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New 149 g Lotus Elise
8/4/10
Lotus has announced that the new 2011 Lotus Elise has just been certified with the incredibly low emissions figure of 149g of CO2/ km, representing a reduction of 16% over the outgoing Elise S.
This means that the Elise now has the lowest CO2 for its performance level for any petrol sportscar in the world.
"Not only does this low emissions figure give a greener drive with less guilt, but it also relates directly to fuel consumption with the new Elise turning in an impressive figure of 56.1 mpg (5.04 litres per 100 km) extra urban. This means that the Elise could travel a colossal 500 miles (800 km) on one tank of fuel – the equivalent of Paris to Marseille or London to Aberdeen.* *driving style dependent!"
Of course, if you are anything like us, you will want to drive it hard, hard, hard for most of the time, well, after all, it is a sportscar, so know doubt the fuel consumption will be more like 28mpg… Ed
How have they done it? They've only gone and thrown out Toyota's old 1.8 litre engine in favour of Toyota's new 1.6 litre 4 cylinder VVT-I engine, which is 200 cc smaller than the engine in the outgoing S. Significant? You bet! It's the first time an Elise has housed anything other than a 1.8 powerplant since its inception over a decade and half ago.
Not that you should lose any sleep over it, however, as you won't lose any of the 134bhp power output available in the outgoing S, and CO2 is lower, so everyones a winner.
The 189bhp R and 218bhp supercharged SC still keep their 1.8-litre engines.
It's as light as most women's handbags, weighing just 876 kg or as they put it, "to put this weight into perspective, a nameless convertible sportscar from Stuttgart (Germany) weighs in at 1335 kg." Boasted Lotus. Ooh, the bitchiness of it all! Ed
Performance-wise on paper it may not set your hair on fire – 0-60 mph in 6.0 seconds and 0-100 km/h in 6.5 seconds – but if you've never driven an Elise, we suggest you get your name down to test one quick smart as these figures don't translate into a boring drive. Elise's are addictive. You can throw them around, attack every corner and you'll never tire of it.
Other changes include redesigned and repositioned light clusters, including for the first time LED daytime running lights, ala Audi. A new wider grille gives a nod to it's new big brother, the Evora, and the front bumper, splitter and clamshell have also been tweaked. The base S also gets a new close-ratio six-speed gearbox to replace the old car's five speeder.
All sounds great, but we can't help feeling short changed by the overly subtle design changes. If you aren't a Lotus fan, you could be forgiven for thinking that the changes are all mechanical. That said, the aforementioned German company have been doing it for years.
