A new all-electric sports car from Lotus will be unveiled next year before the first customer deliveries begin in 2027. The new model will serve as the successor to the Emira, although there could be some overlap, and is currently codenamed Type 135.
Underpinning the Type 135 will be the same Lightweight Electric Vehicle Architecture (LEVA) as the successor to the Alpine A110. Unlike most other EVs out there, the Type 135 probably won’t have its battery pack in the floor and it will most likely be located just behind the front seats in a mid-engined-style layout. This will enable Lotus to design a car that sits just as low as a traditional mid-engine sports car while offering a more familiar weight distribution and handling balance.
Read: Lotus Type 135 Electric Sports Car Could Be Revealed In 2025
Autocar reports that the platform will support single- and dual-motor configurations with horsepower figures ranging from 469 hp to 872 hp. Lotus is expected to stick with rear-wheel drive, although it remains open to the idea of an all-wheel drive version with advanced torque vectoring in the future. Both 66.4 kWh and 99.6 kWh battery packs will be offered and the architecture will rock an 800-volt electrical system to enable rapid charging.
Lotus believes that it can sell between 10,000 and 15,000 examples of the Type 135 which is quite a lot more than the 5,000 – 6,000 Emiras that it hopes to sell annually.
“That project is running at full pace right now,” Lotus Vice President of Design Ben Payne told Top Gear while speaking about the Type 135. “The design is something we’ve got to balance and get absolutely right, so it’s not taken lightly at all. There’s lots of investigation going on. Lots of things have been tried and looked at.”
Lotus has not yet chosen a name for the new model and according to chief commercial officer Mike Johnstone, while it is possible the brand could revive a historic name from its past, it will have to be careful if it does.
“There are a number of different names that we could use historically, but at this stage there’s no decision. If you’re going to use an old name though, it needs to really have a legitimacy,” he said.
