Lotus reveals first sketch of its next electric sports car

This is your very first look at the next Lotus sports car. An electric Lotus sports car, filled as it will be with new battery cells from a company called Britishvolt.

You know of course that by 2030, even your grandma will be electric, such is the pace of change. Lotus of course is fully committed. The TG Award-winning Evija was Hethel’s big, 1,972bhp breakthrough EV, and will soon find company in the shape of the Type 132 – an SUV – Type 133, 134 and 135, the latter most probably being the sketch above.

With more than clear hints of big brother Evija lurking in its clean silhouette, that sketch will sit on a brand-new flexible architecture dubbed ‘Project LEVA’. When we first saw this last year, Lotus reckoned on single and twin-power pack options, varying battery output between 66.4kWh and 99.6kWh, and peak power between 469bhp and 872bhp.

As mentioned, those batteries will be developed by Britishvolt; next-generation cells combined with Lotus’s “advanced electric propulsion technologies”. Other areas the two firms will work on include fast-charging, optimising energy density and weight reduction; the latter of course, literally ingrained into Hethel’s very DNA. If Lotus could lightweight even the word ‘lightweight’, it probably would.

“These are the first exciting steps on the journey towards an all-new electric sports car from Lotus,” said company boss Matt Windle of the partnership with Britishvolt, “and yet another step towards the transformation towards sustainable, renewable electricity stored in batteries.”