ODDSPOT: Buddhist chant: “Om mani pade hum” (Hail the jewel in the Lotus)NEIL DOWLING tests two Lotuses in Norfolk – one with a clutchless gearbox and the other with a supercharger. Aug 2011
DISCARDING the clutch pedal isn’t new for Lotus.
In the past it dispensed with the third pedal on the Eclat, Elite and Excel. Still, when you’re told the latest Lotus has an automatic gearbox, it’s a bit of a slap from such a dyed-in-the-wool raw-edged car company that for years eschewed foam seat cushions.
But the six-speed automatic actually complements the V6 Evora, the latest and, for now, the biggest Lotus. It arrives in a month or two from new importer Ateco Automotive, which also brings in Ferrari, Maserati and Chery among others. The Evora auto joins the existing six-speed manual and the supercharged Evora S tops the range.VALUE: This is the hard bit. Ateco hasn’t yet released prices. The Evora manual has a price of $139,990 but that will be reduced.
Expect about $120,000 for the Evora, $130,000 for the auto version and about $150,000 for the supercharged manual well into Porsche Cayman territory. Indeed, the problem isn’t with the car — it’s with the rivals. Lotus is an esteemed, if niche, name for buyers seeking something distinctive. But Lotuses have a raw edge that it takes a fan to appreciate.DESIGN: Though pretty, it looks like other coupes — at least it seems that bits and pieces have been borrowed. It is made of fibreglass over a clever, glued and riveted aluminium chassis.
Ateco will bring the Evora in as a 2+2 but the rear seats are close to useless. Even getting into the front seats is very awkward, such is the shape of the door and the rearward placement of the windscreen pillar and door hanger. Rear and rear three-quarter vision is a blight.
But it is stylish and the boot is almost adequate for a weekend away. By yourself.TECHNOLOGY: The aluminium platform, beautiful forged and cast alloy suspension components and the tubular structure are invisible beneath the bodyshell but typify Lotus’s engineering prowess.
The Evora S engine starts off as the Toyota-made 3.5-litre V6 shared with the Aurion, Kluger, RAV4 V6 and so on.
The Australian-made Harrop supercharger bolted on top takes the outputs from 206kW of power and 350Nm of torque to 258kW/400Nm. Harrop says it’s not the same supercharger used on the ill-fated TRD Aurion, despite similar outputs.
The Evora gets hydraulic power steering, fat ventilated and drilled disc brakes from AP and bespoke suspension. The Evora auto — called IPS for Intelligent Precision Shift — uses Toyota’s six-speed automatic with a manual mode selected via paddle shifters.SAFETY: Lotus doesn’t give cars to independent crash testers but it does fit four airbags, electronic stability control, traction control and brake assist.
DRIVING: Not only is the Evora far from the easiest car to get into but it’s also difficult even to work out the erratic remote central locking system. Opening the door without triggering the alarm is a challenge. Once in, it’s quite comfortable with plenty of adjustment in the steering wheel and a snug seat. But visibility is poor. The treatment of the dashboard and cabin is very simple and it’s difficult here to discern where the value is despite the leather, the magnesium steering wheel and the cast-alloy push buttons — most of which are hard to see behind the wheel.
Crank the engine sitting a few centimetres behind your head and the niggles vanish. The IPS uses push-buttons on the centre console to allocate the gear pattern. On full auto it’s a sweet and simple car with plenty of poke on tap.
Flipping the paddles allows engine braking for slow corners and punching out with a mid-corner upchange.
Handling is perfect. The Evora sits flat through bends with excellent steering feedback. You can push it to understeer but only if you drive like a doofus. Road irregularities, however, jostle the wheel in your hands. It’s disconcerting at first but perfectly suits the connection between car and driver.
Ride comfort is far better than expected, capable of soaking up the big bumps while still exhibiting great tautness.
The S, with the the blower boosting bottom-end and mid-range power, is a very flexible machine, covering the 0-100km/h sprint in 4.8 seconds. It is well suited to its manual transmission but, even though it can pull so hard in the mid-range that you get tears in your eyes, the IPS version has a wider appeal.VERDICT: The two new Evoras will live or die on price. It has to tempt safe players from the Cayman and top-end Audi TTs.
The Lotus gives the buyer history, handling and individuality — but it lacks the broad appeal of its rivals.
“I recognise that convincing people to pay pound stg. 100,000 ($155,000) for a Lotus with a Toyota engine is difficult,” Lotus CEO Dany Bahar says.
“We need to have our own engine and we need to improve quality to justify the higher prices of new models and to compete with companies like Porsche.
“We are the benchmark for ride and handling.
“Now we have to deliver premium quality.”
Bahar says Lotus is working on a V8 engine that can be easily adapted to become a V6 or an inline four-cylinder.
Lotus sources a Toyota V6 engine for the Evora and a four-cylinder engine for the Elise.
“Toyota designs engines for high-volume applications in mass-market passenger cars,” he says. “Whatever you do, it is difficult to tweak that engine for a proper sports car.
“So we have to make our own. But if, for example, the four-cylinder engine we make doesn’t work, we will be prepared to go to an outside manufacturer.”
On the issue of quality, Bahar says Lotus makes very driver-oriented cars.
“We will continue to make that car for that owner,” he says.
“But though we won’t change the Lotus DNA that has existed for the past 15 years, we have to recognise that customers want a car that is more versatile and built with a higher degree of quality to justify the high price. We have to deliver premium quality.
“If we decide not to develop, design and make some components in-house — for example, the cabin for which we were never famous — we could choose the right supplier.
“We are prepared to outsource components, like dashboards, to improve quality to the same standards of others in the premium segment.”
Bahar says that while improving quality is expensive and taking risks is demanding, it isn’t “rocket science”.
The Ethos concept would surely be a best-seller, writes NEIL DOWLING in Norfolk, England. August, 2011THE slowest Lotus could prove by far its quickest off the showroom floor as the British sportscar maker prepares to launch its city car.
Following the lead of Aston Martin’s Cygnet, Lotus has designed a concept three-door hatch that is less than 3.5m long and will have an innovative electric drivetrain.
Lotus says the car, called the Ethos, could be ready for sale as early as 2013. It was the sixth car shown by Lotus at March’s Geneva auto show but, despite its sales potential, was overlooked by a public dazzled with the company’s sportscar line-up.
The Malaysian-owned English-based niche car maker could call on its parent Proton to build the city car.
It would possibly be powered by a small petrol engine for Malaysia and other markets or a Lotus-developed three-cylinder petrol generator and electric motor hybrid system for emission-sensitive markets.
Lotus Cars group PR manager Alastair Florance says it’s still a concept, though the car features significantly at the company’s head office in Norfolk, UK.
“But this is not the car shown at the show with a Proton badge — that is a completely separate car,” he says.
“The Ethos can make it to production in about 2013, but we haven’t made the final call on that.
“It is shown as a concept with a hybrid powertrain using the new Lotus-designed system of a range-extender petrol engine and an electric motor. It could have a small petrol or diesel engine instead of the hybrid.”
The Lotus 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine — made by Fagor in Spain — is specifically designed to act as a generator to charge the lithium-ion battery pack. It does not drive the wheels and so can be located anywhere in the car and in any orientation.
“The range extender is for applications where the car is driven for long periods,” Florance says. “Perhaps we would have an electric-only system, with a plug-in charger, for city purposes where it doesn’t need the extra weight and complexity and expense of the petrol engine.”
The Ethos concept has a range of 60km as a full electric car, but up to 500km with the range-extender system. The engine is designed to run on fuels including ethanol and methanol.
In electric mode, it is claimed to be as quick as most other traffic, accelerating to 100km/h from rest in 9.0 seconds, on to a top speed of 170km/h.
With the range extender, its 54kW/240Nm generator will charge the batteries to provide sufficient energy for the car to cruise at 120km/h.
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