Automotive Engineer commissions Lotus to design tiny city EV [w/VIDEO]

Developing cars quickly is nothing new to the designers and engineers at Lotus – the British firm does contract development for automakers around the world on a regular basis. With that in mind – and knowing that Lotus has been actively involved in many electric and hybrid vehicle projects in recent years – the editors at Automotive Engineer magazine naturally chose to approach Lotus with a project idea: design a brief on what a new city car might look like five years from now.

After two weeks of work, Lotus design chief Russell Carr produced a concept that defined a car 3.74 inches shorter than a Smart ForTwo and nearly 16 inches shorter than the new Toyota iQ. Somehow, in that tiny space, Carr has managed to squeeze in space for four adults. The sketches show two different iterations of the vehicle, both with two sliding doors on its flanks and electrically-driven by a liquid-cooled 37 kW motor and a 10 kWh lithium ion battery pack under the floor. See more in the video after the jump.

[Source: Automotive Engineer]

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