Lotus has just released details of its most powerful ever road-going Exige. ‘Great,’ you might be thinking, ‘a bigger engine? A turbocharger, maybe?’ Well, neither actually, as Lotus has gone all green on us and decided to run it on bio-fuel!
The problem for many of us car enthusiasts has always been that green usually means slow and compromised vehicles that might just about get you around though will rarely get your pulse racing. Lotus decided to challenge that way of thinking.
According to Geraint Castleton-White, Head of Powertrain for Lotus Engineering: “We wanted to prove the point that green sportscars can also be very high performing sportscars. The fact that we have produced a research version of the Exige that is more powerful than the standard road car is a testament to the benefits of going green.”
The Exige 265E (
265bhp,
E85 fuelled) is what Lotus came up with.
E85 is a bio-ethanol fuel, made from 85% ethanol and 15% petrol. Bio-ethanol was chosen over other bio-fuels because its higher octane rating actually allowed engine performance to be increased. Ethanol has less stored energy than petrol. Therefore, a bio-ethanol powered engine is inherently less economical than an equivalent unleaded version, meaning it emits a greater amount of carbon dioxide (CO
2). But considering 85% of E85 is made from renewable bio-matter, and the plants used to make ethanol absorb CO
2 while growing, this is offset, resulting in a net reduction of CO
2.
While the Exige 265E is probably the world's quickest bio-fuelled road-legal vehicle, we all know that Lotus cars are never about simply going fast in a straight line. In fact, the
Exige S, which we recently tested, is one of the most agile cars money can buy. The environmentally friendly research version weighs just 930kg and in addition to the standard Exige specification also boasts wider alloys (as fitted to the special-edition
Exige 240R, two-way adjustable dampers, an adjustable front anti-roll bar, a ‘Stage One’ sports exhaust and an upgraded braking system to cope with the extra power.
The 265E is only a one-off, but if it represents a glimpse of a bio-fuelled future then I doubt very many of us will be objecting about going green.
Will Nightingale - 31 Aug 2006