One-Off Lotus Evija X Crashes At Goodwood

Given that the Lotus Evija X set the third-fastest time ever recorded around the Nurburgring Nordschleife a few months ago, one would have thought it would be able to handle the hill climb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed with ease. That’s proven not to be the case.

This year’s celebration of all things automotive at Goodwood recently kicked off and the Evija X was one of the headliners. However, after lining up for a run, things quickly turned sour, and the all-electric hypercar slammed into hay bales shortly after leaving the starting line.

Watch: Lotus Evija X Shocks Nurburgring With Third-Fastest Lap Ever

Footage of the incident shows the driver of the Lotus performing a massive burnout when starting the run, as is common at Goodwood. As the tires spin and vast plums of smoke are created, the car suddenly snaps to the right and smashes into the hay.

While the crash occurred at relatively low speeds, the front end of the Lotus appears to have been extensively damaged. The entire front clamshell looks to have been crushed alongside the bumper and all the wild aero appendages the car has. The damage done doesn’t appear to be as severe as that done to the Hyundai RN22e, another one-off high-performance prototype, that crashed at last year’s event.

An official reason for the crash hasn’t been given, but speaking in commentary, respected automotive journalist Harry Metcalfe suggests it was not caused by error but rather by a computer software issue. That does seem possible given that the Evija X has four electric motors and it may only take a small interruption in power in one of these motors to fire the 2,011 hp hypercar off the track like this. Of course, there’s still a chance the driver got too greedy with the throttle.