Lotus teases new-gen EV sports car with fresh tech

Lotus has announced a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with battery cell specialist Britishvolt and revealed an early teaser sketch of the new-generation sports car that's set to reap the rewards from the deal.

If you squint hard enough, some of the lines and central positioning of the cabin could resemble early iterations of the Lotus Esprit sports car, but we’ll wait for some more workshopped images to materialise before making any solid guesses or conclusions.

Leveraging Britishvolt’s expertise in battery cell technology, Lotus says the project’s focus points will be fast-charging, energy density optimisation and weight reduction, with logistics being helped massively by the close proximity of the two parties.

According to Lotus Cars managing director Matt Windle, the sports car brand is “delighted” to be working with Britishvolt and the end result will “showcase the thrilling performance that a Lotus EV sports car can deliver”.

“These are the first exciting steps on the journey towards an all-new electric sports car from Lotus, and yet another step towards the transformation towards sustainable, renewable electricity stored in batteries,” he said.

“Last year we committed Lotus to a pure electric future, and in the first month of this year we announce another significant step on that journey.

“In the coming months we will be unveiling the Type 132, an all-new and all-electric Lotus SUV and we’ve confirmed three more EVs are on the way.”

One of those three other EVs should be the end result of Lotus’ previously announced partnership with Alpine which, given the dainty, lightweight heritage of both brands, could end up being the battery-electric successors to the Lotus Elise and Alpine A110 respectively.

For time being though, first deliveries of the mind-bending Lotus Evija hypercar are set to commence later this year, while the Lotus Emira (Lotus’ last internal combustion model), is due to arrive locally in July.