Lotus Evija: Top Gear’s 1,000-Mile Road Trip

Is every piece of footage ever shot now sitting somewhere on YouTube? It certainly seems that way. That includes a wonderfully period behind-the-scenes film following the creation of the 1970s Lotus Elite and Eclat. The world is rendered in shades of brown and beige, and you can almost detect the smoke and casual political incorrectness. Chief engineer Tony Rudd appears throughout as a dry, understated figure, looking like he could have been an unofficial third Ronnie (ask your parents). Discussing one particular packaging problem, he says, “one solution was to breed a special race of passengers, but we rejected that as taking too long”. Woke was still a distant prospect.

Rudd and his fellow Lotus graduate Mike Kimberley would regularly think nothing of taking a prototype on an epic road journey. On a Friday, they would depart Lotus’s Hethel headquarters near Norwich for the French Riviera or Rome, before being back at their desks by Monday lunchtime. It was real-world validation, and the sort of automotive derring-do that was possible when the gendarmerie took a more laissez faire approach.

That set us wondering: why not capture some of that same spirit during Top Gear’s exclusive first road drive in the Lotus Evija? We have, after all, been waiting long enough. Unveiled in July 2019, the Evija matches the Aston Martin Valkyrie and Mercedes-AMG One, those other moonshot machines, for a protracted development process and sheer ambition. It has in fact been built for some time, assembled to demanding standards in the very building where the legendary Lotus Carlton was born a generation earlier.

Photography: Olgun Kordal

It is our EV Hypercar of the Year, and we applaud Lotus simply for bringing the Evija into existence. Yet it is also the only new electric hypercar launched over the past 12 months, which surely says something in itself. Producing 2,011bhp – or 1.5 megawatts, if that is your preferred measure – the Evija can call itself the most powerful production car ever made, at least until we drive the Koenigsegg Gemera, Rimac Nevera R or Hennessey F5 Venom Evolution. It also looks spectacular. The difficulty is that it costs approximately three times a million pounds, so the completed car comes with expectations attached. Nor is there room for any actual luggage, given the design and engineering extremes involved. Naturally, then, it is the ideal machine for a 1,000-mile-plus road trip in proper TG fashion.

Lotus Evija design and engineering

Take a proper look at it. Created by the relentlessly energetic Russell Carr-led design team, it makes the visual impact of a meteorite striking Earth. That is impressive for a car people have had six years to acclimatise to. We frequently refer to the sculptural nature of a car when assessing its styling, but the Evija genuinely recalls Henry Moore or Barbara Hepworth. They are elevated comparisons for a car whose shape is exceptionally clever as well as theatrical. Examine the 93kWh battery pack in the assembly plant, then consider how Lotus has fitted it into the middle of the car rather than beneath it, along with every power module. Now note the voids on either side: swathes of space that improve aerodynamic efficiency while confirming the Evija as perhaps the most distinctive-looking road car currently on sale.

And, on the subject of roads, it is time to use one. We do have a genuine itinerary. Our final destination is Nice on the Côte d’Azur, but we will also honour that 1970s Lotus development route by visiting notable points en route, including Reims and the Circuit de Charade, scenes of Lotus Grand Prix victories for Jim Clark and Jochen Rindt. We leave at Wednesday lunchtime and have a flight home booked for Friday evening. The combination of distance and deadline concentrates the mind.

When there is this much firepower available, caution is sensible at first. Though it lacks a combustion engine, the Evija immediately assaults the senses. Its layout places you low down, as in a traditional sports car. Climbing in and out is reasonably straightforward, and it is friendly once you are installed. The designers fought to retain what they call ‘Becker points’: the prominently raised front wings named for famed Lotus test driver Roger Becker. A central windscreen spine accommodates the enormous parked wiper, although it fades from notice soon enough. The Formula One-style steering wheel might easily have become an awkward affectation, but it works well. Not better, mind: apparently, the wheel cannot be reinvented.

We join the A11 and point towards London. This car offers five driving modes, each increasing the power and the driver’s connection to it. Range will probably become our default setting, for reasons that will become clear, but it is also where the car feels least convincing. It is not really right to discuss throttle response – the right-hand pedal is more accurately a torque-demand control – but Range feels rather viscous. City is crisper, Tour sharper again, and Sport is impossible to resist on the dead-straight section through Thetford Forest. Here, there is 1,257lb ft of torque to explore: a frankly ungodly quantity of energy, sufficient to hurl the car ahead in a manner that makes the Millennium Falcon entering hyperdrive seem as leisurely as Del Boy’s three-wheeler. It is a strange experience and a remarkable affront to physics, but potentially dangerous if prison is not on your itinerary. Your passenger may also hit you. In reality, this degree of speed is not entirely enjoyable, but its acceleration rate – and its ability to sustain it – is extraordinary.

Hyperbat, a Coventry company, supplies the Evija’s battery, while the cells come from US firm Molicell. The battery pack alone weighs 718kg, roughly equivalent to a complete Lotus Elise S1. The Evija does not behave like an Elise, yet it never feels like one carrying a hippopotamus on its roof either. It has an 800V architecture, with two motors in each electric drive unit at both the front and rear axles, plus two gearboxes. Each wheel is therefore driven independently, creating an almost unfathomable algorithmic range of dynamic possibilities. Controlling this much power is brutally difficult. Ultimately, the limits are defined by the four pieces of rubber at the car’s corners: bespoke Pirelli Trofeo Rs. About 85 per cent of its components come from UK suppliers.

Lotus has made a concerted effort to give this dramatic machine the personality, sensations and vibration that we normally expect from a combustion-engined supercar. That becomes obvious at our first recharge, at Thurrock services in Essex. The Evija’s EDUs, or electronic drive units, make an intentionally unfiltered organic whine. On a circuit, you barely register it because avoiding a crash commands your attention. At motorway speed, however, it is much more apparent, particularly as the sound is persistently intrusive at 75mph. Additional sound insulation could be welcome.

It’s made entirely of carbon fibre, chassis, body panels and all, including the front subframes for total integrity and structural rigidity

Range would also help. Lotus quotes 195 miles on the WLTP cycle from a full battery, considerably below the early figures associated with the Evija. It is also well beyond what we encounter in reality, since you need to remain close to rapid chargers listed on Zap-Map and avoid taking the battery too low. Empty cells are unhappy cells. Consequently, we stop with around 25 miles remaining: a slim comfort margin after only two hours and 116 miles. This may become familiar...

Fortunately, Gridserve’s site near the Dartford crossing has an available, working 350kW charger, and we are back under way some 15 minutes later. The cost is eye-watering, though: at 85p per kWh, restoring the Evija’s relatively modest full charge costs £54.

The Channel Tunnel follows, where a coachload of Czech schoolchildren stare in disbelief. It is a reminder that cars of this sort also serve as entertainment, a role the Evija’s outstanding styling readily supports. Its dihedral doors deliver pure concept-car drama. They can be opened externally via the key fob and shut by a button underneath; inside, each has a roof-header button. The issue is that they can seem to have ideas of their own, becoming rather tiresome. What would Colin Chapman have made of it? His mantra was to simplify, then add lightness. The key sits in a small centre-console slot, and its transponder insists on a particular orientation. Another small annoyance. A reversing camera and pop-out side cameras bring a technological flourish and make reverse parking less daunting. Estimating distances remains stressful, however.

That is especially true considering the Evija’s exotic structure. Every element is carbon fibre – chassis, bodywork and even the front subframes – for complete integrity and structural stiffness. Its cockpit is set deep within the body, a configuration that recalls early-1970s endurance racers, a generation that captivates all car designers. The sophisticated race-derived inboard suspension was co-developed with Multimatic. It incorporates a Formula One-style ‘heave’ damper to deal with the Evija’s substantial downforce: an astonishing 1,680kg at its 217mph vmax. Its aerodynamic behaviour is governed not only by airflow passing above and underneath, but through the car too, as already noted.

Charging the Lotus Evija across France

Once across into France, the journey can properly get going. The Evija’s cabin mirrors its exterior because it is shaped as much by what is absent as what is present. A pleasingly uncomplicated instrument binnacle perches above a carbon-fibre exoskeleton, while the slender ‘ski jump’ central spine contains a run of hexagons, each activating a separate function. It is more concept-car thinking turned into reality, and largely succeeds, with function symbols elegantly illuminated from behind. That is until it ceases to work. The air-conditioning illumination vanishes just as temperatures rise outside, while the indicators quite literally begin blinking erratically.

France has plenty of rapid chargers, which is fortunate because we will become extremely familiar with them. Lotus believes prospective owners will not cover the ridiculous distance we are attempting, but a real-world range of roughly 150 miles is surely as useful as a chocolate teapot. Nor are we charging hard between péages, although, whenever restraint is abandoned, the car devours distance like almost nothing else. Ultra-powerful electric cars resemble time machines or teleportation devices.

We bypass Paris before following the A77 and N7 through the Loire Valley, passing Sancerre and Nevers. Charges five and six take place somewhere in this area, as the Evija’s 1.6 miles per kWh consumption and compromised range visibly obstruct progress. Repeated software faults are also appearing. Two engineers travel behind us, and on several occasions they effectively have to hard-reset the car. I am later told this happens because I leave it in Sport when I ought to return it to the City setting. Surely it ought to cope with that? There is also a slight hesitation before the Evija releases all its horsepower in Sport – perhaps the EV counterpart to turbo lag, as if billions of lines of code are gathering themselves across the mainframe. Once the car is fully committed, the pause is quickly forgotten, but the delivery ought to be immediate and seamless.

Our second overnight halt is Millau, at the edge of the Cévennes National Park, reached just before midnight. Phew. We have come here for two reasons. First, we want to drive over, and below, the Millau Viaduct: at 343m the world’s tallest bridge, an engineering marvel designed by Britain’s own star architect Norman Foster and opened in 2004. Crossing the magnificent Tarn Gorge, it required 290,000 tonnes of steel and concrete and is supported by 1,500 tonnes of steel cable. Even two decades later, it remains engineering at its most dazzling. It was built to ease traffic congestion heading for the Mediterranean, though we ironically leave it and go east on the N107.

The Evija on the N107

What a route this is – the second reason for coming – and what a machine the Evija becomes in what is arguably its natural environment. It is larger and heavier than anything Chapman and his colleagues would have conceived, but the essential point is that it still feels like a Lotus. Its steering feedback and linearity of response are genuinely close to those of the McLaren 750S. The 750S was the finest car I drove in 2024 and is TG’s current Speed Week winner, making that substantial praise. Notably, the Evija uses electrohydraulic rather than fully electric steering, and its braking has no regeneration, with the large Lotus instead relying on Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes. It finds an extraordinary rhythm, its hydraulically actuated retractable rear wing and DRS refining the aero balance and steadying the whole car. For all its intimidating complexity, there is a wonderfully pure quality to its reactions.

It’s mesmerising to look at, fast as hell, and handles spectacularly. But the motors are noisy, the range barely adequate

There is unquestionably some magic here. But, as we charge for the umpteenth time while nearing our destination, just as many questions remain as answers. We know the world is declining to fall for the ultra-high-horsepower hyper EV. Frankly, it is a rather silly automotive category, at least until battery technology can offer twice the energy density at half today’s weight.

Lotus is also notably guarded about how many Evijas have been sold, and at £2.4m it is undeniably difficult to shift. After 48 long hours driving it, the verdict remains undecided. It is hypnotic to behold, fast as hell and spectacularly capable through corners. Yet the motors are noisy, the range is only just sufficient, and the software problems are 21st-century versions of traditional Lotus, shall we say, foibles. Lotus believes some Evijas will enter major collections, becoming static masterpieces and cutting-edge technological flagships. Technology is advancing rapidly, though, and a Lotus more than most cars is made to be driven. After 1,000 demanding miles, this one, for several different reasons, simply does not travel quite far enough.