Lotus, one of the more storied UK-based carmakers, has just entered the Indian market with the Eletre, which it calls a hyper-SUV. That basically means that it’s a little more mental than supercars, implying that the latter should be stripped of any bragging rights in its presence.

Those who know Lotus know it as a company that makes cars that are fun, actually a lot of fun to drive, but to own which one will not have to break the bank. So, when Lotus says that the Eletre SUV will cost Rs 2.55 crore at the showroom and before all the taxes and levies that have to be paid to make it legal to be driven on public roads have been added, one sits up, rubs the eyes and looks hard again.

And this Eletre with no suffix is the least expensive version. Above which slots in the Eletre S at Rs 2.75 crore and the Eletre R at Rs 2.99 crore. For that kind of asking price, it must be quite special, and we don’t mean the cheap and cheerful sort of way.

So here goes. This is a big SUV at over five metres long. It is a battery EV. For the Eletre and Eletre S, peak power is 605hp, which is par for the course in supercar land. But the Eletre R pushes out 905bhp, which certainly makes it one of the most powerful cars to be sold in India. Add to that mind-blowing torque of 985Nm (the other two get 710Nm) and we can expect pretty crazy performance from this one. That looks something like 2.95 seconds from standstill to 100kmph (the other two take 4.5 seconds) and a 80-120kmph burst in under two seconds for all three models. Top speeds of 258kmph and 265kmph aren’t that “hyper” though and one would be luckly to be able to reach even half of that. But it’s not about how fast it can go, but how quickly it can reach that speed. Surely, that would be fun.

Which brings us to how far the SUV will go on a single charge. Officially, the less powerful versions can go 600km and the R 490km. And a 350kW DC charger will juice up the state of charge from 10 per cent to 80 per cent in 20 minutes, if you an find one of those, that is.

The interios of the Eletre are very classy in a typically electric vehicle sort of way with most controls on the infotainment screen

The Eletra, expectedly, comes loaded with tech. At present Lotus is owned by Chinese carmaker Geely and we know how hard Chinese companies are pushing the development and adoption of electric vehicles. So, it is not surprising that the Eletre is the way it is. In fact, it runs on 800 Volts, which is double of the 400 Volts most other high-voltage EV power units operate at. Eletre is also future-proofed for Level 4 autonomous driving capability.

And the features list is long with manufacturers loading up the infotainment system with goodies that are now easy and inexpensive.