Lotus The Type 131 will be unveiled in the summer

Lotus

Type 131 will be unveiled in the summer,

The collaboration between Lotus and Alpine will not only lead to the birth of an electric heir to the A110, but also of a sports car with the Hethel brand.

The two manufacturers aim to launch these new models, both based on the same aluminum frame, in 2025, but the British brand has many other innovations in store, 

some of which will be unveiled in the coming months. In addition to the Evija electric hypercar, of which 130 copies will be made, the company will launch the Type 131 by the summer,

 a sports car with an internal combustion engine of which few details are still known.: the arrival on the market is scheduled for 2022. 

There is no new information on the electric SUV that should exploit the synergies within the Geely group, 

the current owner of Lotus: this model will still be crucial to reach the target of 5,000 cars in the expected year.

Factories updated. To prepare for the arrival of the new models, Lotus has also revised the organization of its factories. 

In the past few hours, the company has started production of aluminum frames in the new 12,300 square meter factory in Norwich, 

a few kilometers from the historic headquarters of the brand, which in 2021 will produce around 1,500 frames thanks to the work of 125 employees. 

The new factory is already set up to work on future models that the English manufacturer is planning, for which Hethel's assembly lines will also be updated. 

Furthermore, through the Lotus Engineering section, the British company aims to offer some of its technologies to other manufacturers, 

as already done in the past with the Tesla Roadster, born based on the Lotus Elise. Speaking of electricity,

Lotus-Alpine and Formula 1. The new collaboration between Lotus and Alpine, once competitors, could even reach the world of motorsport.

 For the moment there are no precise plans, but already in the next Formula 1 season the French brand will replace Renault: 

given the contacts between the transalpine brand and the Hethel manufacturer, it is therefore not to be excluded that sooner or later Lotus may return in the top flight, 

in which he ruled for a long time.