Lotus is working on an electric sports car for launch in 2027, but the automaker may delay the launch until electric vehicle technology, and in particular batteries, advances enough to ensure the car can deliver the lightweight spirit of gasoline-powered Lotus sports cars like the original Elise.
In an interview with Bus published on Tuesday, Lotus design chief Ben Payne said the technology currently “doesn’t really allow us to recreate that product convincingly.”
While he did not say the car, codenamed Type 135, would be delayed, he also said in the interview that the business case would also need to make sense.
EV demand isn’t growing as much as many automakers had hoped. Lotus predicted last year that sales would grow to 26,000 units by 2024, though the automaker is well short of that mark with just 2,194 cars delivered in the first quarter of the year, and less than half of those deliveries were EVs.
Lotus Elise Sport 240 Final Edition 2021
Lotus was originally developing the Type 135 alongside an electric successor to Alpine’s A110, although the two automakers were separated ways last year.
Lotus even showed off the platform it has planned for the Type 135 as early as 2021, which the automaker called the the e-sports platform. Lotus announced at the platform reveal a base configuration with a 66.4 kWh battery, a 469 hp rear motor and a short wheelbase with seating for two. A more powerful configuration with a 99.6 kWh battery and a dual-motor powertrain good for at least 871 hp was also announced.
In his interview, Payne said solid-state batteries could be key to Lotus achieving an electric sports car that is similar in size and weight to one of its gasoline-powered models, though he did not say whether there were plans to use the technology.