The lightweight Lotus is dead
The Lotus Elise, Exige, and Evora models have reached the end of the line, as the Geely-owned marque lays the groundwork for an all-electric future.
Production of the Lotus Elise, Exige, and Evora models has wrapped up, bringing to an end the era of ultra-lightweight British sports cars.
The Geely-owned marque’s Hethel factory – which has built 51,738 Lotus cars since the Elise was launched in 1996, alongside the Vauxhall VX220 and original Tesla Roadster – is set to be retooled for mass production of the upcoming Emira coupe, and no longer has capacity for the outgoing models.
In total 35,124 Elise cars were built over its 25-year history, 10,497 Exige cars were built over its 21-year history, and 6117 Evora cars were built over its 12-year history.
The final examples of each have been kept by Lotus for its heritage collection, and will likely end up on display at the company's Norwich headquarters.
As previously reported by Drive, Lotus has not ruled out the possibly of selling off its Elise tooling to a third party for continued production at a separate location – as it did with its Lotus Seven design in the 1960s, which was bought out by Caterham.
However, such a plan has not been finalised and it's currently unclear if Lotus could find a buyer capable of producing the car.
The all-new Lotus Emira (shown above) – which replaces all three outgoing models – has been pitched as a competitor to the Porsche 718 Cayman and Boxster range, and will be one of the marque's heaviest models ever at 1404kg.
The car is offered with two engine options: an entry-level 268kW turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder (borrowed from Mercedes-AMG), and a flagship 298kW/420-430Nm supercharged 3.5-litre V6 derived from the existing Evora engine.
Prices for Australia start from $184,990 before on-road costs for the initial V6 First Edition variant.
Above: Lotus Type 134 and Type 135.
Above: Lotus Type 133.
Above: Lotus Type 132.
Lotus has previously confirmed the Emira will be its last model powered by an internal-combustion engine, making it unlikely a sports car as light as the Elise will ever be built again, given the weight of current battery technology.
A low-volume electric hypercar – dubbed the Evija – is already in production, with four independent motors sending a combined 1470kW to the road.
You can read more about the brand's future electric model line-up – slated to include two large SUVs built in China – by clicking here.
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