The 2024 Lotus Eletre is a brand new five-seat, fully electric luxury family SUV. I am extremely happy to go down to Sydney to drive the Eletre SUV, its siblings, the Lotus Emeya Sedan and the cheeky little two-seater Emira.
This fully electric, five-seat luxury SUV joins the small offering of competitors currently available in Australia. I'm really excited to see how it stacks up as I check it out for BabyDrive…
The launch drive of the 2024 Lotus Eletre EV is short—it's just a taster, so we have to look forward to driving the Eletre again with my family in a few weeks! I drove on some beautiful country roads around Peats Ridge in NSW, allowing me to test the Eletre EV on some very potholed roads.
I'm pleased to say I was pleasantly surprised by how the Eletre felt over those potholes. The uneven surface and bumps are not felt throughout your body and are absorbed comfortably by the car. I'm hoping this will translate into low-motion sickness for little passengers, and I'm looking forward to testing this with my little ones in a few week's time.
The drive is quiet and you are comfortably cocooned from any outside wind or road noise.
The 2024 Lotus Eletre fully electric five-seat SUV is available in three variants. The base model Eletre starts at $189,990 and has a 535-600km battery range. The mid-spec Eletre S costs $229,990 and has a 490-535km battery range. This top-spec Eletre R has a 410-450km battery range, and costs $279,990 (these prices exclude on-road costs).
The average 450km range across the range is a good amount for everyday family life. This battery range would make family road trips possible as this is an achievable distance between charging stops.
When it comes to family friendliness, Eletre has spacious rear seats. They are nice and wide, and I'm quite confident that three child seats will fit across them. I will test this soon when I have the Eletre with my family.
There are ISOFix in both of the outer rear seats. They are within plastic guides that you lift the lid of.
There are top tether anchorages on the back of all three rear seats, giving those that need to install just one child seat the flexibility of where they position it, and those that need to install two or three child seats that possibility. The top tether anchorages are accessible through the boot and within clearly labelled plastic guides.
The interior of the 2024 Lotus Eletre is spacious, and the rear footwell is nicely carpeted and almost flat, giving excellent kickroom for rear passengers.
Boot space is very good in the Lotus Eletre. You can raise and lower the height with buttons on the right of the boot, which is helpful when lifting prams, etc, into the boot. It is also good for dogs to jump up or when doing an emergency nappy change! I look forward to doing our full BabyDrive boot test with Thule prams and shopping bags in a few weeks!
The angle of the rear seats can be adjusted electronically, which may help with rear passengers' visibility, and there are air vents in the side pillars so rear passengers can be kept at a comfortable temperature while driving along.
In the back of the central console box is a small media screen where rear passengers can adjust their seat positions, climate controls, and sound controls. They can also adjust the position of the front passenger seat – or, as my kids call it, the ejector seat! As the name suggests, they have had a lot of fun with this function in other vehicles I have tested, so I will be keeping it quiet when I drive with them in the Lotus Eletre!
The large media screen in the front of the 2024 Lotus Eletre is beautifully integrated. You adjust everything for the vehicle through the screen. It has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so you can access your phone's navigation, messaging and listening apps, etc. while driving.
The gears are selected using the toggle switch in the central console, which is clutter free.
The Lotus Eletre has not been through ANCAP crash testing but has a full suite of safety features, including seven airbags: dual frontal airbags, front side airbags, side curtain airbags down each side, and a front centre airbag.
During my very brief drive of the 2024 Lotus Eletre SUV, it was lovely and quiet, and the car felt solid, stable, and confident on the road. The steering wheel has a nice tactile hand feel, and the interior is beautifully crafted. The attention to detail in the contrasting seatbelts, knobs, and dials all feel lovely to touch.
The 2024 Lotus Eletre is a fully electric SUV, so it will have all the benefits for families, like driving your kids to sleep without churning through fuel, sitting at school pick up, or while Bub is asleep with the aircon running and not polluting the immediate area.
I also got to drive the Lotus Emeya fully electric sedan too!
I look forward to driving the Lotus Eletre with my family and giving it our full BabyDrive testing soon!
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