The Evora 414E Hybrid was Lotus’ first venture into the electrification of their brand lineup, long before the Evija EV supercar was even a concept.

The hybrid project was cancelled despite Lotus having just finished helping Tesla with the Roadster project, since they felt electrifying cars was a fad at the time. If it wasn’t for this opinion, Lotus may have started the Evija project much sooner.

After spending £19 million on the 414E project, this car and the three battery packs in their original condition (which are a part of the collection) are the only remaining artifacts. This is the Concorde of the road and a piece of automotive history. The collection entered the private market after it was sold during a time when Lotus suffered financial difficulties in early 2017.

The car was destined to be imported and registered in the Cayman Islands, but owner’s age and value of the car exceeded what could be insured locally. The collection is currently stored in the UK near the Lotus factory.

The small battery pack is augmented by a 47-horsepower, 1.2-liter three-cylinder engine that extends the range of the vehicle.

The current owner also states that this car should be eligible to be registered in the US under “Display” or “Show” – Citing the Evora GTE F1 Road Car which also qualified.

Oh, and before we forget, another cool feature, way ahead of its time, is an audible engine sound feature that allows you to make this normally silent  car, with an external audio system, replicate the sounds of  a sedate 6 cylinder engine, or if you are more adventurous, the sound of a finely tuned 12 cylinder Lamborghini engine.   A final third option, is a futuristic sounding Star Wars Pod Racer sound, that will likely be a big hit at Trekker conventions.

Question – 1

What is the condition of the batteries?

REPLY

Good question! I haven’t done testing on the battery pack. (I was planning on doing that after importing it to Cayman, but that never ended up happening for a couple of reasons.)

Personally, I would plan/budget on refurbishing a battery pack if you want to drive it. One of the original engineers who built the 414E thinks it’ll take him around $80k to $100k to refurbish the battery. (I’m fine with discounting that much, along with a safety buffer to make sure you’re able to complete the project even if it goes over budget.) I feel like I could do it myself for much less, but that would require a garage (which I don’t have, frustratingly parking is mostly outdoor in Cayman).

There’s three battery packs in total (one in the car plus two spares); my recommendation is to keep battery #1 100% factory (for collectible status), replace the cells with the exact same type in battery #2, and use battery #3 to experiment with using new/better cells.

I would recommend not refurbishing the battery until you’ve decided on which country is going to be “home” for it. (For some countries, like Malaysia, needing a battery refurbishment allows it to qualify for importing as a R&D vehicle. So if I did the battery refurbishment myself today, I would end up excluding buyers in those regions.)

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