Lotus delivered the first Eletre EVs with digital rearview mirrors to owners on July 21 at its plant in Wuhan, Hubei province in central China.
(Image credit: Lotus)
Lotus Cars, a company majority owned by Geely, has begun delivering the all-electric Eletre Hyper-SUV to customers with optional digital rearview mirrors, becoming the first brand to do so in China.
Lotus delivered the first Eletre electric vehicles (EVs) with digital rearview mirrors to owners on July 21 at its plant in Wuhan, Hubei province, central China, it said yesterday.
The Eletre Hyper-SUV was launched on October 26, 2022, and the two versions available in China - Eletre S+ and Eletre R+ -- start at RMB 828,000 ($115,200) and RMB 1.028 million, respectively.
On January 4 this year, Lotus announced that it began allowing customers to purchase optional digital rearview mirrors at a price of RMB 16,000 yuan.
The company said at the time that deliveries of Lotus Eletre with the optional digital exterior mirrors would begin as early as July 1, 2023, the first day that Chinese regulations will begin to allow automakers to use such rearview mirrors.
The digital rearview mirrors replace the traditional mirrors on the sides of the vehicle with cameras, which can lead to a more forward-looking design, lower wind resistance, and longer range, Lotus previously said.
The cameras are made of a water-repellent material that can be heated to melt snow and have features such as blind spot monitoring and door-opening warnings.
Information from the mirrors will be displayed on a 1280*720 resolution LCD screen inside the vehicle, increasing the lateral field of view by 50 percent, the company said.
The digital rearview mirrors support 15 levels of brightness adjustment, and are supported by image algorithms that deliver superior visual effects, Lotus said yesterday, adding that the mirrors provide a view as bright as daytime when drivers drive at night.
Geely acquired Lotus, which is about 70 years old, in 2017 and owns 51 percent of the latter, including Lotus Cars and Lotus Engineering.
At the end of August 2021, Lotus established a new company in China, Wuhan Lotus Technology, with an investment from Nio Capital.
The Lotus Eletre is an ultra-luxury SUV that is currently not very common in China and boasts a powerful performance, accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in as fast as 4.5 seconds for the Eletre S+ and 2.95 seconds for the Eletre R+.
The model comes standard with a battery pack with a capacity of 112 kWh and a CLTC range of 650 km and 560 km respectively.
It supports 800V high-voltage fast charging across the range, and can be charged from 10 percent to 80 percent in as little as 20 minutes at fast charging piles.
($1 = RMB 7.1878)
Lotus to allow Eletre buyers to opt for e-mirrors, set to be 1st to do so in China
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