Lotus has announced it's making an electric sedan to rival the Porsche Taycan and Audi RS E-Tron GT.
The news comes shortly after the reveal of the automaker's first-ever SUV, The Electre.
It's currently nicknamed the Type 133, and it's intended to be a "lifestyle EV," according to some Lotus executives who discussed the upcoming four-door vehicle and how it will fit into the brand's new electric lineup.
The car is set to be built in Wuhan, China with the aim of launching it in 2023. And while the Electre debuted first, it was always in the brand's plans to build a car like this. The Electre serves as a benchmark for the automaker's Electric Premium Architecture (EPA), a platform that will go on to underpin the Type 133 and a future Type 134 crossover.
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Gavan Kershaw, Lotus director of attributes and product integrity, says there were multiple technologies that were developed on the Eletre for the EPA platform that will be used on all upcoming vehicles, regardless of vehicle type. These include “active roll control, CDC [continuous damping control], air-sprung independent active rear steer, and active aero."
While the Type 133 will be more lifestyle-focused and share its drivetrain tech with the electric SUV, the car will still be a proper Lotus performance machine. “Our type of car—that we want to drive as well as it looks—requires all that technology,” says Kershaw.
The Lotus Type 133 is reaching its final development stages in terms of design, and there's limited information about it at this stage. But Lotus is clear that it won't be just a sedan version of the Electre, and while its cars come from the same family, they all have their own distinct looks.
Lotus Senior Vice President of Design, Peter Horbury, says, “families aren’t made up entirely of triplets or quadruplets. Every member of a family can have their own character.”