Lotus has been teasing the Evija for a while now, but no one, apart from its own employees, has been allowed to drive it. Until now.
Top Gear was allowed to take a prototype Evija for a lap of Lotus’s Hethel test track outside its factory. Driven by Jack Rix, the EV left a big impression.
Although Lotus allowed Rix to get behind the wheel, the prototype did not have access to the full 1,973 hp. Instead, it was limited to “just” 1,600 hp for this test.
The 0-60 time was also limited to 3.3 second. More importantly for a car with that much power, the prototype’s stability control, traction control, active aero, and torque vectoring were all turned off. That’s all stuff you might like in a 1,600 hp car on wet tarmac.
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And, indeed, the power is a bit overwhelming at first, reports Rix. The car has a tendency to oversteer, which actually surprised him a bit because each wheel has its own motor.
Still, it gives Rix an opportunity to feel the chassis of the car, which is classic Lotus. As has been pointed out before, most of the car’s 1,680 kg (3,704 lbs) of curb weight is located where you’d expect an internal combustion engine car’s weight to be.
“When you start to lob the car around, it really starts to come alive,” says Rix. “There is actually a little bit of body roll in here, which I wasn’t expecting, but the car’s got a lovely, natural balance. It feels like it’s working all four tires evenly.”
That does come at the cost of range, though. With a 69 kWh battery, which is smaller than an ID.4’s, it can only do about 15 laps of the Hethel test track flat out.
“The one thing I will notice, it that I do always have my eye on that pesky little range bar down there,” says Rix. “In fact – yeah. In fact, we’re down to 15%. Probably time for a charge. Again.”