- Lotus unveiled its City Car Concept at the Paris auto show.
- The City Car Concept is necessary for Lotus to help lower the company's emissions average across its vehicle lineup.
- Lotus is looking for a partner to provide a platform for the city car.
PARIS — The city car concept that Lotus simultaneously unveiled with the new sports and supercar range is almost as important to the company as the rest of the models. That's in part because Lotus needs it to lower its fleet average CO2 emissions, and also because the company wants to offer a model similar to Aston Martin's Cygnet, says Wolf Zimmerman, the new, ex-AMG engineering chief of Lotus.
Lotus is looking for a partner to provide a platform for the city car, which is due after 2015, says Zimmerman. Meeting CO2 emissions requirements is also why the company is pursuing hybrid solutions for the new range. "All options" are being investigated in terms of technology. Flywheel hybrids are one of the favored possibilities, according to another insider.
All the new sports and supercars unveiled at the Paris show are based on new platforms, including the Esprit, despite this model having been under development for some years previously. All use rivet-bonded aluminum spaceframe technology. The switch away from fiberglass to aluminum exterior panels was necessary to match the standards of finish achieved by Ferrari and Lamborghini, says Zimmerman.
Although most of the engines will be sourced from Toyota, the 2.0-liter pressure-charged four-cylinder planned for the Elise will come from elsewhere. The styling of all five sports cars will evolve before each is launched, although the Esprit is closest to the finished item, while the Elan, says design chief Donato Coco, will change significantly.
Inside Line says: Even a small sports car maker like Lotus has to deal with tightening emissions regulations. — Richard Bremner, Correspondent
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gordancin says:
12:22 PM, 10/05/2010
This is the BEST LOOKING of all the A-class (?) vehicles I've seen to date. The Aston looks to much like a caricature of their other vehicles. The Toyota is sort of "blah" as expected and Smart although their update looks okay (IMO) needs to increase the miles per gallon and seating capacity to realize it's potential. I only hope those in charge at Lotus realize they need to make this vehicle accessible to the masses while creating a vehicle thats step between this and the next Elise if they really want to be efficient with all that tooling (and parts) that they'll need to be utilizing. This is of course, assuming that they plan on coming a bit more down to earth with all these new car plans.
thaitanium15 says:
11:38 AM, 10/05/2010
They should just take the old elise and make that their city car.
k55 says:
09:20 AM, 10/05/2010
........of course they are looking to make this more "hot hatch" vs "high MPG" right? I mean it is a Lotus ,right?
poorjoe says:
09:04 AM, 10/05/2010
Not a Toyota...yet. Lotus is shopping for a platform and they have a relationship with Toyota and Toyota does like to whore out its product (think Pontiac Vibe.) This will be on the iQ platform.
albook says:
08:37 AM, 10/05/2010
Following Aston's lead....The two cars even look similar. At least this isn't a Toyota.