The 2024 Lotus Emeya is Lotus's brand new five-seat, fully electric luxury family sedan. I am a sedan lover, so I am very happy to drive the Emeya on the outskirts of Sydney. I also got to drive its siblings, the Lotus Eletre SUV and the cheeky little two-seater Emira.
This fully electric, five-seat luxury sedan looks fantastic! I love the front lights, and I'm really excited to see how it drives and performs for families as I check it out for BabyDrive…
The launch drive of the 2024 Lotus Emeya Sedan EV is too short – it's just a taster, but it left me with a big smile on my face and wanting to drive it more! So, I am very excited to be driving the Emeya again soon with my family, and that's when I'll put it through our full BabyDrive testing!
I drove on some beautiful country roads near Peats Ridge in NSW. The roads had a LOT of potholes and no exciting bends, so it was typical of a lot of people's everyday driving. I was really happy with how the Emeya felt on that short drive. It really hugged the road, felt very anchored down and secure and had that lovely sedan style of driving where you feel connected to the road. The drive was very smooth, even considering the potholes and rough road surface.
I love driving sedans, but I usually find them very enjoyable for the driver at the passenger's expense. I rode in the back for the 90-minute drive to Sydney Airport and did not feel motion sickness at all, so perhaps the Emeya is the exception to the rule!! I will find out when I drive with my kids in the back in a few weeks.
Being fully electric, the power is instant when you accelerate, so you can confidently pull out at junctions and change lanes in traffic.
You are cocooned from any outside wind or road noise while travelling, and visibility is good with the large windows. The large glass roof also brings in a lot of light. You can adjust it from clear to frosted and patterned.
The rear seats can be electronically adjusted, which may help with rear passenger comfort and motion sickness. You can position your children's seats so they have the best visibility out of the rear windows.
The 2024 Lotus Emeya fully electric five-seat sedan is available in three variants. All models have dual motors and are all-wheel drive. The base model Emeya starts at $189,990 and has a 498-600km battery range. The mid-spec Emeya S costs $2o9,990 and has a 498-600km battery range. This super-fast top-spec Emeya R has a 434-484km battery range and costs $259,990 (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 the child's domain in the back seats, the 2024 Lotus Emeya has spacious rear seats.
There are ISOFix in the two outer rear seats.
They are underneath a flap of the seat fabric and not within plastic guides. The rear seats are nice and wide, and I'm quite confident that three child seats will fit across the base, but I will test this theory soon when I have the Emeya with my family.
There are top tether anchorages on the back of all three rear seats, giving you the flexibility of where you position a single child seat. For families that need to install two or three child seats, I will test whether they will fit in a few weeks when I do full BabyDrive family testing! The top tether anchorages are accessible through the boot and within clearly labelled plastic guides.
The interior of the Lotus Emeya is spacious; the rear footwell has good kick room in the outer positions but a hump in the central seat, so a central passenger would need to straddle that.
The 2024 Lotus Emeya has very good boot space and a much bigger opening (like a Polestar 2 or Tesla Model S) compared to the less-easy-to-load Audi RS e-Tron GT Compared to the Audi it's also usable for dogs and nicely carpeted for pet comfort and for an emergency nappy change! I look forward to our full BabyDrive boot test with Thule prams and shopping bags in a few weeks!
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 Emeya and Eletre!
The large media screen in the front of the Emeya is beautifully integrated. You adjust everything for the vehicle through the screen. It has built-in sat-nav, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so you can access your phone's music, podcast, messaging and navigiation apps, etc. while driving.
The gears are selected using the toggle switch in the central console; the central console and dash feel clutter-free.
The 2024 Lotus Emeya 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 Emeya Sedan, it was lovely and smooth, quiet, and the car felt anchored to the road but flowed nicely. The interior suede panelling and steering wheel have a nice tactile hand feel, and everything feels beautifully finished.
The 2024 Lotus Emeya is Lotus's first fully electric Sedan, adding to its range a new option for families. Being fully electric, you have all the benefits 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 Eletre fully electric SUV too! You can see that here.
I look forward to driving the Lotus Emeya with my family and giving it our full BabyDrive testing soon!
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