Stop What You’re Doing: Lotus is Building a New 1,000bhp V8 Supercar

It’s fair to say Lotus’ plans to use the Emira as a swansong for its petrol-powered sports cars then transition into a maker of high-end EVs hasn’t exactly gone to plan. Although cars like the Eletre and Emeya have helped it break into a slightly wider market segment, sales are still miles behind where they should be, and the company is still in a precipitous financial position, despite plenty of investment from its owner, Chinese carmaking giant Geely.

So, like so many other manufacturers with plans to go electric that wound up being overambitious, it’s time for a reset, which the company is calling Focus 2030, and the big news is: Lotus has confirmed that in 2028, it’ll launch a brand new, V8 hybrid supercar. With the exception of the ultra-limited, all-electric Evija hypercar, it’ll mark Lotus’ first attempt to compete in the supercar sphere since the last of the V8 Esprits in 2004, but the game has moved on significantly since then.

Lotus seems to have taken this on board, because it’s confirmed that the new car, currently unnamed but being developed under the codename Type 135, will have ‘over 1,000ps’ – that’s 986bhp in old money. That puts it right in the territory of the latest batch of hybrid supercars, like the Lamborghini Revuelto, Ferrari 849 Testarossa and Aston Martin Valhalla.

Details are scarce for now, but we’ll hear more later in 2026. For now, there’s just the one shady image of the car’s rear, showing some slender LED lights, a pair of enormous circular tailpipes, and a wedgy profile echoing the old Esprit. 2024’s Theory 1 concept is likely to provide plenty of inspiration, although that car was envisioned as a pure EV.

We don’t expect Lotus to develop its own engine – the most likely candidate is some form of Mercedes-AMG’s 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8. Lotus already has a powertrain supply deal in place with Merc for the four-cylinder Emira, and the V8 has previously been rumoured for an updated plug-in hybrid version of that car. If the supercar does use this engine, it’ll share it with one of its big rivals in the Aston Valhalla. 

We also don’t know whether it’ll be a plug-in hybrid like its main rivals, or deploy its electricity in a different way, but it’s likely the V8 will be doing most of the talking – it’s clear this is still what supercar buyers want. Although Lotus’ existing EVs are made in China, the company says Type 135 ‘is expected to be built in Europe’, although interestingly, it avoids mentioning the company’s traditional base in Hethel, Norfolk, suggesting it might be looking at manufacturing elsewhere.

There’s plenty more coming, too: Lotus has already unveiled the Eletre X, a 939bhp hybrid version of the Eletre for the Chinese market (where it’s sold as the Lotus For Me). It’s set to come to Europe in the final quarter of this year; and the Emeya saloon is likely to follow suit with the same powertrain. As for the good old Emira, which was originally planned to live a relatively short life, Lotus has confirmed it’s sticking around for a good while yet, and that in the coming weeks, it’ll unveil ‘the most powerful and lightest Emira’ yet.

Notably absent from all this is the Type 134, a smaller electric SUV designed to rival the Porsche Macan. First confirmed several years ago and originally slated for a 2025 reveal, before being pushed back amid the slowdown in EV demand, it now seems possible it might not happen at all. A smaller electric sports car, which originally bore the Type 135 codename, also appears to be dead in the water.

This is all with a view to Lotus increasing its sales to 30,000 a year, which it says will ‘enable the business to reach sustained profitability’. Given that it sold just 6,520 globally cars in 2025, it’s got a big mountain to climb, but hopefully a new V8 supercar to generate some headlines as well as a range with broader appeal will make it possible. May we suggest a revival of the Esprit name?