Lotus EV platform made for sharing
Inspired by Elise’s influence, Lotus aims to cash in on new sports car underpinnings
Like the 1996 Elise, 2026’s Type 135 will introduce new ideas
Lotus is confident it can generate revenues from its new bespoke EV hardware, in much the same way the original Elise’s bondedaluminium architecture went on to underpin a raft of sports cars from other manufacturers.
The best-known Elise-based sports cars are the Vauxhall VX220 and Tesla Roadster, but the platform’s chief engineer, Richard Rackham, estimates there have been “probably 10 times as many”, highlighting that use of Lotus’s expertise is wider than broadcast – and underlining just how influential that lightweight structure was.
It’s impressive enough that, adapted for the Exige and Evora, it created a family of Lotus models that kept the firm relevant for the next 25 years.
Now Rackham is working on a new Lotus platform for the electric era that could end up matching the Elise underpinnings for both longevity (if required) and for model proliferation, both within Lotus and outside.