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The Lotus Emeya is an all-electric ‘hyper-GT’ which looks like a supercar and drives like one, with a range of up to 379 miles and one of the fastest ultra-rapid charging rates of 420 kW.
If you’re looking for an all-electric grand tourer with supercar styling, at the moment your only choice is the Lotus Emeya. But can an electric car with a kerb weight of 2.5 tonnes really drive like a Lotus?
Let’s start with the Emeya’s appearance. From the front it has all the angular drama of a Ferrari or Lamborghini, helped by the Fireglow Orange colour of our test car. The rear is a lot more rounded, with two large air ducts behind the rear wheels for the purpose of aerodynamic efficiency (one side effect is that these air ducts become filled with gravel and small stones). Active aerodynamics include an active front grille which can open to allow air to cool the powertrain and brakes, and a rear spoiler which deploys automatically, all of which obviously works because the Emeya has an extremely low drag coefficient (cd) of just 0.21. From the side the Emeya looks very low and very long (it measures 5,139mm in length).
The interior feels modern and luxurious with high quality materials including carbon fibre. The Lotus Emeya has the practicality of a hatchback and is available as a five-seater as standard, with a four-seat option available (as tested), which features adjustable rear seats. The four-seat option reduces the long but shallow boot space from 509 litres to 426 litres (or 1,388 litres with the rear seats folded). There’s a very small storage area under the boot floor, and a front trunk (‘frunk’) which is a bit larger at 34 litres and which can accommodate the charging cables.
Under the skin sits an EV platform shared with the Eletre SUV and developed by the Chinese majority owner of Lotus, Geely, with a 102 kWh (gross) ternary lithium-ion battery.
The Emeya 600 Sport SE, as tested, has dual electric motors delivering 603 hp of power and 710 Nm of torque, with a single-speed transmission (the Emeya 900 features a two-speed transmission, which aims to deliver improved performance and efficiency).
Unusually for a grand tourer, the Emeya has a towing capacity of 2,250 kg, so you can take your caravan around Europe.
The Emeya looks like it should deliver an impressive driving experience and it doesn’t disappoint. This is a Grand Tourer, suggesting it specialises in covering long distances at high speeds in comfort, and life on the motorway is indeed comfortable, quiet, refined and effortless. It feels like you’re driving at 30mph, when in fact you’re doing 70mph.
If you want to make the most of the promise of the rewarding driving experience, you need to find some twisting A-roads. The Emeya 600 has a 0-62 mph time of 4.15 seconds and a top speed of 155 mph, so that should be sufficient performance for most people. It also has full-time all-wheel drive, with Lotus ICC intelligent torque distribution, so you’ve got the grip to deal with 603 bhp of power and 710 Nm of torque, although there can be some momentary scrabbling of the Pirelli P-Zero tyres for traction under acceleration from a standstill on cold and wet roads.
But it’s the steering, body control and handling that are really impressive. The Emeya weighs 2,580 kg, which is a lot, especially for a Lotus, and you can certainly feel that this isn’t a light car, which ultimately limits its agility, but the technology does a very good job of dealing with the weight. The steering is sharp, the ride quality is generally very good unless the 21-inch wheels hit large potholes, and the low centre of gravity aids the handling. Body control is excellent, and all this is helped by the Continuous Damper Control and Lotus Dynamic Handling Pack, as well as the downforce created by the active aero features.
The Emeya has a gear selector on the centre console, which although small, is more in keeping with traditional Lotus sports cars than other gear changing mechanisms such as stalks, buttons or on-screen graphics.
You can change the level of regenerative braking via a paddle on the left of the steering wheel, pressing the top for increased regen, and pressing the bottom for less regen.
On the right of the steering wheel is a paddle for drive modes, giving you the options of Tour (the default mode), Range, Sport and Individual.
Other physical controls in the cabin include two small levers for changing the cabin temperature, which are similar to, and positioned near, the gear selector.
The Emeya’s cockpit features a large central touchscreen that displays very sharp graphics, with a narrow instrument display in front of the driver, a head-up display, and there’s even a narrow screen for the front passenger which displays basic information such as media selections.
There’s also a screen for rear seat occupants, which gives the ability to adjust settings such as climate and media, including for front occupants, and, bizarrely, even the ability to adjust the position of the front passenger seat (there’s not much room for feet for rear passengers under the back of the front seats).
The only obvious physical volume control for media is on the right-hand side of the steering wheel, and trying to change the radio station seems less user-friendly than in most other cars.
The central touchscreen contains the usual wide range of car controls. One shortcut button that is desperately needed in the cockpit is for the lane departure warning system, because this corrupts the steering and therefore the driving enjoyment, and to switch it off you need to go hunting in the touchscreen for various screens and buttons.
The driver monitoring system appears to be very over-enthusiastic, accusing you of being tired and beeping at you, and if you’re driving between parked cars you often get a very loud and distracting warning noise.
Our main request is for Lotus to improve the user-friendliness of adjusting the door mirrors. To do this you need to press a button on the door panel, which is almost completely hidden under the dashboard trim, and then information appears on the driver’s information display to prompt you to select the left or right mirror, and then to adjust the position of the mirrors by using a control on the right hand side of the steering wheel. This is all much more over-complex and difficult than having conventional physical adjustment on the door panel, and makes it very dangerous to adjust the mirrors when driving.
The Lotus Emeya 600 Sport SE has an official WLTP combined electric driving range of up to 379 miles. After a week on test in winter the real-world range was averaging 300 miles; real-world range at 70mph on the motorway was impressive, but predictably the range drops quickly if you use the car’s performance to the full.
Thanks to its 800-volt electrical architecture the Emeya has a highly impressive maximum ultra-rapid charging rate of 420 kW, which is one of the fastest rates for any EV on sale. This can deliver a 10% to 80% DC charge in just 15 minutes at a 350 kW DC rapid charger – the most powerful public charger that you’ll find in the UK at the moment. It also has standard 22 kW AC charging, which can provide a full charge in less than six hours.
The Emeya has an electricity consumption of 3.5 miles/kWh which is impressive for a 2.5 tonne Grand Tourer, and much better than the Eletre SUV.
A heat pump is included as standard, which aims to heat the cabin in winter with minimal impact on battery range.
Lotus Emeya prices start from £84,990; the Lotus Emeya 600 Sport SE, as tested, costs £112,345. The Emeya range is comprised of the 600 and the 900, with these numbers reflecting the respective power outputs. Trim levels for the 600 are the 600, 600 GT, 600 GT SE and 600 Sport SE. If you want more power, and rather than the single-speed transmission in the 600, a two-speed version, delivering faster acceleration and improved efficiency, then the 900 is available as the 900 Sport and the 900 Sport Carbon.
The Lotus Emeya delivers supercar looks, a grand tourer driving experience, a well-designed and luxurious interior, up to 379 miles of range, and ultra-rapid 420 kW charging. It’s extremely comfortable, quiet and refined for long motorway journeys, and it also has the performance, grip and body control to make twisting A and B-roads a rewarding and enjoyable driving experience. If you want more space then there’s the Eletre SUV, which is impressive in its own right, but the Emeya, being lower, feels more like a Lotus, if you ignore its 2.5 tonne weight. The Emeya isn’t the most affordable of EVs, but it also isn’t the most expensive.
The Emeya is an example of how EVs can be highly desirable as well as capable drivers’ cars, and it’s awarded a Green Car Guide rating of 10 out of 10.
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