Once you've decided to spend £1.7 million on a British made electric hypercar, its nice to know that you can personalise it. As well as choosing between three colours, you will also get a unique build book that let's you know exactly how your new car was put together. Announcing a configurator isn't exactly we call ‘hard news' at WhichEV, but it does give us an excuse to publish some gorgeous shots of the car and show you a nice video at the same time.
Building a configurator seems like a strange idea when you consider that the run-rate on the Lotus Evija will be 130 units and they were sold out by the beginning of March 2020. Given the price, you might have expected Russell Carr, Design Director, to have made 130 trips over the course of the year, to sit down with each new owner – to discuss their requirements and colour preferences. Still, it is the 21st century, so a nice user interface and animations is probably the more appropriate way to go.
So what makes the Evija so attractive? Well the 1,972 horsepower (2,000ps) is something that all of us would like to experience. The 1,700nm of torque available should be enough to power you toward a top speed of 200mph – hitting 62mph in less than 3 seconds. You can see the car in action on the track over here.
The challenge for companies like Lotus is that Tesla is promising a new Roadster before the end of 2021 that will deliver 10,000nm of torque, with a price tag that's 85% lower.
The challenge for Tesla is that even in a world gripped by a pandemic, Lotus can sell out a £1.7m car before it reaches full production.
So what can those lucky enough to have confirmed an order, expect from the pre-sales experience?
The starting point for every car’s specification is an all-new touch-screen configurator. Designed especially for Lotus, its ultra-powerful graphics processor creates stunning high-definition ‘photo-realistic’ images and animations. Developed using advanced gaming software, these allow the buyer to build and personalise their own car from the ground up and visualise it from every angle, inside and out.
Thanks to an advanced imaging technique known as ray-tracing, they can even place their Evija into multiple environments around the world to see how localised sunlight levels will affect their choices. The final element is the creation of a fully personalised ‘360 degree fly-through’ film exclusive to each customer.
Simon Clare, Executive Director of global marketing at Lotus, told the media, “We know every customer journey will be unique and our highly experienced customer relations team is ready to support any requests. With state-of-the-art digital tools such as the new configurator, we can accommodate customer preferences and requirements from anywhere in the world at the touch of a button.”
The configurator is just one element of the Evija experience. At regular intervals during the purchase process, each customer will receive from Lotus a unique gift to reflect the exclusive and technical nature of the Evija.
That will culminate in a beautiful hand-crafted build book, packed with stunning imagery of the customer’s individual car during key moments of its assembly. The book will be presented to the customer with their Evija key as part of the handover celebrations.
Here's the Lotus promo video to help you envisage the car ahead of launch.
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