Lotus Evija – first hypercar buying experience detailed

Lotus has shown off its new and rather realistic configurator for the forthcoming Evija (pronounced E-vi-ya) hypercar, of which only 130 units will be built. All Evija customers can customise their cars through an all-new touchscreen configurator, offering a multitude of paint combinations to highly detailed interior trims.

The configurator is designed specifically for Lotus, featuring a powerful graphics processor to create these high-definition, photorealistic images and animations. The core of the system was designed using advanced gaming software, allowing buyers to build and customise their Evijas from the ground up and visualise it from every angle, inside and out.

Using an imaging technique known as ray-tracing, these customers can even put the Evija into multiple settings around the world to see how localised sunlight levels will affect their choices. Once a customer is content with his or her customisation, the configurator produces a special 360-degree fly-through film that is also personalised.

The video below gives us a glimpse into the personalisation process, revealing new images of the Evija captured from the configurator. This particular setting was within the Lotus Design studios at Hethel, UK, and finished in bright Atomic Red with Carbon Black accent pack. The car was briefly shown in Solaris Yellow and Carbon Black as well.

According to Lotus, the configurator is just one element of the Evija experience. “At regular intervals during the purchase process, each customer will receive from Lotus a unique gift to reflect the exclusive and technical nature of the Evija,” it said in a statement.

“That will culminate in a beautiful hand-crafted build book, packed with stunning imagery of the customer’s individual car during key moments of its assembly. The book will be presented to the customer with their Evija key as part of the handover celebrations.”

Company marketing boss Simon Clare said: “We know every customer journey will be unique and our highly experienced customer relations team is ready to support any requests. With state-of-the-art digital tools such as the new configurator, we can accommodate customer preferences and requirements from anywhere in the world at the touch of a button.”

Now, production of the Evija is slated to begin later this year, with Lotus stating that the first year’s allocation has already been snapped up by customers around the world. To recap, the Evija is Lotus’ first all-new model since 2008, and it claims that the Evija is the world’s most powerful production road car.

It’s developed with Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE), featuring four extremely compact Electrical Drive Unit (advanced electric motor) that is targeted to make about 500 PS each. The total system output is said to be 2,000 PS and 1,700 Nm, allowing the hypercar to sprint from 0-100 km/h in under three seconds, or 0-300 km/h in under nine seconds.

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