Lotus Emeya review

This is one of the Emeya’s strongest areas, especially considering the dark and austere interiors offered by the likes of the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT. Conversely, the Lotus is rich in the chintz factor. For some folks it’ll be as gauche as having faux Greek pillars outside their front door. With matching stone lions.

What’s it like inside?

As you’d expect, all of the architecture is carried over from the Eletre SUV. So, the centrepiece is a 15.6in OLED touchscreen running the fastest processors in the automotive industry. You can try to confuse it – leaping between menus, doubling back and double-tapping – but you can’t seem to outrun its processing power. It’s phenomenally impressive – which is just as well, given you need to be in there to adjust everything except the cabin temperature.

Lotus has been considerably more sensible than the likes of Tesla and recognised it’s dumb not to provide a display for the driver showing speed, range and warning messages. A 15.1in strip of screen takes care of this, and the passenger gets one too, for shortcutting infotainment.

The main screen has a lot of menus and too many are accessed by small ‘keys’ which can be tricky to hit. We resorted to asking our passenger to help with accessing phone activity and nav functions, and even they struggled with the dexterity required. Good luck driving one of these on your own and selecting the correct sub-menu.

Sounds like it’s meant to ‘drive itself’.

Lotus says the car is ready-equipped for Level 5 autonomy with built in LiDAR, but for legal reasons it ships as a Level 2 car – adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist, plus plenty of bongs you’ll want to silence. Immediately. Via the touchscreen, naturally.

Is it practical?

Another massive tick for Lotus here. The upshot of the huge exterior dimensions is that the Emeya is a vastly spacious lounge, with rear seat passengers enjoying the sort of legroom you’d expect in a BMW i7 and far exceeding ye olde Mercedes S-Class (or an EQS, come to think of it). Behind the electric tailgate lies a 509 litre boot, though this falls to 429 litres if you spec your car as a four-seater instead of a five-seater.

All versions have a 31-litre frunk – useful charging cable stowage. For the car. Not your phone.