Lotus Plans 900V “Hyper Hybrid,” Scraps EV-Only Plan

Six years after Lotus, flush with cash from a Chinese investor, declared its plans to go all-electric by 2028, the company has changed its direction. Instead, it will return to internal-combustion power and build plug-in Hyper Hybrids, as detailed in yesterday’s quarterly earnings call.

If none of this sounds like the Lotus you know and love—lightweight models that typically make the most of less-powerful motivation—well, it’s for good reason. That Chinese investor is Geely, one of the few Chinese automakers not controlled by the state. It has an odd number of U.K. connections: It owns the company that makes London’s black taxicabs and is the third-largest stakeholder in Aston Martin. Geely was founded in 1986 by a man who described himself to the Economist in 2010 as China’s Henry Ford and today is one of the wealthiest people in the country. Indeed, Li Shufu wants Geely to be one of the largest automakers in the world, and he’s already there. Geely built its foundation on small, cheap cars, and bought Volvo from Ford in 2010 to expand into a truly global business and enter the luxury-car segment. As of the first half of this year, Geely is the third-largest automaker in China by sales.

Brands bought by Geely tend to flourish financially, though some part of them is irrevocably changed. Lotus, for instance, is now Group Lotus, “a global ‘intelligent technology’ subsidiary.” Lotus Technology, headquartered in Wuhan, China, is responsible for the “lifestyle vehicles,” and the team in Hethel, U.K., is responsible for the sports cars. There’s also Lotus Engineering, a consulting firm that has previously worked with Lotus, and Lotus Robotics, which works on “intelligent driving” solutions and holds nearly $130M in contracts with various companies around the world.

But back to the Lotus sports car side of things and its Hyper Hybrids. In contrast to another beloved British brand making headlines lately, Lotus is focusing on performance stats first as it announces this major changing of the tides. These Hyper Hybrids will be built on an industry-first, 900V electric architecture that, together with the engine, will boost range to a maximum of 683 miles. (Lotus claims 373 miles maximum for its Eletre SUV on Europe’s WLTP system.)

“We will be the first one globally to launch this 900-volt hyper hybrid EV technology,” said Lotus Technology CEO Feng Qingfeng on the November 21 earnings call.

For context, the most capable electric architectures on the market today use motors and inverters capable of handling a system voltage of 800. Lotus’ 900V architecture will enable extremely fast recharging times, whether that recharging is occurring “On the Drive” (more on that shortly) or when the car is plugged into a charger. In the latter scenario, Lotus promises a “flash” charge rate of 0 to 80 percent in 10 minutes. (Be assured, whatever charger you’re using won’t be your run-of-the-mill station; as of last summer, no Tesla Supercharger station in America supported 800V charging.)

Thanks to that 900V architecture, that “On the Drive” charging system will be able to supply five times the power that the vehicle would require in “typical driving.” Thus, says Lotus, drivers need not worry about enthusiastic bursts of acceleration or cold weather, both of which rapidly deplete battery charge. We’re very curious to know more about this system, especially because Lotus made it very clear that this is not a range-extender setup, in which the engine charges the battery but isn’t driving the wheels.

In the earnings call, Qingfeng explained through a translator why Lotus decided against range-extender hybrids. “In some circumstances, the extended range could not offer extreme or ultimate performance to our customers. For instance, when the battery capacity is very low, the vehicle could not accelerate fast enough.” Fair enough, but if customers don’t consistently plug in their hybrids, as so many owners of more mundane vehicles neglect to do, Lotus could be trading one problem for another.

In some circumstances, says Lotus, these Hyper Hybrids will rely only on the ICE engine—on the highway, for instance, when the engine is more energy-efficient than the battery and motors.

Keep an eye on Lotus in the first quarter of 2025, when it expects to announce 2026 model-year vehicles. This Hyper Hybrid might just be one of them, especially if Lotus is as serious as it says it is about raising its yearly sales figures.