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Lotus to debut all-new petrol-powered sports car in mid-2021 – report

Lotus looks set to unveil its first all-new, internal-combustion-engined model in more than a decade later this year, according to new overseas reports.


According to industry publication Automotive News Europe, Lotus will unveil the still-unnamed model in the northern summer, powered by an internal combustion engine – though what mill it will use and whether it will feature electrification remain unclear.

In an interview with the publication, Lotus CEO Phil Popham revealed the car will enter production at the brand's main factory in Hethel, UK, and will offer an array of variants priced from £55,000 (AU$100,000) to £105,000 (AU$185,000).

The aforementioned price range lines up overlaps with the British brand's existing model line-up, which spans from the circa-£40,000 (AU$70,000) Elise Sport 220 to the range-topping circa-£100,000 (AU$175,000) Exige Cup 430 – indicating the new 2022 model could replace the ageing Exige and Evora, if not the entire line-up.

The new model will be tasked with building Lotus's appeal and sales in the US where, despite being its second-largest market (behind Germany, but ahead of the UK and Japan), the brand sells just one model, the "upmarket" Evora.

 

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"This car will have a wider price point, and that gives us an opportunity in the US. To be successful in the sports car market you have to be successful in the US", said Popham.

The unveiling of the all-new combustion model will be directly followed later this year by the first deliveries of Lotus's Evija all-electric hypercar.

Also in the brand's pipeline is understood to be an all-electric, 560kW SUV built by Geely in China, speculatively dubbed the Lambda, followed by a new electric sports car by 2025 co-developed with Renault-owned, French performance brand Alpine, with the details of the partnership confirmed earlier this month.

Lotus's future models will launch in the coming years as part of its plan to grow its international sales from the 1378 units it shifted in 2020 to up to 10,000, the latter figure the maximum production capacity for the recently-upgraded Hethel plant.

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Alex Misoyannis

Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family.

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