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Lotus EV City Car Delayed But Will Be Cheaper Than Cygnet

Lotus took a “wait and see” attitude to the fact that the whole automotive industry was viewing their plans as being to ambitious. And here we are at the end of 2011, with numerous delays and even some trouble securing credit earlier in the year.
The Lotus EV city car that was previewed by the concept you see above was supposed to arrive in October 2013, developed in partnership with parent company Proton form Malaysia. Now, according o Auto Express, it will actually come in 2015. It will first hit the global market as a Proton a year before, after which Lotus will spruce it up and sell it for a premium.

"There's no point in trying to fight the MINIs and the small BMWs and Audis unless you have a special offering. Our car will be an EV or range extended EV and will offer performance of no other small car," Lotus’s CEO reportedly says.

BMW has already announced that the i3 will also be an EV with optional range extender, and it promises to offer lightweight construction thanks to a carbon fiber chassis. As for the British automakers, they already offer a ‘sporty’ city car in the form of the Toyota iQ-based Aston Martin Cygnet.

The good news is that the Proton might be cheaper than the Aston if Auto Express’ math is to be deemed reliable. Right now, were’ really confused when it comes to the EV’s arrival, since Autocar has just reported that “Bahar also confirmed that a Lotus-developed, electric or range-extended supermini will go on sale in late 2013, initially as a Proton and then as a Lotus. It will cost from £29,000.

So the price matches but the model's arrival date doesn't. Only time will tell if it arrives at all and if people will want to buy one.
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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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