Lotus Eletre R First Drive Review

Lotus has jumped into the modern era with an all-new lineup and topping that list is this car — the Eletre SUV (the last e is pronounced as an A). It’s the iconic British automaker’s rival for the likes of the Lamborghini Urus, Range Rover Sport, Audi RSQ8 e-tron, Maserati Quattroporte, and even the Ferrari Purosangue, but is an EV!

It’s incredible to look at, thanks to the unique design. The face is wide and low with headlamps built into the grille. In profile, the 23-inch wheels give the car a tough and purposeful stance. The rear is most interesting owing to the thin light bar and the split wing elements – of which the second one can be lowered or raised with a button.

When you don’t weight an ICE legacy, the interior design can take a whole new route, and that’s an advantage Lotus seems to have made full use of. Its cabin is unlike anything that we have seen before. I mean, yes, everything is where it is supposed to be and it’s quite spacious but the combination of elements makes it a unique experience. For example, the instrument cluster or in this case, you get this race-car(ish) minimalist display with all the required information provided in a clutter-free form with high-quality graphics. You get a similar display on the passenger side for details like navigation info and track listing.

In contrast to the strip-like display, the touchscreen at 15 inches is massive but is not the most intuitive unit and has a tendency to hang if you ask too much of it. Lotus says it's working on improving the integration and hopefully by the time customer deliveries start in the first half of 2024, the issues will be resolved. Another element that caught our attention is the gold detailing in the centre console, steering, and even behind the headrests of the front seats.

It is massive inside with more than enough headroom and shoulder room all around. Plus, with a high floor, under-thigh support is not an issue. You can either have it as a four-seat model, like the car in our pictures, or as a five-seat model.

The feature list for our fully loaded model is massive. It has things like dual-zone climate control, all-powered seats, Alcantara or leather upholstery, a 15-inch touchscreen, wireless charging, a 360-degree camera, a 23-speaker KEF sound system, soft closing doors, and ADAS with two LIDAR built into the front and back of the car. Lest we forget, the ADAS is very effective and will even sense human beings as they move by next to the car.

The numbers alone should be enough to get you excited about the Eletre, and, in our case, Eletre-R – no less! It packs a 112kWh battery pack and dual electric motors totalling 675kWh and producing 905bhp/1,000Nm, a first for me, a first for CarWale too! These are big and boastful numbers worthy of the Rs. 2.5 crore price tag and should make the car an attractive deal for someone who needs the status but doesn’t want what the Italians, British, or Germans have to offer.

Right off the bat, I can tell you that in any of the driving modes, if you lay it even mildly hard on the throttle, the car will hunker down and take off, making the acceleration addictive and very enjoyable. The 0-100kmph time of 2.9 seconds is very much possible and puts it in a league of its own! If you had to make this a little more relatable, this 0-100kmph time is quite close to the F1 cars from the 1990s, just sans the high-pitch V12/V10 wail.

For something that weighs well over two tonnes, it is surprisingly nimble with very responsive steering, quick turn-ins, and a rear wheel steering that helps mask its mass when the going gets dynamic. There are a lot of aerodynamic aids on the car, including dual wings and little air ducts all around for improved airflow and cooling. Given that most Lotus buyers are expected to use the car in the city more than anywhere else, its low-speed dynamics are pretty sorted too. Just taking your foot off the brake is enough to get the car to roll up to 15kmph, which means that in bumper-to-bumper traffic it’s a one-pedal driving experience. However, the edges are hard to judge and the rear visibility from the IRVM is pretty average, but the latter is not so much an issue as you get the 360-degree camera as standard across the range.

The car that we drove was running 315/30 R23 wheels, the largest that you can get for the Eletre. These wheels are now one of the largest that an OEM offers out of the factory in India. Despite the large wheel size and rubber sitting like paint on the wheels, the ride is not harsh or jarring. The air suspension does a good job of masking up the irregularities of the road and with 180mm ground clearance you don’t have to squirm or clench when going over large speed breakers. However, since these 23-inch wheels run such low-profile rubber, you still have to tread gingerly and with added caution, especially over large potholes and ruts.

This being an EV, there are multiple stages of regeneration as part of the package with the highest one being super intrusive and most useful if you are moving in a low-speed scenario. You also get multiple driving modes, including one track-focused mode with launch control. Each of these modes alters the response of the steering, throttle, and the ability of the ESP to watch your back.

Yes, yes and sort of yes.

Firstly, the Eletre seems a very un-Lotus-like thing to build but exists because that’s what the market wants. Now, by selling these in good numbers, Lotus can also continue to build its small, lightweight, and nimble sports car which has defined the brand since its inception.

Another yes, because it is incredibly powerful, luxuriously appointed in terms of comfort and features, very large and spacious, and more importantly, a unique proposition in terms of appearance. If you want to stand out among the crowd, this is an SUV you should look at among the crop of super SUVs from the old continent.

We would also say sort of yes because it’s a new brand that’s testing the waters in India. At the time of writing this drive experience, its support infrastructure was just being built with a few showrooms and service centres. Realistically speaking, this shouldn’t be that much of an issue if you can afford to splurge Rs. 2.5 crore on a car. Lastly, there is the fact that it’s an EV, which means you are limited to where you can get charging infrastructure or charging support.

Photography: Kaustubh Gandhi