel.and those cost a fortune... a basoc 2.0L zetec Mk1 Focus from 2001 was far more exciting to ring out than vast majority of "sporty offerings".
We are in the dark times... Heat death of automotive hobby...
Nothing like an EV-SUV to really embody the simplify and add lightness mantra. Definitely made for the Chinese market.
It would have been more respectful to have made their suv based on that mantra but instead they made the same suv everyone else is already making.
@nakoma5 it literally looks like a parts bin special from BYD (especially the rear) and the like.
I wouldn't be so quick to blame the chinese people and their market. I know it's the trendy thing to do but in the words of bruce lee, "boards don't hit back". truth is, crossovers spread like wildfire globally, not just china, due to a manufacturers' arms race where no company wants to 'fall behind'.
one key component of the crossover push was/is based on the idea of increasing safety (among others). unfortunately, it's a one-sided 'individualism-driven' idea of safety that only considers the occupants, at the cost of everyone else (and the environment).
I've delivered a few of these when I did a car delivery job. They are absolutely massive. How they put a lotus badge on this baffles me
If u go to bca in Milton Keynes there is 100s n 100s parked up there doin nothing
They simplify and add lightness to your wallet.
I've just got back from Shanghai, and it all makes sense. Lotus has these exclusive hyper posh little boutique dealers right next to Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga, etc. They even have doormen as if you entering a luxury hotel... seriously. Cheely needed something with a high class feel to stand out amongst all the other super high tech EVs, so they've gone for British royalty, so to speak. This is not car for Europe.
Yeah that makes more sense.
When I was in London this year, the Lotus shop had a doorman, in the shop surrounded by "Louis Vuitton etc', hope that helps ...
@@sweetpo1 tbf in Shanghai you'll make your money back on a £160k EV. With a petrol car you'll blow most of that on buying the numberplate.
What a surprise, the Chinese made an anti-Lotus and slapped a Lotus badge on it, how could anyone have seen it coming???
If you reeeeally squint, you might see the Chinese side of the story...
Rrotus.
Came here to say pretty much that. Same goes for MGs, Jaguars, tough times ahead!
I have one for you: how that we can still find ppl defending it?!?
@@pistonburner6448 Jaguar will follow.....
Even here in Norway they have only sold 53 of them in total. I've seen 2. It's truly a bad sign if you can't sell your EV even in Norway
I was in Norway on holiday this summer and you have a lot of electric cars on your roads. Presumably your cheap electric is a big incentive unlike the UK who have some of the most expensive energy in the world
It's too big for norwegian roads.
@@hTyKn1 Yes. Many years of solid and genuinely valuable incentives has tipped the balance. Annual sales are now well over 82% fully electric and over 25% of cars registered on the road are EVs. There are actually more EVs than petrol cars here (though diesel still wins in overall numbers). To get to that point took a decade and commitment to policy by successive governments. Good luck getting that in the UK
@@15bit62 Only 53? Considering its not a big market, and that its only been for sale for at max 1 year, its not bad
@@horvathr95 They've sold 26 in 2024. For comparison, in 2024 Audi has sold 877 Q6 e-trons, BMW has sold 1036 iX's and Mercedes has even sold 125 EQS's.
2.7 tonnes?! Almost need a C1 licence to drive it lmao. Over half a tonne heavier than an empty Transit.
And more than 3x as much as the OG Elise
Simplify, then add lightness.
If you add 4 passengers an some luggage you will be very close to the 3500kg limit. Towing would be out of the question.
I just drove home in a Lotus tonight. Esprit V8. The Eletre weighs twice as much and is twice as high as my Esprit. I think my Esprit sounds better too. Erm looks better. Light, nimble and much better steering. Oh, and finally, it was actually built by Lotus in Norfolk UK.
Be simp and add shiteness. Lotus.. @@musicmaker99
I'm calling it. I'm officially old. These new cars just leave me cold. A car tells me a lorry is in the road... great... Dumb (or is that smart) SUV's, hypercars with a gazillion pound service bill, others with screens and electronic gizmos that fit in with the increasingly vapid world.
I remember seeing a Lotus, Ferrari or Lamborghini that would make my adrenalin soar. Posters on walls and dreams in Biology class. Now they are a disgrace to the brands.
im in my early 30s I agree , evs are boring , range is disastrous , too quite for peds i could barely hear them in car park , not enviro friendly at all , all the mining then disposing of those batteries , thermal runway , expensive , boring , silent , there is nothing like the character and spirit of an ice
James, this is not a 160k car. That is the retail price. It is actually a Chinese 40k car, but they try to make you pay 4x that for the privilege of them glueing a Lotus badge on it.
Indeed
Obviously 160k is ridiculously expensive,but 40k sounds too low. the 112kWh battery, at $150/kWh would already be $15k. no idea what that sweet Kef sound system would cost, but probably more than $5k. Dual motors also not cheap. I don't think you can buy the rest of the car bits for $20k.
@@rhesarozendaal The rate it is depreciating at, it'll be 40K in no time at all anyway.
Yeah.
They should've stuck a blue and white propeller badge on it.
Hey Presto everyone swoons.
@@philipcrossley1279 Except BMW would never do something like this. That's probably why they swoon. BMW builds BMWs, not rebadged Geelys.
Cheapest on Autotrader is £77k with 4688 miles…. And there are lots available! 😮😮😮😮
The cheapest R (The model in this video) is £95k
@@SDK2006b No, there are two 73 reg'd at £89980 - a cool £40k drop for cars with 3000 and 5000 miles only.
@@UKMike2009 - ahhh yes, those have literally appeared up for sale today. Price history : added 4/12/24
A drop of 31% against RRP isn't too horrific. Also, the original owners wouldn't have paid full price for them.
@@SDK2006b But that’s simply what the owner is selling / advertising the car for. What the buyer ends up paying after negotiations (and the buyer would be in a good position to bargain) may actually be less. Those are the figures i would want to know.
It may make 900bhp and do 0-60 in under 3 seconds, but it still looks like a Renault
Espace?
More like a Buick Envista.
Like a Xiaopeng X3
KIA EV6
Oh, very good, you're spot on! I hadn't noticed until you said it.
James this is the first video of yours that I stopped after a few minutes. I think that speaks volumes about how interesting modern electric SUVs are. I may give it another try if I have trouble getting to sleep.
EV's are all the same. Some are more powerful than others, but they all drive and sound the same. Just appliances.
Engineering is dead when you just throw a bigger battery and bigger motor into anything. An EV made by Bugatti and and EV made by Kia or Ford will drive exactly the same. They'll both have a bazillion horsepower, weigh as much as the Knock Nevis and be as exciting to drive as after school detention as a kid. Engineering, character and passion in cars dies with the EV when they all go full appliance.
@@matrinezkevin11492 Yup, opening up a car used to be fun because you would hear the engine come to life and feel it revving. Now with an EV, driving them fast is just being irresponsible and reckless, you're simply speeding and putting other people in danger for no good reason. Performance figures with these things is pointless.
@@mrjohnnyk I get the feeling people say that because they so thoroughly trounce ICE cars.
@@drunkenhobo8020 In what way? Acceleration? You must be drunk.
Why would Niall or anyone pay £160k for a badge engineered Chinese EV? If it was £60k I would kinda understand, but not 6 figures
His job probably subsided it I would imagine.
brain dead , insane , blind , stupid , a moron , idiot , ev evanglist , take your pick
With tax incentives it’s about half price
It looks cool, its unique, spacious, its a lotus,... Plenty of reasons. Id rather take a risk with one of these instead of the generic Cayenne, Q8, X7, etc... Its also not a badge engineered car either. Im not sure you know what that means. The car is built from the ground up for Lotus. Its been set up at the Lotus research center in Raunheim were they still develop and upgrade them daily. Its a proper international effort.
@@AI-qd4vb Nah, it's literally built on a variant of the Geely SEA architecture. Lotus of course designed the look, and no doubt had input into the fitout, twiddled with the suspension, driveline, brakes and steering etc - but they didn't "engineer" any of it - it's mostly Chinese, or at least more Chinese than British.
It's so great that we can look at a screen to see what's in front of us. So safety oriented.
There is an issues with camera door mirrors no one seems to address. The cost of repair or replacement. I am a HGV class 1 driver, in my company we have trucks with traditional mirrors and 1 truck with cameras. Damage a mirror, the cost to replace is less than £200, the cameras £2000, and it has to go to a main dealer. There is little to no depth perception, and can flair out at night if the vehicle behind has high beam on or especially bright headlights, and rain, forget it if you get rain drops on the lens, complete distortion making them useless. They are tech for the sake of trying to appear cutting edge. Oh if you use glasses for reading, you need to use your glasses to look at the screen, but not to drive.
Me too. I also miss being able to lean forward and back to change the viewing angle.
And Tesla wants to make robotaxis based solely on cameras input... let THAT sink in...
The mirror on my car was 1.7 euros.
The good thing is you don't have to have those mirrors, simply order the standard ones if specing one.
There's another issue to add - those of us who have lost our short focus can't see what's in the digital display, cos it's too close. no focusing problems with an optical mirror as the focus is set at infinity, instead of two feet away. I need reading glasses to use wing mirror displays. but then I can't see a bloody thing on the road ahead
I know a Ford and a Porsche dealer employee, both tell me EVs from both are not selling, moving at a snails pace,at best.
One look at the deappreciation trends on higher-end EVs should tell you to walk away and buy something else. Taycan's are losing something like 40% in their first YEAR. Crazy. You might as well pile up your money and light it on fire...
Yes, that's because Ford's EV's and even Porsche, do not make good EV's. Why not try Tesla, BYD, Geely, Xping, Leap, Zeeker and many others?
@@TheJohn8765 You don't need to light it on fire. Just leave it in the car and wait for it to light itself on fire...
@@johnwilson5743 Tesla, who's battery range is 26% shorter than the claimed figure...
@@johnwilson5743 I have owned a Tesla, same issues. And friends have owned others and all but one has good things to say.
Another giant, expensive and way too heavy car that nobody’s cares about…
Though not as expensive, my EV6 had the same heating issues (broken heating element, they said), which was fun in the dead of winter and with a frozen windscreen inside the car! Everyone inside was frozen too.
12v battery died and I had to jump start the car EVERY time for 2 months before KIA could fix it. The recall then came 5 months afterwards...
Got rid of EV6 in Sept and got an NX450+. After that experience, I will not contemplate an electric car until I am forced to after 2030.
It's not a Lotus, it's a Chinese tumble dryer.. just like Volvo.
At least Volvos are still mostly built in Sweden.
Eh, I'd say at least Volvo has still retained their identity for the most part with the new cars. And as a C30 owner I do like that they finally were able to move to their own platform and try and do their own thing instead of reworking a Ford.
Most Volvo's are made in Sweden and Belgium, with also a factory in the US for the big EX90 SUV. They also have a factory in China which supplies the Chinese market, nothing wrong with that. Along with this they do their own platform development. SPA1, SPA2 and future SPA3 is not shared with anyone but Polestar. CMA platform was developed in Gothenburg and is shared with some brands in the Geely umbrella such as Lynk & Co. Geely is barely involved with Volvo Cars. Volvo has a lot more autonomy than a lot of people seem to think.
As someone who has worked on the new and ford era Volvo's the ford era was much better built and felt much more premium@@__-fm5qv
Yeah, this is a Chinese designed and built car. Lotus supplied the name and perhaps a bit of guidance on how to do suspension properly.
In the London motor trade of the 60s and 70s, the word was that Lotus cars carried a "no quibble guarantee". This translated to "We won't quibble with you, sir, just f**k off."
The only thing Lotus about it are those 5 letters in that order
Well, that and the reliability (or lack thereof)
Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious (I know what I'm saying, I own a TVR S2 and a Lancia Gamma ^^)
@@nicholas5281 or LoTus as they now say
No you got it wrong you to read from right to left -- sutos
In truth, this truck has nothing to do with Lotus Cars, the UK company. It was designed in Geely's Coventry studio (not in Hethel), engineering was done in Frankfurt (again, not Hethel) and it is built in a Wuhan Geely factory under contract. Lotus Technology (the company selling the EVs) doesn't even own Lotus Cars in Hethel- they hold an option to acquire it which they haven't exercised yet.
Looks just as horrendous now as it did upon launch.
I'm gonna name my first kid Siri -- only a computer geek would be so stupid to use the lotus name as the calling card to the computer. oh and by the way did they not test this with the public, or they did, but they just chose to ignore the very first person who used it and said; every time I say the word Lotus. Absolutely amazing
2.7 ton chinese made electric ""Lotus"" SUV...
C'mon...
What could go wrong..🙈
"I have a BMW convertable, I converted it myself, from a Cortina." I know it's old joke but that is not a Lotus, it's a Chinese EV SUV converted into a Lotus by sticking badges on it. It's got Chinese technical build quality to boot.
It's a Lotus.
Who do you think transformed & engineered the Zeekr 001 platform & it's primary body shell into the Eletre...???
Oh yeah...🤔🙄🥴
@@christopherfanshawe1425 It used to be that the commonest Lotus was a converted Mark 2 Cortina
Excellent and honest review, as always. I'm struggling to think of a more loathsome vehicle from a brand that should know better, maybe Alfa's Junior is even worse, but this car basically represents everything that is wrong with the car industry. It's deliberately offensive and alienates the brand's customer base, it's ugly, heavy, impractical, inefficient, unreliable and expensive.
Yep, and the new owners don't care
Might I ask why you find the Junior worse?
@@joshuanishanthchristian5217 I guess one big reason for me is the looks, which are very generic and ugly, without any of the typical Alfa Romeo strange beauty. Looks are subjective to be fair, but I also don't like how it's an SUV without any exciting engines and feels very contrived and soulless. It may be a better car than the eletre, I just feel it still doesn't represent the brand we are used to and love.
@@JayEmmOnCars They will in the long run.
I think very few people think this Chinese EV is a Lotus...just because someone slaps a badge on it, it will never make it a Lotus.
So the Lotus Cortinas, Escort Twin Cam, Talbot Sunbeam Lotus or Lotus Carlton/Omega aren't Lotus cars either...?!? 🙄🙄🙄
@@_Ben4810 Oh I never realised they were made by Geely in China as well!
162,000 what a joke these prices are simply INSANE! Another brand on the death pile.
lets hope so
JaGuar: "Copy nothing"...except the Lotus business plan.
That's the price of a good house where I live!!
@@Jacky5299 Not for long under this command economy...but soon no-one can even afford even a 50,000 home except the party elites.
@@Jacky5299Same here 😅 These people have no idea!
Good to know that the Alegro got the steering wheel right.
"Simplify, then add lightness" 👀
simplificate
Simplify, then add energy efficiency 💡⚡️👍🏻
@@SDK2006bno, lightness!😉
@@eugenux- yeah, very few people actually wanted those light Lotus cars.
Lotus have sold more of these in less than a year, than the last 20 years of Lotus sales combined
you can reach any random sales targer you want when the CCP wants it. Probably went straight from the factory to some field.
What a colossal waste of resources.
I think we can add Lotus to the Nissan/ VW/ Stellantis pile…
Don't forget Jag!😂 Lots of companies in dire straits right now. Makes you wonder if Sergio was right all along.
@@AmosDohms Blimey - completely forgot about Jaaaaag. That was quick.
@@D1ARBOHonestly, Jaguar is probably in the worst shape of all of them. I think Lotus is toast in the US as well.
@@AmosDohms Its sad becouse Lotus and Jaguar were good cars. But no One bought them
@@D1ARBO Chinese Lotus and Indian Jag 🤮
Mitsubishi is in the same boat with Nissan..
I wouldn't put VW in this pile they actually have a decent lineup and massive resources
If the UK could connect their power grid to Collin Chapman's grave, they could have free electricity for all. A giant SUV-thing is the absolute antithesis of everything Lotus should stand for.
Most appealing feature of the car is the colour, closely followed by the number plate. Strongly suggest transferring both to a different car.
😆
These type of vehicles really need to be discouraged.
Cars these days are just too expensive. Can get a used M4 in DCT or Manual for 20k. Why would I buy any of these new cars for 100k plus
These cars are for executives who are in the 50% tax bracket, who can write the car off against tax basically making it half the price.
They want a new and expensive car for the status.
It's not _for_ you.
Once your democracy has finished banning all the cheap alternatives, you'll be confined to your 15 minute city, where you belong, like the serf you are.
-- Keir Stalin, WEF puppet
I used to say for the updated look and components but that is not true anymore.
Drive an f80. Best car ive ever owned. Gor a mk7 gti ,and a jeep wrangler.but the f80 is a peach its got around 600, 625 .fox the crankhub and rock in roll
I know it's subjective but I still couldn't quite believe it when he said, 'it looks really good'.
O yes. It just looks like anything else. I think he said so in order to avoid views going down or being banned by somebody.
I miss Top Gear with the 3 boys: ok, they did many things wrong, but at least their reviews were sincere.
One word sums this car up for me: Pointless
dont forget UGLY
overpriced also
and stupid
Shit
Don’t worry Jay, BMW IX60M has a net weight of 2864 kg… 😂😂😂
Why on earth didn't he reject the car for a full refund?
Because he was clueless enough to buy it in the first place
Does the UK have a lemon law?
@@Choloo-jf7fw harsh but true.
@@nakoma5 In the UK if a car, or any consumer good, is not of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described, you have a legal right to hand it back for a refund. That even applies to used cars as well.
It would be hard for lotus to argue that a car which broke down on the drive home and was then off the road for 4 months thanks to a botched update is of "satisfactory quality".
Honestly Lotus is going to be another MG . Just a vaguely familiar European nameplate to sell 100% Chinese cars
Met one of the interior designers talking about using ‘porosity’ on the interior trim panels to create the feeling of lightness. No amount of ‘porosity’ can hide the kerb weight of any EV. Feels completely polar opposite to the Colin Chapman ethos imo.
Yeah and carbon in an EV always feels a bit daft for that reason
@ marginal gains and all that.
A model 3 is lighter than a gas powered 3 series... Theres plenty of light EVs out there, but it kinda ruins your narrative.
@@AI-qd4vb A model 3 might be light for an EV, but it's far from a light car. Most modern cars are bigger and heavier than ever, that's why I care about very few of them.
"Colin Chapman ethos"...??? Oh you mean the fake simplicity &:lightness quote he never actually said...?!? 🙄
The major reason Chapman built lightweight sports cars is that they were cheap to build. Simple as that.
These things are going to collapse multi-story car parks, if not bridges.
Depreciation will be awesome!!! 💵💵💵🔥🔥🔥🤣🤣🤣
2.00 this is a common problem with voice recognition software, they never understand what you say unless you are talking to someone else which it repeats perfectly.
what on earth are they smoking to think this could sell well at this price?
fentanyl
I’d be very pleased when this whole shame of a project spectacularly fails…
Whatever they smoke in china they can keep it
Lusso V12 with 10k miles is probably cheaper
@@Parakeet-pk6dl Give your head a good wobble lad. You think Lotus will be better of being constantly on the edge of bankruptcy?
Lamborghini SUV, Ferrari SUV, Lotus SUV... You can't buy taste has never been as true as today.
Essentially, the Eletre is a £30k Geely SUV isn't it, redesigned by Lotus...? You got to admire the patience of the owner, as the car could so easily be rejected as not fit for use, and get a refund. I hate to think of the depreciation, if even Porsche Taycans are going half price after a year or two...
Nothing about this look anywhere close to £30k.
Those brake and accelerator peddles are straight out of AliExpress - no worse they look like General motors
Just me or does it look like every other electric SUV. Skôda Enyaq 🤷🏻♂️
worse
iPace looks nice but it's old now relatively speaking 2018 design.
@@geztaylor the i pace looks disgusting and is a death trap ( goolge it )
@@geztaylor I never thought the iPace looked "nice" - very poorly proportioned car, but as you say, now also looks old.
Yep, we absolutely need yet another stupid resource and space hog of an SUV.
It used to be, back in the day that is, that the USA made big huge heavy beasts of cars that were sport models and all and Europeans would laugh knowing what a real sports car was. Now Europe is starting to flood with these massive heavy rigs like those across the pond during our save the planet day and age. This move to electric rides would be better served if they weren’t so massive and heavy imo Great review J. Been waiting for you take on one of these.
I like your honest and thorough reviews 👌 😊
Looking on a valuation site it has lost £70,000 in just one year.
How do you work that out? As Jay says the R starts at £130k, the cheapest R on AT is £95k. I can’t stand the things but that’s not a loss of £70k.
remember when GM bought lotus - remember when ford bought jaguar -- well maybe some one will rescue Lotus after this failure and get back to actual sports cars. -- or wait I'll buy a Loyus minivan (mis spelling on principal}
Oh dear, British automotive industry is really getting lost. What’s next? 3t electric Morgan SUV with 5000 horsepower? Lotus has so much heritage to keep on doing well in ev era, by making what is , or was, in their dna , small lightweight sport cars. Everyone and their mother is producing these ridiculous suv monsters and with the Chinese in the game, no one can tell them apart any more. Not everyone however can make what lotus was best at. Well said in the beginning they should fix quality and customer service, that’s all they need to be successful.
Britain is dead, it has no future. The spitfire nationalism stuff is so cringe. The dismantling of our industries, economy, history, culture, is the natural consequence of allying with globalism and international finance, gleefully cheered on by the sorts of boomer liberals who deride Chinese shite like this.
I'm sorry but that looks like a generic 40k asian SUV Crossover thing. I don't know for what they charge the additional 122k..
Lotus should bring out a retro-modern take of the Esprit powered by ICE.
It’s a no-brainer!
Nobody bought the original ones, what makes you think people would buy a warmed over version? There are not enough enthusiasts out there to keep the light on. They need to cater to the mass market to survive.
@@heiner71i bought six of them during the 1990s and early 2000s, still have my V8, but i recognise they can’t build an entire market around just me ;-)
I miss my Esprit from back in the day…..fantastic car……unlike this monstrosity…..
If Elon could make an electric Elise, god knows why lotus didn’t…
Lotus doesn't want traditional Lotus buyers
No one wants traditional Lotus buyers. Traditional Lotus buyers aren't numerous or profitable enough to sustain a company, and leads to financial ruins.
That's how Lotus got into this goddamn mess in the first place.
It isn't built for the British market. Too small, irrelevant, and shrinking. There's no growing middle class. Infact you could say the middle class is collapsing.
The Eletre is pretty competitive in its market segment. It's much better than the BMW IX M60, and the new Macan EV. Especially as a luxury car. The entry Type-S 620hp model is the best pick, with a decent range. And it could be had for £74k in China. Though personally, I'd buy a Zeekr 7X over it, and still have enough left over for a BMW M2 (just saying, not that I'd ever buy a European car anymore)
Lotus, renowned for making light performance cars😮😢
Lotus did an amazing job with this car of managing to build-in SO MANY annoyances and downsides into one vehicle. Truly spectacular
Great honesty with your review James. I fear the future that is being pursued is wrong. The Renault 5 makes far more sense for an EV.
Made in China. That's all you had to say.
It does not automatically mean "made badly" anymore. As if Lotus made in Britain was built like a tank
@@JayEmmOnCars , true but I suspect it was also designed for the most part in China by Chinese engineers, and not by Lotus engineers.
@@JayEmmOnCars ok then buy one
@@heiner71 Well, you suspect wrong, and even if it was true, no shame in it. Chinese engineers have proven more in the past 10 years than english ones in the past century. Theres not been single decent mass manufacturer in the UK for decades now.
@@AI-qd4vb , I am not saying that the Chinese engineers don't know what they are doing but they don't have the Lotus heritage/experience. If you give a bunch of them the task to design a new Ferrari, it will not have all the Ferrari specific tweaks and features, people expect from a Ferrari. Many characteristics are based on experience and tribal knowledge within a company. You can't just expect a different company to pick that up and run with it.
Lotus died with Colin Chapman.
So when it was defrauded?
No it didn't. It changed name to "Caterham"....
No. Some very brave people kept the company going despite disruptive changes in ownership. We had the development of the Esprit, the Elan M100, then the Elise, Exige and Evora.
As you Say, It looks like any Other Evoke/Qashqai SUV Boring Blob. I just hope that I never get to the point where I have to buy something that looks as dull as everyone else
If one can afford this car, go for the Lambo Urus!. This car is made by Gelly so it is priced lower in my country, Malaysia, rm450k, the Urus is cost more than double of that here!!!. In the UK 162k quid, urus is 200k.😅
Both look 💩
Bold statement about Tesla Full Self Driving, maybe you should see some videos about FSD 13 from the US 🤷♂
I love an engine, manual handbrake, no driver interfering tech like steering or brakes. I prefer clutch and manual gears. With Lotus handling, steering feedback and a narrow width 175cm or less so i can park easily. Less than 1200 kg please.
You need an Exige or Elise, then.
@EvoraGT430 thanks. I think you are right. Is the Exige bigger than an Elise ? Im 186cm tall, unfortunately I could not get into an Elise years ago when I tried to. I think need about 10cm more leg room.
@@hungrysurfer9471 If you don't fit in an Elise you wouldn't fit an Exige either, they're the same platform so very similar interiors.
Nice bit of Hideo Kojima there, sir! A man of culture.
A little side point: When a car manufacturer like Lotus claims their car has a 2 kW hi-fi in it, divide that figure by at least 4 to get something more like a real (RMS continuous) rating. When Lotus says the hi fi in that Eletre is 2Kw, it's really around 250-500 watts.
Yeah, they all quote the "PMPO" figure, which is nowhere near the actual sustainable output or "RMS" - divide by 4 rule is about right...but often still overestimates the real performance. Cheers!
I've got one . I'm also a former professional sound engineer . I can tell you , you're wrong . The KEF sound system is immense . Best car system I've heard by a country mile . The specifications are also accurate.
@@markfrombarnsley It might sound 'immense', but Phillip is right, the 2kW is a PMPO (Peak Music Power Output) rating, which is usually 4 times the correct RMS (Root Mean Square) Continuous rating, though sometimes it can be even more. Car and car stereo manufacturers are forced into giving these wildly exaggerated power ratings because everyone else does it.
@@paulzon I'm sorry , I thought I mentioned I was a professional sound engineer ? I still own three full PA systems in my live music venues . I'm therefore fully aware of the difference between RMS and PMPO . As someone who uses and owns professional equipemnt , I can tell you that RMS figures are always used for pro speakers and amplifiers . Always. This is also true for the vast majority of high end HIFI kit . KEF speakers power ratings are always given as an RMS output . It might be an idea to have a listen to one , then you can hear just how immense it sounds :) Phillip isn't right , he has just chucked out a sound bite he's heard somewhere that doesn't actually apply to this car.
@@markfrombarnsley There is no need to be insulting to Phillip, especially so as he was correct. I think you are just looking for an argument.
I could swear that the car sounded ever so slightly annoyed at getting cancelled when it said "Alright". Feels like foreshadowing, great way to open the video!
Please, it's not a Lotus. It's just another Chinese electric suv with a yellow paint job and a Lotus badge. Bye bye Lotus. Thank you for the memories.
Was a pleasure meeting you good sir. Didn’t realise I wasn’t subbed. That’s been corrected. UA-cam must like you, been watching your vids for years thusly my presumed sub. The interrupting sat reminded me of a classic Clarkson Mercedes review and he’s not bad.
The thing is - cars this big and wide just seem to spend most of their time on the wrong side of the road. Which is a worry when they weigh as much as they do and move as quickly as they do.😬
Life long petrol head. Absolutely love your channel. Thank you for doing what you do.
“Simplify, then add lightness” is the famous Colin Chapman quote. Now we have: “Complicate and add weight”. Colin must be on the red line in his grave. I wanted to hate it and I wasn’t disappointed. 😂 Thanks James for just saving me £160,000. I wonder what it’s worth now at 1 year old? Must be in five figures and not six I’m guessing. That’s definitely going to smart a bit.
Slightly more seriously, I just wonder if we’re starting to see the end of the road for the car? Most new cars now are too expensive, too complicated, too big, too heavy. Then there’s too much traffic on our roads, there’s the environmental concerns, there’s government legislation wanting us to move to electric vehicles that many don’t want or try and then go back to internal combustion, many young people don’t view cars in the way previous generations did; it’s not an aspiration to own a car in the way that it was. Even as a car lover, I’ve used quite a bit of public transport or simply walked, because for what I was doing and where I was going it was more convenient. Like many businesses and areas of life that seem in decline recently, it’s not one thing dealing the death blow for the car, it’s more like death by a thousand cuts.
Well said, the other thing is, that most younger people are far more savvy about financial matters, when I bought my house in the early '90's, no one talked about interest rates, now if the interest rate moves it's national news !
Cars are increasingly becoming known for the financial disaster that they represent, and in these times high cost of living, for many people, the pleasure of having a shiny new car just cannot be justified purely on the basis that you are making a negative investment.
About £1000 per week depreciation.
Colin Chapman never said this... it's a Lotus Cars marketing line from the 90's that was conveniently misquoted to him...& whilst producing only Elises, no-one in Lotus PR was hardly going to correct this detail.
In the USA they call that a lemon, I think he's got a right one.
Basically a Zeekr 001 in new clothes. Which in turn has a lot of Volvo genes
This car deserves a promotion ad like the recent Jaguar one!
0:27 how far Lotus has fallen. It isn't even a good looking Hyundai.
Lotus
Lot's of trouble usually serious, learnt that in the 70s with a Europa, never been near one since
"Yay! Another EV SUV!" (said no one ever)
No James. Yet another pointless over expensive EV with no real world use. I’m sure it’s performance is unusable in the real world, it’s range is equally not practical. What makes it better than my 230hp diesel Volvo estate with its 600+ mile tank range?
For you I suspect nothing, but it is worth trying these things
@JayEmmOnCars. Lotus should have offered to replace that car. £162,000 and all that hassle is totally unacceptable. Give me a slightly used Bentayga any day of the week
Had a choice of the Eletre R or an i7 as a company car.. having owned 7+ Lotus in the past I was sorely tempted by the Eletre and then I read owners' experiences on the forums.. like one guy whose Eletre has been bricked for 8 weeks with no sign of it being fixed. The BMW was the right move
Actually you could argue that neither was the right move, but of the two ................
I love the idea of playing dramatic classical music as a substitute for the missing engine sound!
Before I watched this video, I looked at the title, and the first word that came into my head was "suspension". The ONE PART OF A CAR that you expect Lotus of all people to be good at, but I sensed that they had cocked up. I wasn't that far out when I watched the video ...
But then, my thought when this was announced, was "Oh no ... Lotus of all people are building an SUV". That was IMMEDIATELY filed under the heading "BAD MOVE". Admittedly, I thought the same when I was told that Ferrari of all people were building an SUV, but [1] I don't think they cocked it up, and [2] given what Ferrari would charge for the end product, they had better bloody well get it right.
But the real killer is that price tag. A HUNDRED AND SIXTY GRAND for a car with Windows 95 level bugs? One whose own dealer network can't maintain properly? I'm sorry, but HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ... are Lotus taking the piss?
Does anyone else here think that Geely are using Lotus as their beta testers (and by extension, Lotus customers), so that they can bring out an electric SUV that WORKS, under a Chinese brand name for a third of the price two years later? Which is the REAL intended end user for that mega capacity factory?
If I hadn't watched this car being driven by an actual human being, I'd have dismissed it as vapourware.
Thought it was bad enough when Ford decided to stick the Capri name on an SUV. That was a travesty of epic proportions. This, on the other hand, strikes me as well into Götterdämmerung territory.
Even Lotus can't hide the immense mass. Can't cheat physics. Just like the new M5, these bloated cars can't go around a corner to save their life. No thanks... I'll buy a used ICE car and bank the savings. 160k? Lolololol.
Let's hope that lotus has a future in spite of this monstrosity. A SUV is the acronym for a stupid ugly vehicle and it pretty much applies to the taste of those that drive them. If you bought an SUV you should've bought a minivan they would've worked a lot better
If I had been the customer I would've been invoking my consumer rights and asking Lotus to collect the car and give me my money back long ago.