14 November 2024

Emeya-zing: Lotus's new four-door sedan is the best EV ever

16 November 2024 | James Coleman

The Lotus Emeya S looking very orange outside The Boat House. Photo: James Coleman.

When you’re a car company and your founder has gone down in history for saying things like “Simplify, then add lightness” and “subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere”, you’ll face a bit of a dilemma making a four-door EV.

Sure enough, the new Lotus Emeya weighs 2550 kg, and walking around it is equivalent to walking around Jericho seven times.

Nor is it very English. Lotus Cars is now owned by Geely, and both the Emeya and its SUV sibling, the Eletre, are designed in the UK but built in China.

Part of me wants to immediately hate it for this. And make comments about its founder, Colin Chapman, doing a full 360 in his grave. But sod it, this car is too much fun. Like, really fun. The most fun an EV has ever been.

Photos: James Coleman.

2024 Lotus Emeya S. Photo: James Coleman.

The Emeya and Eletre are here to take Lotus’s fight from the obscure realms of niche track cars to the mainstream likes of Porsche.

So naturally, you’re not going to baulk at the $245,000 price tag for my mid-spec S model. Certainly not when the cheapest Porsche Taycan, also a four-door electric sedan with all-wheel drive, starts from $216,300.

It looks terrifically futuristic and a bit Ferrari-esque from some angles, especially in sparkly ‘Fireglow Orange Pearlescent’ paint. And no, none of those gaping vents are for show. I could literally insert my whole arm into those on the rear.

In fact, the body is so slippery through the air that with the regenerative braking dialled all the way to “off”, I could cruise for hundreds of metres without losing a km/h of speed.

Standing next to it, the roofline is about level with my collarbone, and inside, you sit low and hunker down, so at first glance, it’s hard to know where they’ve stowed the enormous battery.

At least until you see the boot, which is long but also high, which translates to not having a lot of room for things.

The palatial back seats make up for this, however. In fact, even with the bulky rear-facing baby seat in place, there was still almost room to walk between it and the back of the front seat.

Up front, by far the best feature – once you’ve finished adjusting the ambient lighting and colouring in the triangles in the full glass roof (watch the video to see what I mean) – are the massage seats.

A few cars offer this, most notably the Peugeots, but those in the Lotus really mean it. In the ‘strong’ setting, it’s like an actual person is pummelling you from behind the seat lining.

Photos: James Coleman.

As a Lotus, however, we must get to what’s essential.

Electric motors on each of the two axles give you 450 kW of power and all-wheel drive for a 0-100 km/h time of 4.5 seconds. So the specs are mighty enough.

But while many EVs are dull and wooden to drive, not this one.

Yes, it’s kitted out with all the usual safety technology that beeps at you when you exceed the speed limit or touch a white line, but you can turn all this off easily enough.

It is also enormous, and initially, driving it through Sydney at peak hour, everywhere I looked, expensive insurance forms filled my eyes. But before long, it shrunk around me and I could have been back behind the wheel of the Emira.

The steering wheel is a joy to hold and so direct that you could wield it with your pinkie. In corners, not only does it grip like Andrew Barr to the ACT chief ministership, but it somehow does it without feeling like it’s doing it.

It’s uncanny. Beautiful. And, hands down, the best EV I’ve ever driven.