Someone on Weibo has posted the first spy shots of a camo-draped Lotus Eletre. It looks like the automaker plans to scale down the production of the all-electric version (see video) and offer a hybrid variant instead.
CarNewsChina speculates that the car may wind up with the same range-extending turbo four-pot as the recently introduced Zeekr 9X. Known as the DHE20TDE, it has two liters of displacement and produces 279 PS (275 hp / 205 kW) with a thermal efficiency higher than 46%. Designed specifically for the X-Range lineup of hybrid powertrains suitable for retrofitting EVs, it is supposed to be accompanied by two or three electric motors actually driving the wheels.
As you may know, the original Lotus Eletre had a charging port on its front right fender. The vehicle seen here seems to have that one, plus something that looks like a fuel port on the rear left fender. Other than that, it looks normal.
Feng Qingfeng, the head of Lotus Technology Inc. in China, revealed around a year ago that the company planned to launch a number of sports cars with range-extender powertrains. Later on, he followed up by promising to make the first REX hybrid available in the country in early 2026. Looks like the Eletre will be it.
The Lotus automotive brand is currently a part of the Geely Group. As such, it has access to the innovative powertrains developed by Horse Powertrain, a company co-founded between Geely, Renault and Aramco. The four-cylinder engine mentioned above is one of its products. It’s not yet guaranteed that the Eletre gets an engine like this, but the odds seem high.
In earlier news, Lotus revealed that its hybrid cars would share their 900V electric architecture with full-blown EVs for ultra-fast charging. In terms of range, the company targeted 1,100 km (683 miles) as the baseline, which is about 1.5 times as much as the Eletre EV can offer in the best conditions.
