Good Real World Test Drive Review Of The Zenos E10.

[Sundaydriver]

It'll be interesting to see how Jean-Mark Gales sets the 'bar' lower ...

I mean in the sill , ha ha ! He's commited to making the cars easier to get in and out of, I've read, and how will they do that whilst retaining a rigid tub.

£300 for the spine, sounds good. Side intrusion protection is the Achilles heel of the Elans, if I ever get one it'll have the sill beams added !

[Simon Mac]

It'll be interesting to see how Jean-Mark Gales sets the 'bar' lower ...

I mean in the sill , ha ha ! He's commited to making the cars easier to get in and out of, I've read, and how will they do that whilst retaining a rigid tub.

£300 for the spine, sounds good. Side intrusion protection is the Achilles heel of the Elans, if I ever get one it'll have the sill beams added !

 

They already did the work for the Tesla roadster, which has a 50mm lower sill. So should be relatively easy.  

 

The key take away is the sill is bent in the Elise, whereas it's mitred and gusseted in the Roadster. The front crash structure, and rear subframes mount in the same way on both cars.

 

TBH They should look at using the Tesla tub, a lot of the Tesla owners are very nervous about parts availability, to the point where people are buying perfectly good examples, and breaking them for parts Lotus would at least be able to sell Tesla replacement tubs without starting up a separate production run, if the MK3 Elise used the old Tesla tub!

 

Some in depth list of the differences:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/lotus-position

[cjwjames]

That was my thinking when I got the Elise, alloy/fibreglass, is great for us buyers, not so much for Lotus, as we aren't queuing up to buy replacements when ours rot away.

 

A brand spanking Elise doesn't add enough value for me, other than the numberplate vanity (and fresh paint). Ultimately Zenos could have the same problem 10 years down the line.

 

One of the design goals of the car was to make it "chassis repairable". My understanding is the "tub" is actually bolted to a central spine made from a single aluminium extrusion. I'm sure I read the spine itself is < £300 to replace.

 

The bigger point is the "corners" are cheaper to sort if damaged. E.g the front dampers are on board, and the front wings can be replaced individually. Theory is if you take out a front corner you'd be looking at a new wing + some wishbones, rather than a complete clam, wishbones and dampers.

 

In fairness the engineering involved would seem to have some downsides, I can't see how they have made the body as torsionally strong as an Elise, and the side impact protection is probably worse. It's also quite heavy compared to an early S1, which let's not forget also had windows, doors and a roof!

 

Just goes to show what a great job the Lotus guys did with the original Elise!!

 

I think one neat trick (by the looks of it) is they have mounted the wishbones directly to the spine. This reduces the need for such torsional rigidity to some extent, but also gives longer wishbones, which in theory, should give better wheel contact throughout suspension travel.

 

And TBH I don't have a massive problem with the "early adopter" thing. My daily driver is a Tesla after all Really I'd like an E11 (the one with doors and windows, but if no early adopters buy this car, they won't get to that stage.)

 

Hopefully they get some traction. Some realistic competition in the "usable track car you could drive from here to the south of France" niche the Elise sits in would be good for all of us!

Well said

[Simon Mac]

Well tomorrow is the big day, my first go in a pre-production car!

 

I'm really looking forward to it.  Going to pop in to buy a helmet at GPR first, then off for a spin in the Zenos.

 

Will let you all know how I get on!