Lotus Evija. Wonderful.
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Lotus Evija is now the world's most powerful production car
The Lotus Evija electric hypercar has been confirmed with 2,011 hp from a four-motor powertrain.
"The Lotus Evija is now in production, and the final specs are even wilder than what Lotus originally promised.
The electric hypercar was confirmed on Friday with a combined output from its four-motor powertrain of 2,011 hp, making it the most powerful car in production. The setup is also said to deliver 1,256 lb-ft of torque.
The output is higher than Lotus' originally promised figure of 1,973 hp. Importantly, the revised figure is now higher than the 1,984 hp of the Aspark Owl, another electric hypercar that was previously regarded as the world's most powerful production car.
With such an output, Evija owners can expect 0-62 mph acceleration in under three seconds and 0-186 mph acceleration in under nine seconds. The top speed is a governed 217 mph.
The Evija should also handle like a proper Lotus. The car boasts race-inspired suspension featuring three spool-valve dampers per axle—one at each corner and an inboard-mounted third to control heave. It has magnesium wheels to help control weight, but even between those and the carbon-fiber monocoque and body, the Evija is still on the heavy side. Lotus said its target weight for the car is 4,160 lb.
Most of the weight is due to the battery, a 93-kwh unit (up from 70 kwh previously) that is claimed to deliver up to 250 miles of range with normal driving. Charging the battery to 80% will take 18 minutes using a 350-kw DC fast charger, Lotus said."
End transmission.
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You just ruined @ZombiePhysicist's weekend.
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How come? They've moved to a much bigger battery. Having said that the production Rimac Nevera and Pininfarina Battista are around a quarter of a tonne more again in weight on top.
And the Lotus is a 1:1 power to weight ratio car and knowing them it'll destroy them on the racetracks too.
Very quietly I'm patiently awaiting it's arrival.🙂
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I think he meant it more like lotus isn’t really about power but more about being very light, I’ve never personally driven one but my friends who have them all just talk about they feel like go carts and they can throw them into corners very easily. But most of the new cars now weight too much to have the old school feel.
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Yeah, Colin Chapman will be spinning in his grave.
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I see. Well it could be worse. They could be selling Chinese built production SUV's. Now that would be a crusher.
Oh, wait a minute!😻
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It already weighs like a compact SUV. It's a boat
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Actually, I think that isn’t bad for a full electric if it has a good full range battery. The lightest regular EV I know of is the Tesla model 3, base model at 3400lbs with one motor, and kind of lame range. Once we get dual motors and decent range all the weights go over 4000lbs. At 2000hp I’m assuming it has 3 or more motors and a big battery.
What I find hopeful with the 4160lbs weight (if accurate) is we are approaching getting full ev cars down under the 4000lbs barrier which I do think will be doable. 3900lbs full electric super car. That will leave the gap between the best hybrids (3400lbs for the artura) at ~500lbs and things get interesting.
That said, all these cars are disgusting fat pigs when compared to the t50 2150lbs, and all should feel shame they cannot do better. The world of light cars today is more bleak than manual transmission options. It’s unobtanium t50 at 2150lbs and the next option I know of is the Miata at 2400lbs, kind of sad. The next best options are Mclaren’s that seem forever stuck around ~3200lbs mark.
Im genuinely curious if Gordon Murray could make a fully electric hyper car, lighter. If he can do over 1000lbs better than Mclaren and bolt in a 3rd seat and a giant fan, I wonder if he could make a 3100lbs fully electric version of the t50…. I bet you he could. And I wonder why Mclaren didn’t ever try really hard to get Gordon back into the fold. Or if they did, did they really try hard enough. He seems to be the only one capable of making truly light super cars.
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I know it's their target weight and not actual weight but this really reminded me again how heavy the Chiron is. The Chiron is at least 100 kg (220 lbs) heavier at 1996/2043 kg (4400/4504 lbs). I'm also curious how much the 2 full electric SUVs that Gordon Murray is going to make will weigh. A quote from Gordon Murray from this article:
Gordon Murray Plans to Follow His ‘T’ Supercars With Two All-Electric SUVs
The supercar impresario gave us the skinny at the Qual.
robbreport.com
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She's a quad electric motor set up and Lotus have worked very hard on torque vectoring. She's rear wheel drive in the lower power modes etc. It's a seemingly very sophisticated set up. The battery is smaller than the Rimacs.
As for the Gordon Murray T50 I'm beginning to get nostalgic as I'm nearing my fifth decade marker (🤫) and I'm remembering the F1 again.
Also the Aspark Owl is super light but I think they sold like 2-5 production cars. I'm not sure.
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Also these are the "claims" and "numbers" from Lotuses video a few months ago. They are, to be brutally honest, well bullshit!😂
Rimac Tesla Lucid have done 2.1 or under to 60MPH so 2.7 to 100km/h makes zero to no sense. That throws everything preceding out. The 200- 300km/h split looks completely off, 3.1 but if I'm proven wrong I'll take it!🙂
Etc.
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They intentionally setup the electric motors more for top end performance
The Lotus Evija Will Run From 0-186 MPH In a Bonkers Nine Seconds
Lotus isn't aiming for a face-melting 0-60 mph time for the Evija. It's focusing on what happens beyond 60 mph.
www.roadandtrack.com
There are lighter EVs than the Model 3 - but it all depends on the car and battery size (and power). The Renault Zoe with a 41kWh battery (and 90PS) is about 1480kg (3262lb) and a bunch of other superminis are about the same. The first generation Tesla Roadster (with 53kWh battery and 250PS) was about 1305kg (2877lb) and might still be the lightest EV that made it to production.
Really, the big problem is range and the speed of charging. You could get a relatively light car with a small battery, but then the range is poor - and what's worse, the charging speed, which is also battery size dependent, is also gonna be poor. Additionally, making a car sporty goes in every way directly against making it efficient. Sporty means bigger and wider tires - which means more rolling resistance and more drag. It means more downforce - which means more drag. It means more power, which means more cooling needed - which means more drag! So to make a sportscar that has a decent range and can charge at a decent speed, and yet satisfies all the sporty criteria, you need to give it a really big battery!
Now, looking at what you could theoretically get. Let's say we take the T.50, remove the engine, gearbox and fuel tank, and add an electric motor and some batteries instead. The engine and gearbox weigh 260kg combined and let's say 16kg for the fuel tank and hoses and such, leaving us with 710kg. For the electric drive unit we take the 670PS motor from Lucid, which has the best in class power to weight ratio and weighs 75kg. Now we are at 785kg. Let's say we take the 60kWh battery pack from Tesla - and that weighs 385kg. In total: 1160kg (2557lb)! However, the rest of the car was designed to handle only 980kg, so let's add 40kg to account for that, and we are at 1200kg (2645lb). We gained only about 220kg, which is not too bad!
However, there are some problems with that. First one, the car is RWD only. That saves you a lot of weight, but it also means it's gonna lose to every other EV in 0-60mph or 1/4 mile and you get much less energy back from regenerative braking (as that's mostly done through front wheels because of weight transfer). It would also be slower than the original because it's that much heavier. You would need about 800PS for them to be equal, which would add about 15kg. The biggest problem, however, would be the range. The Model 3 RWD with the same 60kWh battery gets about 230 mile range, but that has a drag coefficient of 0.23, with a frontal area of 2.22m, for a combined CdA of 0.510m. The T.50 has a drag coefficient of probably around 0.37 (judging from their claimed top speed), although it benefits from being quite small with a frontal area of probably around 1.75m, for a combined CdA of 0.647m. Combine this with a higher rolling resistance from bigger and wider tires and you are looking at only about 175 mile range! Additionally, your charging speed would be limited to only 170kW max and the 60kWh battery probably can't supply 670PS to begin with!
If you instead put the bigger 82kWh pack in the car, that would get you to about 240 miles (which is still nothing to write home about), but the weight of that pack is 490kg, which means the total weight of the car would grow to at least 1320kg (2910lb), 1330kg (2930lb) if you increased the power to 890PS to match the weight increase. So that's 1330kg minimum for a $3M+ supercar which is only RWD. If you added a front motor for AWD with a separate cooling circuit, inverter and wiring and what not, it would be 1400kg+. That's assuming the 82kWh battery would be able to supply 890PS. If not, then for higher power density, or just bigger battery, you would pay additional weight penalty. It's also assuming you could fit everything in and that the car wouldn't need any additional strengthening on top of the one we already did for the 60kWh battery.
In any case, <1400kg RWD, or <1500kg AWD EV supercar should definitely be possible IF you can settle for 240 mile range and 200kWh peak charging speed and can pay millions for bespoke ultra lightweight parts.
The Evija could definitely be lighter, but they never really gave it a chance. For start the car is huge with 2000mm width. It has way too much power - the electric motors, even if they had the same power density as on the Lucid, would weigh 220kg - more than the ICE in the T.50. The battery is 93kWh, but has to supply 2000PS, so you are looking at something like 700kg for the pack. You also have to cool 2000PS, so the cooling system is also gonna weigh double or more than on the T.50. And then everything else needs to get heavier to support it. So you are at 1890kg and that might still be optimistic.
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More analysis required. Please show work.
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You mean like that Italian outfit? I forget their name.
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Really interesting. Those are insanely great numbers with todays tech. Seems to me, you could get a full electric, with pretty good range (say up the battery a touch), at around 3200lbs (all wheel drive). That would be a heck of an accomplishment. Wonder if GMA will try it.
Super capacitors are much heavier than batteries, though. The only advantage is very high power density, so you can support high power motors with only a small capacitor, but the capacity is gonna be tiny so you will only get a few seconds of power. It's a possible solution for some hybrid cars - that care more about on paper numbers than actual usable performance, if we are being honest - but it wouldn't work for BEVs.
Well, kinda. For a 300 mile range - which I think is the shortest you could get away with on a car that's not gonna have a successor for the next 10 years - you would need a 100kWh battery weighing 550kg (from the Plaid) - and that would put the weight of the car to about 1400kg for the RWD and 1500kg (3306lb) for the AWD. But that's like the minimum with millions spent and Gordon Murray heading the design. Is 1500kg that great in that case? It's definitely better than what we have now with the Rimac being 2300kg and even the "lightweight" Evija being at least 1890kg, but that's still 450kg over the actual T.50!
That said, for a sportscar that doesn't care about power or acceleration, that weight can be a lot lower even with the car being a lot cheaper. The original Tesla Roadster proved that 15 years ago. That was based on the Lotus Elise and weighed about 400kg more than the Elise, but that still resulted in a 1300kg EV, which is pretty good. With today's tech you could probably get it to 1200kg even with a slightly larger battery with better range. Lotus and Alpine are cooperating right now on developing a new electric sportscar and Porsche are also hard at work on the EV Cayman, so we'll see how that turns out. It's probably not gonna be 1200kg - as that is based on the Elise which was spartan as hell and impossible to get in and out of - but you are probably looking at something like 1400kg for the Alpine and maybe 1600kg for the Porsche. It heavily depends on what sort of battery size they pick.
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