2024 Lotus Eletre First Drive: When Heritage Becomes A Headache

Not that long ago, the idea of a Lotus SUV, let alone an electric one, felt like the punchline to a bad joke. After all, the very nature of SUVs and EVs fly in the face of company founder Colin Chapman’s famous ethos of “Simplify, then add lightness.” Lotus’ Eletre has, for all intents and purposes, taken that old ideology out back and given it the Ol’ Yeller treatment. While this is doubtless going to piss in the Wheaties of sports car purists the world over, I’d argue that it’s both a necessary and a good thing. Let me explain.

The 2024 Lotus Eletre is a two-row midsize electric luxury SUV that is available with either a 603 or 905 hp dual motor drivetrain and a 112-kilowatt-hour battery pack that’s good for an estimated maximum range of 373 miles on the European WLTP cycle. In our more conservative EPA cycle, that would likely work out to around 290 miles, which, while not class-leading, should prove more than adequate for most buyers.

Photo: Lotus

As has been the case with most Lotus models throughout history, the drivetrain here rates as pretty good to fine. It’s not that special in a world where 1,200-hp sedans are prowling our roads. Also, as has been the case with Lotus since time immemorial, the drivetrain isn’t the star of the show. That honor goes instead to the chassis, but it’s here where Lotus has some hard truths to face about the way it wants the Eletre to be perceived by the motoring public.

Throughout my time with the car, Lotus’ people wanted to drive home the point that the Eletre is a Lotus through and through. It’s not, at least not in the classic sense. It’s a big heavy SUV with optional 23-inch wheels. It’s not going to handle like a sports car, ever. This doesn’t mean it’s not impressive for what it is, but the classic Lotus traits of a lively, willing chassis and engaging controls that make you feel like you’re part of the car just aren’t present here.

Photo: Lotus

The Eletre marks Lotus’ first use of electric power steering. While this tech is well established now and has almost entirely supplanted the hydraulic power steering system as the default technology, the companies that have become really good at the difficult programming of the system have been doing it for a while. Porsche, for example, with arguably the best-calibrated EPS system, has been iterating for over a decade. What that means for Lotus is that while the steering isn’t bad, and it felt relatively direct and plenty accurate, it didn’t feel as alive as I’ve come to expect from the brand.

The Eletre’s air suspension is a similar story. It’s really good overall. The ride is excellent, with plenty of compliance coupled with excellent body control, but it doesn’t feel particularly playful or engaging. Though, to be fair, with the car’s debut being in Norway with its infamously low speed limits (seriously, how is almost an entire country capped at like 40 mph?), I wasn’t exactly able to push the car to its limits.

Photo: Lotus

Even on the “performance” portion of the launch, where we were put in the Eletre R with a closed airstrip available to us, Lotus was keen to keep us from pushing too hard. Our launch control demo was limited to a top speed of around 100 mph, and there was a driving instructor in the right seat to enforce that. Similarly, for the slalom, we weren’t allowed to put it in the more permissive track mode for fear that the car would get out of hand.

So, while the Eletre doesn’t do the Lotus thing from a dynamics standpoint, that doesn’t mean it’s bad or boring. I actually found that it’s overall a more polished product than I expected. The interior is excellent, with really nice materials that feel well put together and well-considered. My test vehicle was slathered in enough fake suede to choke a rhino, and while I hate that, I realize it’s a personal taste thing, and the execution is admittedly pretty good.

Photo: Lotus

The center infotainment screen dominates the front seat experience, which isn’t a bad thing, thanks to the super-responsive nature of the Android-based Lotus HyperOS system controlling everything. Connectivity is good with multiple USB-C ports in the front and back seating areas, and while the car I drove doesn’t have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto yet, I’ve been assured that they’re coming soon via an over-the-air update.

Being a modern luxury SUV, there’s plenty of advanced driver assistance on board. This includes features like automatic high beams, adaptive cruise, blind spot warning, lane-keep assist, etc. The really cool part, though – and the part that sets the Eletre ahead of the rest of the crowd – is the three deployable lidar sensors that come with every Eletre. According to Lotus, these will let the SUV be hardware-ready for Level 4 autonomous driving, which it says is coming at some point.

Photo: Lotus

The deployable aspect of the sensors is cool because it helps cut down wind resistance which is always good for efficiency, and if people don’t like how they look, they won’t see them while the car is parked. Speaking of cutting wind resistance, you may notice that the Eletre’s body is pretty damned porous (to use Lotus’ language). The vents and scoops are all real and work to give this big-ass SUV a super-slippery 0.26 drag coefficient. For comparison’s sake, that’s just 0.1 cD more than a first-generation Honda Insight and 0.3 cD better than a Ford Mustang Mach-E. While the look is polarizing (I happen to like it in person), the results are hard to argue with.

If you want a Lotus Eletre, you will be able to get it in three flavors: Eletre, Eletre S and the top-spec Eletre R. The car I spent the most time with is the Eletre S, which Lotus believes will be the volume seller. The R was used on our runway and slalom drive. We don’t have US pricing yet, but we do have UK pricing, so we can make some wild-ass guesses as to what this thing will retail for when it makes the jump stateside.

Photo: Lotus

The base Eletre will retail for 89,500 GBP, which is the equivalent of around $114,000, but that price includes value-added tax (VAT), which we don’t pay, so that would knock 20 percent off right away. There are other factors, but we’d ballpark the base Eletre at around $95,000 in the US. The Eletre S test car I drove would work out to approximately $128,500, but that’s basically loaded with every option. The Eletre R theoretically would start at around $122,000 before options.

Independent of pricing, Lotus has some gargantuan hurdles to overcome if it wants to sell the Eletre in volume in the US. First, most non-enthusiast car people don’t likely know or understand what Lotus is, so the heritage talk means nothing to them. Next, nobody in their right mind would call Lotus’ current dealer network here “robust,” and people will need physical locations to buy and service these babies. The fact that the Eletre is built in China could be a problem for some buyers. Lotus isn’t the first to try and sell a Chinese-built car here – both GM and Volvo/Polestar already do this – but Americans aren’t always the quickest to adapt to things like that. Finally, for the people who do know what Lotus is, getting them over the idea that the company can make a competent SUV that’s big, heavy and electric will be a challenge too. To combat these issues, Lotus has been on a bit of a hiring spree and, according to its marketing team, is working on solutions.

Photo: Lotus

So, considering everything I’ve discussed, I still think that Lotus has the potential to really turn things around with the Eletre. The company needs a volume vehicle that appeals to the masses because sports cars just won’t pay the bills, as it has proven time and again. The Eletre is exotic-looking, awesome to drive, offers decent range, and provided they can keep prices from going too far over the $100k mark; it could be pretty decent competition for things like the Tesla Model X or the BMW iX.

The Eletre is flawed, sure, but it’s a vehicle worth getting excited about because, frankly, the more Lotuses that are out and on the roads, the better and as a bonus, having more money coming in could mean great things for the company’s sports cars and that’s worth getting excited about too.

Photo: Lotus