Daily Archives: July 25, 2019
There’s A New Lotus Sports Car In The Pipeline
If Geely-owned Lotus wants to survive in the near future, it would refocus its energy on creating a car that mortals can actually afford, and that’s sports cars. While it wowed experts with its Evija hypercar , it also knows the $2.1 million hypercar will not save the company from extinction.
Instead, according to Lotus CEO Phil Popham, $60,000 sports cars will remain to be the automaker’s bread and butter.
Lotus plans to build its next sports car after the last Evija rolls off the production line. Since there will only be 130 units of the Evija, we daresay we’re looking at an introduction next year and launch by 2021. Popham knows the cars Lotus is producing these past years cannot compete in the market for luxury cars simply because they are still too expensive even to the richest of the rich.
The company’s 10-year plan called the Vision 80 has all these mapped out and it looks like the Evija will be the only hypercar we’ll see from Lotus. At least, for the time being.
Popham said the company is planning a combustion-powered sports car that will be introduced toward the end of next year. All models that will be developed, designed, and produced after that combustion-powered sports car will be electrified. In fact, Popham said Lotus will skip using a PHEV powertrain and go straight to fully electric.
So now that we know the next sports car won’t be powered by a battery pack and it won’t even be a hybrid, what will set it apart from its contemporaries? For one, the upcoming sports car will look similar to the Evija because the hypercar, after all, “signals the start of a contemporary new design language.”
The sports car will use the underpinnings of the Evora and will be the most practical car in Lotus’ lineup. The sports car will be bigger on the outside and the inside, but it will also be safer, more equipped, and developed to meet loftier standards than other Lotus cars.
Most Affordable 2020 Hyundai Accent Is Worth $15,195
The 2020 Hyundai Accent is going to have less power output, but more fuel-efficient. It will also have a higher price tag (about $200 more than the previous model). Whether you love the direction that Hyundai went with the Accent or not, you can’t fault the South Korean automaker for wanting to create ripples and waves for their highly successful model.
Not everyone agrees with Hyundai’s decision to bring down the power output of the cheapest car in Hyundai’s lineup to 120 horsepower and 113 pound-feet of torque. However, there is a reason behind this madness. The previous car made 130 horsepower and 119 pound-feet of torque. Truth be said, the downgrade to 120 horsepower isn’t that much of an issue. It also can’t deliver the better gas mileage that Hyundai is marketing for the Accent.
With the CVT, the 2020 Accent’s gas mileage is up to 33 city, 41 highway, and 36 combined. In the 2019 model, those numbers are paltry— 28 city, 38 highway, and 32 combined. Paired with the six-speed manual transmission, the 2020 Accent’s combined mileage goes up to two miles per gallon. The combined fuel economy is up to 34 mpg in the new model.
The 2020 Hyundai Accent is also coming with a new Smartstream 1.6-liter gas engine with dual-port injection. This engine is paired with a CVT (Hyundai calls it the IVT for Intelligent Variable Transmission) instead of a six-speed automatic in the 2019 model.
The entry-level SE trim with the manual gearbox is priced at $15,195 before a $930 destination charge. That’s a total of $16,125, $200 more than the 2019 Accent. The Accent SE with the CVT costs $17,225 while the two top trims (both with CVT) cost $18,275 for the SEL and $20,230 for the Limited. The last one is $220 more expensive than its predecessor.
