"A REAL WORLD RANGE OF 150 MILES IS SURELY CHOCOLATE TEAPOT STUFF"

We leave the company’s Hethel HQ on Wednesday morning bound for the French Riviera. We use the Channel Tunnel and push on to Reims. This was the scene of various F1 triumphs for Lotus, including Jim Clark's win in 1963. Then we head southwest towards the Circuit de Charade, a track aiming to become the world’s first fully sustainable motorsport venue. From there, we overnight in Millau - home to the amazing viaduct over the Tarn gorge - and go south through Cévennes and Provence before winding up our journey in the Côte d'Azur. Beaulieu-sur-Mer, in fact, home to the Hôtel Métropole, an old school showbiz destination. We fly home...

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Once we're in France, the odyssey can really begin. The Evija’s interior echoes the exterior design, in the sense that it’s defined by what’s missing as much as by what’s actually there. A refreshingly simple instrument binnacle sits on top of a carbon fibre exoskeleton, while a slender central spine - known as the ‘ski jump’ - houses a series of hexagons, each one triggering a different function. It’s more concepty thinking made real, and it mostly works, the function graphics coolly backlit. Until it stops working, that is. The AC glow disappears just as the weather heats up outside, and the indicators literally go on the blink.

LOTUS EVIJA

Price: £2.4m Powertrain: four e-motors, 2,011bhp, 1,257lb ft Transmission: 2spd auto, AWD Performance: 0-62mph in <3.0secs, 0-186mph in <9.0secs, 217mph Battery/range: 93kWh/195 miles Weight: 1,884kg

France is well served by rapid chargers, which is a good thing because we're going to see a lot of them. Lotus reckons potential owners won't do the crazy distance we're attempting, but a real world range of about 150 miles is surely chocolate teapot stuff in terms of utility. We're not exactly blasting between péages either, although when the self restraint goes out the window the car shrinks distance like few other things out there. Hyper powerful electric cars are like time machines or teleportation devices.