Range Rover Evoque vs Lotus Exige
What's the difference?

Range Rover Evoque

$46,886 - $87,990

2023 price

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Lotus Exige

—

2017 price

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Summary

2023 Range Rover Evoque

2017 Lotus Exige

By Tom White

By Stephen Corby

Safety Rating

Engine Type

Turbo 3, 1.5L

Supercharged V6, 3.5L

Fuel Type

Premium Unleaded/Electric

Premium Unleaded Petrol

Fuel Efficiency

0.0L/100km (combined)

10.1L/100km (combined)

Energy consumption

25.8 kWh/100km

Electric range

62 km

Battery capacity

15.00 kWh

Seating

Likes

So much power!
Incredible charging specs
Luxury look and feel

Unassisted, unadulterated steering (at speed)
Beautiful balance and stiff chassis
Gearbox

Dislikes

Painfully expensive
Rude options list
Be prepared to wait for delivery

Sheer impracticality
Heavy steering (at low speeds)
Getting in and out of it

2023 Range Rover Evoque Summary

Range Rover has developed a bit of an image problem in the last few years.

To many the brand is still the face of a quintessentially British aspirational luxurious off-roader. But to a growing group, it has become synonymous with the concept of an environmentally reckless fuel-guzzling SUV.

They’re big, heavy, and still feature V8 engines, but Range Rover knows all too well the writing is on the wall for its increasingly infamous range of combustion vehicles.

The trouble is, customers love them, and while the I-Pace from sister brand Jaguar is a big leap into the future, there needs to be a happy medium for easing some of its existing customers away from combustion, while still offering the kinds of excess and aspirational performance the Range Rover brand is associated with.

Enter this car, the Evoque HSE P300e. It’s a plug-in hybrid, notably only available in the top trim level, with top-shelf performance, too.

Is it the right car to represent Range Rover’s entry-level model at a critical time of technological transformation? Let’s take a look.

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2017 Lotus Exige Summary

Driving naked is ill-advised, and possibly illegal, but taking a spin in the Lotus Exige 350 Sport is as close as you'd ever want to get. It's not so much that you feel you've left your clothes at home, but that the car has shed its accoutrements, and indeed its very flesh, leaving you with a kind of skeletal vehicle; just bare bones and muscle.

What this punishingly hard and fiercely focused machine does to your bones and flesh is best described as extreme chiropractry - in particular the stress of ingress and egress - but fortunately it makes up for the moans, bangs and bruises by fizzing your adrenal glands in a big way.

The question is whether the fun is worth the suffering, and the $138,782.85 price tag.

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Deep dive comparison

2023 Range Rover Evoque 2017 Lotus Exige

Verdict

The Range Rover Evoque is more highly specified and more luxurious than ever, and this plug-in hybrid version makes the most of what’s on offer with its slick but familiar feel from behind the wheel.

Unfortunately, it does have an eye-watering price tag to go with its classy design and the options list is a bit rude, all things considered, but the core offering is a solid luxury buy for city-slickers, nonetheless.

What makes the Evoque P300e stand out for me is its impressive EV driving range and excellent charging specs which make it as convenient as possible to make the most of its electrified features.

It’s up to the buyer whether these conveniences and the Range Rover badge are worth swapping into a car a full size down from its luxury plug-in rivals for the same money.

Verdict

To say the Lotus Exige 350 Sport exists at the very pointy end of motoring is a sharp understatement. It is, in essence, a track car that you’re somehow allowed to drive on the road, which means it's hugely compromised in various ways as a vehicle for day-to-day use, yet it's not really fair to criticise it for those failings, because commuting was never its intended purpose.

While it would obviously shine in its natural environment of a race circuit, the fact is you could also enjoy it enormously between track days if you pointed it at a suitably smooth and winding bit of country blacktop.

The performance, handling, steering and stopping are all fantastic, in the right conditions, and you can see how someone might justify it to themselves as a far cheaper version of a ($327,100) Porsche 911 GT3. The difference being that a Porsche doesn't make you fold yourself up like a pocket knife every time you get in.

The Lotus, then, is a car for the extreme enthusiast, only. And possibly for nudists, too.

Range Rover Evoque vs Lotus Exige What's the difference?

Summary

Deep dive comparison

Verdict

Verdict

Range Rover Evoque vs Lotus Exige
What's the difference?