2025 Lotus Eletre Carbon First Drive: Go Big or Go Home
This Lotus hyper SUV has more than 900 horsepower and costs more than a Taycan Turbo S.
The Lotus Eletre exorcises once and for all the ghost of Lotus founder Colin Chapman. It’s not a sports car. It is neither light nor simple, which Chapman would have hated. But it’s also not fiddly to live with, and it doesn’t feel worryingly fragile. You can drive it every day in all weather, and you won’t need to be on first-name terms with your local mechanic. No, Chapman would not recognize the hulking, stupid-fast, electric-powered Eletre SUV as a Lotus. But does that matter?
What It Is
Launched in 2023, the Lotus Eletre, developed under the direction of Lotus owner Geely and manufactured in Wuhan, China, is now on sale in the U.S. Three versions are available in Europe and China, but the U.S. gets only one, a version of the top-spec Eletre R called the Eletre Carbon. In simple terms, this is an Eletre with the lot. It’s fully loaded with the most powerful powertrain, a dual-motor setup with a total system output of 903 hp and 727 lb-ft of torque that will snap this 5,850-pound, Mercedes-Benz S-Class-sized SUV from 0 to 60 mph in less than 2.9 seconds on the way to a 165-mph top speed.
The Eletre Carbon’s base price is $229,900. Our test SUV included a couple of noteworthy options: carbon-ceramic brakes with yellow 10-piston calipers ($18,500), the four-seat Executive Seating Pack ($8,750), and Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires ($1,100) that brought the as-tested price to $261,250. For context, a 690-hp Porsche Taycan GTS Sport Turismo, arguably the Eletre Carbon’s closest EV rival in terms of vehicle format, starts at $151,795, and a 938-hp Taycan Turbo S sedan, the closest in terms of power and performance, starts at $210,995. Yep, this Chinese-built Lotus costs more than a Porsche. Chutzpah? You bet.
What Do You Get for That?
That said, the 2025 Lotus Eletre has the domineering road presence, fit and finish, and equipment levels to underpin its hefty price tag. It looks big and aggressive and powerful on the road, its grimacing grille ready to chomp quotidian Chevrolets and Toyotas and Kias. Inside are Alcantara-covered surfaces and seats wrapped in Bridge of Weir leather. The standard Carbon Pack adds a carbon-fiber front spoiler and rear diffuser. Inside is carbon fiber on the center console, various switch panels, seat backrests, and center armrests. The Eletre Carbon is equipped with seven configurable screens, including a 15.1-inch OLED touchscreen display powered by Lotus’ HyperOS operating system and a 23-speaker sound system from British high-end audio specialist KEF. Two Nvidia Drive Orin chips, 34 sensors, and 12 cameras also help power the Eletre’s suite of advanced driver assistance systems.
The Eletre Carbon’s powertrain consists of two permanent-magnet e-motors, the rear one driving through a two-speed transmission to increase top speed, fed by a 111.9-kWh lithium-ion battery. The 800-volt electrical architecture enables the battery to be taken from a 10 percent state of charge to 80 percent in just 20 minutes on a 350-kW fast charger, Lotus claims. We saw a peak charge rate of 99 kW on a 150-kW charger that added 100 miles of range in 30 minutes during one of our recharging stops.
A Common Occurrence
And you will need to stop a lot to keep this powerful beast in business with electrons. With the battery at 96 percent, the Lotus showed a range of 247 miles. We saw the battery’s state of charge drop to 23 percent after a 152-mile run that included 90 miles of highway cruising at 85–90 mph in ambient temperatures of 40–50 degrees Fahrenheit. Those high cruising speeds are effortless: In fact, you must watch your speed on the highway because the Eletre is so big and tall and smooth and quiet, you find yourself bowling along at more than 100 mph without realizing it.
Where the Eletre gets your full attention, however, is on a greasy, poorly cambered back road. Full acceleration in either Tour or Sport mode—the other drive modes are Range, Individual, Track, and Off-Road—will have the Lotus squirming all over the place as the traction control struggles to control the powertrain’s weapons-grade power and torque, the front end following the road’s camber rather than your steering-wheel inputs. On dry roads, it has a ton of grip, and the rear-wheel steering helps deliver surprising agility, but even so, hustling this big Lotus fast along a winding two-lane demands precise braking, steering, and acceleration inputs to ensure precise outcomes.
At low speed around town, the suspension is noisy and clunky and struggles to manage the mass of the 22- or 23-inch wheels. In Tour mode, the Eletre’s suspension has that slightly underdamped character that’s typical of Chinese EVs; switching to Sport mode tightens the low-speed body control without negatively impacting the ride, but, according to the readout on the digital dash, that comes at the expense of a 2–3 percent driving-range reduction. Using Individual mode and selecting Sport suspension settings while keeping the powertrain in Tour mode proved a good compromise. And while you futz around in the vehicle settings menu on the central touchscreen, remember to turn off the speed limit warning and the lane keep assist functions. Their frequent interventions will drive you crazy otherwise.
Not All the Way There
The 2025 Lotus Eletre’s big problem is it doesn’t feel like a Lotus when you drive it. This isn’t merely about a Lotus needing to be simple and light, because we know that era is over. No, what’s missing in the Eletre is that close relationship with the road that has from the beginning been the defining element of Lotus’ character, a gloriously intimate dialogue through the tires, suspension, and steering you still get in the mid-engine Emira. Porsche’s Taycan is, like the Lotus Eletre, a big, heavy, powerful electric vehicle. But the Taycan still feels like a Porsche in terms of its control weights and the way it goes down the road. In the Eletre, the traditional Lotus tactile signature is missing.
Will Americans care? The Lotus aficionados who have made the U.S. one of the biggest markets in the world for the Emira probably will. But they’re not the target market. The Eletre is for those who want to tool around Beverly Hills or Miami in a big and stunningly quick SUV with an iconic European supercar badge—but not one from Porsche or Lamborghini or Ferrari or Aston Martin. And if they’re put off by the fact it’s an electric car, in about two years Lotus will launch what it calls an Eletre hyper-hybrid version with an internal combustion engine under the hood and a fast-charging 900-volt electrical architecture Lotus says will have a range of more than 680 miles.
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by cars. My father was a mechanic, and some of my earliest memories are of handing him wrenches as he worked to turn a succession of down-at-heel secondhand cars into reliable family transportation. Later, when I was about 12, I’d be allowed to back the Valiant station wagon out onto the street and drive it around to the front of the house to wash it. We had the cleanest Valiant in the world.
I got my driver’s license exactly three months after my 16th birthday in a Series II Land Rover, ex-Australian Army with no synchro on first or second and about a million miles on the clock. “Pass your test in that,” said Dad, “and you’ll be able to drive anything.” He was right. Nearly four decades later I’ve driven everything from a Bugatti Veyron to a Volvo 18-wheeler, on roads and tracks all over the world. Very few people get the opportunity to parlay their passion into a career. I’m one of those fortunate few.
I started editing my local car club magazine, partly because no-one else would do it, and partly because I’d sold my rally car to get the deposit for my first house, and wanted to stay involved in the sport. Then one day someone handed me a free local sports paper and said they might want car stuff in it. I rang the editor and to my surprise she said yes. There was no pay, but I did get press passes, which meant I got into the races for free. And meet real automotive journalists in the pressroom. And watch and learn.
It’s been a helluva ride ever since. I’ve written about everything from Formula 1 to Sprint Car racing; from new cars and trucks to wild street machines and multi-million dollar classics; from global industry trends to secondhand car dealers. I’ve done automotive TV shows and radio shows, and helped create automotive websites, iMags and mobile apps. I’ve been the editor-in-chief of leading automotive media brands in Australia, Great Britain, and the United States. And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. The longer I’m in this business the more astonished I am these fiendishly complicated devices we call automobiles get made at all, and how accomplished they have become at doing what they’re designed to do. I believe all new cars should be great, and I’m disappointed when they’re not. Over the years I’ve come to realize cars are the result of a complex interaction of people, politics and process, which is why they’re all different. And why they continue to fascinate me.Read More
