Lotus Emeya: electric four-door sedan based on Eletre sets sights on Porsche Taycan

Lotus has revealed its third all-electric model, the Emeya, in New York earlier this morning. Billed as the company’s first four-door hyper-GT, it’s poised to take on the Porsche Taycan (along with the related Audi e-tron GT) and the Tesla Model S in the fast electric sedan stakes.

The Emeya looks all the world like a cut-down Eletre, and that’s because it is, sharing the underlying platform and a large number of components. It’s based on a custom version of Geely’s Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA)—the Electric Premium Architecture (EPA)—and will be built in the same factory in Wuhan, China starting next year.

To that end, the Emeya will be topped by an R version with an identical dual-motor setup to the Eletre R, pushing out 675kW (905hp) and 985Nm of torque. This gets the car from zero to 100km/h in an estimated 2.78 seconds, which is two tenths of a second quicker than the Eletre R, although even with a lower-slung body the top speed is a touch lower at 256km/h.

Expect the Emeya to also be offered in regular and S variants, both producing 450kW (603hp) and 710Nm as is the case with the Eletre; this should enable a century sprint time of around four seconds. Lotus has kept mum on battery size and range but has confirmed the car will travel broadly the same distance on a single charge as the Eletre. So, a giant 112kWh battery pack and a maximum range of around 600km, then.

Also shared with the Eletre is the 800-volt electrical architecture, enabling up to 350kW of DC fast charging power. Lotus says this adds 150km of range with around five minutes of charging and bring the battery to 80% charge in 18 minutes.

The exterior design is another area where the Eletre resemblance is clear, with lots of organic surfaces, split headlights, a full-width taillight strip and plenty of ducts for air to flow through—the latter drawing inspiration from the Evija hypercar. As with its SUV sibling, the Emeya features a petal-like active front grille, flush door handles, a large rear diffuser and a pop-up rear spoiler to improve aerodynamics and increase downforce.

The interior is, yet again, shared with the Eletre, sporting a minimalist dashboard, a slim instrument readout and a massive floating centre touchscreen. A five-seater layout comes as standard—with four individual bucket seats available as an option—as is a KEF sound system with Dolby Atmos 3D surround sound.

Under the skin, the Emeya features adaptive air suspension that uses sensors to read the road 1,000 times a second and adjust the spring and damper settings accordingly. Its roadholding capabilities will be helped by a centre of gravity that’s almost 100mm lower than the Eletre.

Expect the Emeya to be arrive in Malaysia sooner or later, following on from the launch of the Eletre earlier this year. In the meantime, you can watch our video of the Eletre below.