2006 - Lotus Elise on 2040-cars

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Lotus Eletre specs, pricing and more detailed for European launch

Lotus revealed the Eletre in full last year, and while details were plentiful back then, the British sports car company has a lot more for us today in the realm of specs and pricing. Unfortunately, we don’t have a full layout of U.S. specs and pricing yet, but we can get a good idea of what to expect by looking at the European-market model. Three different versions will hit the market at launch: Eletre, Eletre S and Eletre R. Performance is the same between the Eletre and Eletre S (the S simply adds more luxury equipment), but the R is a unique, high-performance variant. For starters, the base model and S will have an electric motor on the front and rear axles good for a combined 603 horsepower and 524 pound-feet of torque. Lotus says that will be enough for a 4.5-second 0-62 mph time and a 160-mph top speed. Driving range on the WLTP cycle is estimated to be 373 miles for these versions, but expect that number to be down when EPA estimates come out.  The Eletre R notches performance up by a wide margin. Its pair of electric motors produce a combined 905 horsepower and 726 pound-feet of torque, but thereÂ’s a little more than just more powerful motors going on here. Unlike the single-speed transmission the base models use, the Eletre R uses a two-speed transmission for the rear electric motor and a single-speed transmission on the front axle. Lotus says this allows them to optimize the car for ideal launch performance and to improve range at higher speeds. The shifts themselves are automatic. Lotus says the R is capable of doing the 0-62 mph sprint in just 2.95 seconds, and it has a slightly higher top speed of 165 mph. Despite the two-speed transmission, range still takes a sizable hit down to just 304 miles on the optimistic WLTP cycle. We also learn today that the Eletre will house a 112 kWh lithium-ion battery pack in all versions of the SUV. Lotus says it features a maximum charge speed of 350 kW on a capable DC fast charger, which is quick enough to bring you from 10-80% in just 20 minutes. AC charging maxes out at 22 kW, which would allow you to go from 0-100% on your home charger in just six hours. The last big spec Lotus shared today is curb weight. If you opt for the base model with no options, the Eletre can weigh as little as 5,489 pounds. And yeah, thatÂ’s obviously a wild amount of weight for anything with a Lotus badge on it, but the Eletre R is even heavier at 5,820 pounds.

eBay Find of the Day: 2000 Lotus 340R, claimed only street-legal example in US

These days most of the news out of Lotus comes when it releases a lighter or faster version of the Elise, Exige or Evora. However, the stripped-out, Elise-based 340R might already show the logical conclusion of that concept, despite coming out in 2000. Now, one of the 340 made is up for auction on eBay Motors, and the seller in Fort Lauderdale, FL, claims that it's the only street-legal example available in the US.
Lotus founder Colin Chapman always had an obsession with making his vehicles as light as possible, and the 340R adhered to that adage about as closely as a street car could in 2000. These minimalist roadsters eschewed opening doors, windows and a roof in the pursuit of cutting the fat off the brand's hardly portly Elise. The company's engineers also trimmed away the fenders to give their creation a semi-open wheel design that looked as wild when new as today. For the interior, they installed two racing buckets, and the most of the rest was left in bare metal, including the pedals. All of the changes reportedly brought the 340R down to around 1,545 pounds.
Power comes from a 1.8-liter four-cylinder with a five-speed manual gearbox. The 340R is available with 177 horsepower or a tuned 187-hp version from that mill, but the seller doesn't specify which one this is. It's still a pretty fresh car, though, with just 3,577 miles claimed on the odometer.

Lotus F1 apologizes for tweeting support for LGBT Olympians

The Lotus Formula One Team is apologizing after its official Twitter account posted this image of two men kissing in connection to the opening of the Winter Olympics on Friday, February 7. It claims that the original tweet was "unauthorized."
The tweet, which Lotus deleted later that day, can be viewed to the right and was promptly replaced an apology that said, "We would like to sincerely apologise for an unauthorized message posted on our Twitter account today & will ensure this cannot happen again." Responses to the kerfuffle on its Twitter page have mostly focused on confusion as to what the original tweet was and why it was removed.
While the Sochi Olympics have been controversial among LBGT groups because of Russia's laws banning so-called "gay propaganda," the country has a growing importance in F1. In fact, the first Russian Grand Prix is scheduled to run later this season on a circuit around the Sochi Olympic Park. Genii Capital, the team's owner, has business interests in Russia, and according to the BBC, the Lotus F1 team is working on a deal to with Russian mobile phone company Yotaphone to sell it 10 percent of the team.