EMY WINNER? (some text hidden) --NONE--

By Jonathan Crouch

The battery-powered Emeya is a luxurious Lotus four-door GT Tourer built to take on premium Teutonic rivals. Jonathan Crouch takes a look.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 38

The Emeya is another different kind of luxury Lotus EV, a Taycan-style four-door luxury GT with dramatic pace and a rather unique feel, inside and out. Whether Colin Chapman would have liked it is debatable but you might.

Backgroundword count: 134

Lotus is a different brand these days. And so are the cars it makes. There's still a combustion Emira sports car. And there might in future be a replacement Elise roadster. But only if the company's new generation of huge, Chinese-built luxury electric vehicles sell - and sell well. The 'Electric Premium Architecture' that supports these has already yielded us one model, these days Lotus's bestseller, the Eletre SUV. Now here's another, the Emeya. This is a four-door GT, generally pitched from just over the six-figure price point and targeted at well-established luxury GT EVs like Porsche's Taycan, the Audi e-tron GT and the Tesla Model S. It's certainly an international product, designed in Coventry, dynamically developed in Frankfurt and screwed together in Wuhan. But is it recognisably a Lotus? It's take a look.

Engines and Tech Specword count: 329

The Emeya may be prodigiously heavy but it's also extremely fast. All versions use a dual motor powertrain linked to a 2-speed gearbox assembly on the back axle and a big 102kWh nickel-manganese-cobalt battery pack. With the Emeya and Emeya S models, that means 603bhp and a decent 379 mile range with the standard model - or 336 miles with the S. Rest to 62mph with these two mainstream variants is just 4.2s away once you engage launch control. If that's somehow not enough, there's the top Emeya R, which adds an extra motor on the back axle to up output to a frankly manic 905bhp; which means a Ferrari-slaying 0-62mph time of just 2.8s. Top speed rises fractionally over the S - to 156mph. And range falls to 270 miles. Given a kerb weight comparable to three Series 1 Elises, you might think all that power would be needed if the Emeya is to fulfil its Taycan Turbo ambitions. But it's been signed off at the Nurburgring Nordschliefe by the same people who brought you the Emira sports car (step forward Gavan Kershaw and team), who know that if the Emeya doesn't sell, there won't be an Emira replacement. So compared to a Taycan, steering and ride get a more involving tune, the latter an all-round multi-link suspension dual-chamber air-sprung setup. For a supple ride, you'll need to keep the car in its default 'Tour' drive mode. Switching to 'Track' unsettles things considerably. The top R version adds rear-wheel steering and active anti-roll bars, neither of which you might feel are absolutely necessary. There's talk of a base rear wheel-driven version appearing later in the production run. Across the line-up, active aero bodywork boosts downforce when you need it - and drive range when you don't. Surprisingly, there's no provided EV drive sound. Lotus, it seems, doesn't believe in this kind of thing and you can imagine that Colin Chapman wouldn't have had much time for it either.

To see the full road test text contact us on 0330 0020 227