Joe Duffy Group, one of Ireland's biggest dealer groups, has given Irish car enthusiasts an early Christmas present with the announcement of opening a Lotus showroom in January.
Based neat Dublin Airport
The new dealership will be based in Airside Retail Park, just near Dublin Airport, and will be the first Irish Lotus dealer since Linders Lotus sadly closed down during the last recession. It won't be the only Lotus dealer on the island, either - Belfast's Charles Hurst just recently announced that it too will open a Lotus showroom.
Welcoming the appointment, Geoff Dowding, Executive Director, Sales, and Aftersales Lotus Cars, commented: "We are delighted to be partnering with Joe Duffy Group to bring Lotus cars to Ireland, and we know the highly experienced team will do a brilliant job in representing our brand DNA and values. We have on exciting all-electric future planned, with a range of performance-oriented lifestyle and sports cars due for launch in the coming years."
Conor Kilduff, Joe Duffy Brand Director, said: "We are very proud to be representing the Lotus Cars Brand in Ireland. As part of our plans to grow the Group, this fits perfectly into our strategy of representing and being the destination for premium sports brands in Ireland. Lotus Cars is synonymous with innovation, dynamic performance and cutting-edge technology and we look forward to welcoming the Emira to our showroom in early 2023 followed soon by the all-electric SUV the Eletre. As a future-focused company, we invest in innovative brands which will deliver the technology, sustainability and driving experience required for the future. Lotus Cars is an exceptional, award-winning brand, and i'm delighted that this new showroom will deliver an outstanding experience for customers and colleagues."
All-electric Lotus
The re-opening of Lotus in Ireland comes at a critical time for the sports carmaker. Now owned by the giant Chinese car maker Geely (which also owns Volvo), Lotus is fast becoming an electric car maker.
This year, it launched its last-ever petrol-engined car, the mid-engined Emira, and it's already shown us its first SUV, the Eletre. That tall, five-seat all-electric SUV will have a range of more than 600km, and the top-spec variant will be able to accelerate to 100km/h in as little as 3.0 seconds. The Eletre is also the first Lotus to feature autonomous driving technology, and the company claims that it will be the first production car to feature a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging - a sophisticated sensor that's like a combination of radar and laser) to scan the world around it. Lotus isn't claiming any self-driving ability just yet but says that such systems can be unlocked later using over-the-air software updates.
Lotus is also developing an all-electric hypercar called the Evija. This has four electric motors, more than 2,000hp, and it's also working on a sleek four-door electric saloon, a Porsche Taycan rival, based on the same platform as the Eletre.
Lightweight EV sports cars coming
Don't think that Lotus won't also be making more traditional sports cars. The company is working with Alpine to develop a new electric sports car architecture. Project LEVA (Lightweight Electric Vehicle Architecture) claims to be significantly lighter even than Lotus' current sports car chassis, which is hardly porky. In fact, the rear structure is said to be more than a third lighter than that of the petrol-engined Emira. Richard Moore, executive director of engineering at Lotus, said, "Project LEVA and the electric sports car architecture are perfect illustrations of the innovation which continues to be at the heart of everything Lotus does. Today's EVs are heavy in comparison to their ICE equivalents. [Lotus has] developed a new vehicle architecture that targets lightweight and performance density from conception. Rather than developing a single vehicle, it means Lotus now has the 'blueprint' for the next generation of electric sports cars, for future Lotus products and for the Lotus Engineering consultancy to commercialise."
As shown so far, the LEVA chassis can accommodate a battery of up to 99kWh capacity, which would give a relatively light car a staggeringly long one-charge range. That will be for a top-performing model - most of the cars Lotus will make are expected to have a battery of around 66kWh capacity, giving them a still-healthy 400km+ range. The batteries can be stacked horizontally, under the cabin, for cars with higher rooflines, or in a 'chest' formation, behind the driver and passenger seats, to create a lower-slung, sports car profile.
Lotus has shown a line drawing of a future model based on the LEVA chassis, which has distinct overtones of the classic Esprit. We do hope that Joe Duffy has made allowances for long queues around its new dealership...