Lotus the lightweight future of the passenger car

Lotus the lightweight future of the passenger car
Lotus Engineering conducted two studies to look at the possibility of developing passenger vehicles from 2017. The specialised lightweight sports car maker says its long-time philosophy of weight reduction will benefit potential customers in the areas of fuel consumption and C02 emissions.

company engineers discovered that by improving the aerodynamics by 80 counts, the car netted a six mile per gallon improvement in its highway fuel economy rating (note: a "count" is a thousandth of a point of a Cd number, so reducing a Cd of 0.150 by 50 counts would give you a Cd of 0.100). On the flipside, taking out 400 pounds of stuff only improved the car's highway mpg by one mile a gallon, though that's largely because of the Newtonian "an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force" hubbub.

Body colours available for the Lotus Elise SC RGB and the Lotus Exige S RGB are Aspen White, Starlight Black, Solar Yellow and Carbon Grey and each exemplar will also feature a numbered plaque with Roger Becker's signature.