Lotus adds electricity

THE company known to make cars that faithfully stick to its founder’s “simplify, then add lightness” mantra is now adopting electric propulsion.

Lotus Cars, started by Colin Chapman in 1948, announced it will be launching in London on July 16 its first all-new model in more than a decade. The company described the upcoming car, christened Type 130, as an “all-electric hypercar” that will be the “most dynamically accomplished road car” in its history.

No specifications about the new model have been released.

But Lotus bared only 130 examples of the car will be sold, with the first customer deliveries to start in 2020. The Type 130 will be built at Hethel in Norfolk, England, the company’s headquarters since 1966.

Lotus at the 2019 Auto Shanghai in April had confirmed the hypercar project. It noted “several hundred potential owners have come forward to express their interest in the new car.”

The Type 130 name represents the number of models prefixed by “Type” which Lotus has so far built. Some of the more notable among these were the Type 14, or the Elite, which had a composite monocoque; the Type 25 that won the 1963 Formula 1 world championship; the Type 72, which again took the F1 crown in 1970, 1972 and 1973; the Type 78 “ground effects” F1 car; and the Type 92, an F1 car with an active suspension system.