Lotus and Britishvolt EV battery deal CONFIRMED as Lotus teases new electric sports car

The partnership between Lotus and Britishvoly to develop EV batteries is confirmed as Lotus tease the arrival of a new electric Lotus Sports car.

Last week we reported that Britishvolt had secured funding of £1.7bn to build a Gigafactory in Northumberland to churn out batteries for electric cars. Which is good news for UK PLC.

What we also reported is that Lotus was expected to be a Britishvolt partner in battery development, with Britishvolt providing batteries for the new range of electric Lotus sports cars.

At the time, the Lotus tie-in hadn’t been confirmed by either party, but now it’s official and Lotus say it will focus on developing fast-charging batteries with lower weight and better energy density in an “innovative new battery cell package”.

The product of this tie-in will see a new electric Lotus Sports car, built in Hethel and arriving probably in 2024, using Britishvolt batteries, and Lotus has taken the opportunity of the news of the Britishvolt partnership to preview how it will look (above).

It’s hard to draw too many conclusions from a simple sketch with less than a dozen lines, but it does seem Lotus isn’t going to stray too far from its ICE designs and aren’t planning anything ground-breaking or disruptive in design.

Lotus has previously stated that the new E-Sports Platform for electric sports cars will allow batteries under the floor or stacked where a mid-engine would go, with battery capacities ranging from 66.4kWh to 99.6kWh.

Matt Windle, Lotus MD, said:

Lotus is delighted to be collaborating with Britishvolt to develop new battery cell technology to showcase the thrilling performance that a Lotus EV sports car can deliver. These are the first exciting steps on the journey towards  an all-new electric sports car from Lotus, and yet another step towards the transformation towards sustainable, renewable electricity stored in batteries.