Noticed how posh crossovers like Bentley’s Bentayga or Rolls-Royce's Cullinan are not exactly gorgeous design exercises? Or that super-SUVs such as Lambo’s Urus or the upcoming Ferrari Purosangue are pretty freaking odd? Well, it gets even quirkier...
Frankly, there is a major reason behind the whole commotion: profit. They do not need to look beautiful – not even Aston Martin’s DBX is eligible as an automotive work of art – but they need to be able to stand out in any crowd, whether for the right or wrong reasons. The strategy is quite simple, actually.
Below their towering perspective, there is an entire sea of premium automakers trying to sell tens of thousands of Range Rovers, Velars, Cayennes, Escalades, and much more. Instead, Bentley or Rolls-Royce, for example, only need to reach a few thousand patrons each year and still make a hefty profit – so it is adamantly crucial to catch them in their SUV hooks.
Lambo and soon, Ferrari, will have the same fight across the super-SUV market and it seems that already automakers understand they need to establish easy boundaries between their newly-acquired niches. So, ultra-luxury fugliness or super-SUV quirkiness seems to be the contemporary choice.
Pretty much everyone seems to accept the facts as they are presented. For example, we have embedded below a couple of design projects from two virtual automotive artists and they are rather conclusive. The pixel master behind the j.b.cars account on social media just tampered subtly with the latest representative of the high-end SUV breed, and the CGI expert called ardplayer did not even bother modifying the leaked/teased styling of Ferrari’s Purosange and just settled for a roster of color choices...
Speaking about the newest member of the posh crossover family, that one would be the 2023 Lotus Eletre, claimed to be “the world’s first electric hyper-SUV” when it was launched on March 29th during a VIP world premiere event, live-streamed across the globe from the BBC studios in London, United Kingdom. Of note, Lotus seems to have forgotten a couple of things.
One would be to make additional mentions of the company’s lightness ethos, and the other would be those power outputs which starting at 600 ponies are hardly “hyper-SUV” material when there is a 1,020-hp Tesla Model X Plaid already running around dragstrips and posting one record after another. Anyway, we do agree with Lotus about their oddly-named Eletre (suddenly Type 132 does not sound so bad anymore!) being “bold, progressive, and exotic with iconic sports car DNA evolved for the next generation” of Lamborghini Urus customers... oh, sorry, I meant Lotus patrons!
My mistake should be easy to understand when looking at the new battery-powered Eletre SUV from the front. Alas, there is room for everyone, at least until Lambo itself decides to fully join the EV revolution and make their next Urus a zero-emission super-SUV wonder. But perhaps, by then Lotus will finally start selling its limited-production Evija sports car... No matter, that’s probably just wishful thinking and no one will dare fall out of Tesla Cybertruck tardiness order, it seems.
As for the Eletre, there are some positive aspects worth mentioning, aside from the rear design which is more into Kia’s EV6 than Aston’s DBX, if you ask about my two cents on the matter. Such as the key technical details, starting with the targeted driving range of around 600 km (373 miles) that is doubled by 350 kW recharging capabilities for a charge time of around 20 minutes when aiming to nail a 400 km/248 miles range.
Or the “world-first” deployable LIDAR technology in a production car and its envisioned affiliation to the exclusive ‘two-second club’ via the forecasted 62 mph/100 kph acceleration time of fewer than three seconds. Now, hopefully, that “extensive use of carbon fiber and aluminum for weight reduction throughout” is not just marketing, speak because they might fall victim to some Lotus “lightness” memes afterward...
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News