Lotus Launches Hybrid & Electric Cars R&D Labs

It looks like a regular Opel (Saturn) Astra, but the car that’s
pictured is completely different. This vehicle is Lotus Engineering’s
first attempt at creating a hybrid vehicle, and represents the launch
of a branch of the British firm dedicated to engineering and developing
hybrid and electric vehicles.

Underneath
its hood, Lotus Engineering has fitted a small 1.5-liter three-cylinder
gasoline engine featuring a turbocharger that’s mated to a mild hybrid
drivetrain system. The 12 kW electric motor adds power, but not at the
cost of fuel economy, and because it isn’t a full hybrid system that
allows the car to run on pure electrical power, it poses a price
advantage.

Lotus has also taken a load off of the main engine
by switching over the water pump and the fuel pump to items that are
purely electrical, a change that benefits the car with 2-percent
improved fuel economy.

As importantly, the new powerplant puts
out greater performance than most entry-level gasoline engines on the
market today, at 158 horsepower and 177 lb-ft of torque. This also
betters the performance offered by the 1.8-liter inline-four sold in
the North American Astra. At the same time, the engine cuts back on
fuel economy and emissions by a significant amount.

By swapping
out the four cylinder for a three cylinder, Lotus has made the engine
smaller, some 35-percent less complicated, but more importantly about
20-percent lighter.

Lotus Engineering proves a point that many
automakers have shown in concepts; that downsizing for fuel economy can
be done with giant gains in fuel economy and equally large reductions
in emissions. We might see Lotus-derived powertrains soon too, as
they’ve officially partnered up with US-based ZAP electric cars.