LOTUS EVIJA

This is the most powerful car we've tested – and it wears a Lotus badge

- 

Between all the talk of more layoffs and even a UK factory closure, Lotus Cars Ltd could do with a good news story right now.

And it just so happens that the headline performance car project that Hethel itself has been working on for the past five years is at last ready for the scrutiny of the Autocar road test.

So, when you need to cut through the noise and remind the world what your brand is capable of, you can always hand over the most powerful hypercar yet delivered into series production and let Autocar fix satellite timing gear to it. That ought to do the trick.

Finally, and after a rather protracted gestation, the Evija has landed. This road test will aim not to concern itself with whether, philosophically or strategically, it is the right kind of car for Lotus to have made at all, how many it has sold, or how close to its production-run target of 130 units it is ever likely to get in light of the hypercar-buying public's apparent lingering ambivalence towards megawatt EVs.

Here and now, we will simply pore over this stunning hypercar, survey its design, interrogate its habitability and usability on the road, and witness the outer limits of its dynamic capabilities on track, as only the Autocar road test can.

Spoiler alert: those are quite some outer limits. By the time we're finished here, your idea of what 'fast' looks like in terms of numbers on a page - and what it feels like from the driver's seat - might never be the same again.

DESIGN & ENGINEERING

PROS Uncompromising specification; sensational aero; equally sensational to look at

CONS Not one, perhaps, for the owners' club faithful