The terms ‘environmentally friendly’ and ‘supercars’ aren’t ones that show up often in the same sentence, but cleanliness is next to godliness (so they say) and supercars are about as close to godhood as cars get.

It seems that environmentally-conscious supercars are becoming more of a reality. Take Lotus, for instance, with the 2010 Lotus Elise and Exige models achieving greater fuel economy and a nine percent reduction in CO2 emissions over 2009 models.

Lotus claims the Elise S offers 7.6 l/100km on the combined cycle, while the Elise R achieves 8.2 l/100km.  The Elise SC and Lotus Exige S both manage 8.5 l/100km on the combined cycle.

“The Lotus philosophy of performance through light weight is even more relevant in today’s emission focused ecological world, said Mike Kimberley, CEO of Group Lotus plc.

This design philosophy has enabled Lotus to offer fantastic levels of performance, with Lotus cars being some of the greenest performance cars on the market”.

The full fuel economy list is below.

Elise S - 179 g/km CO2	7.6 l/100 km (37.2 mpg UK) Combined Cycle 10.6 l/100 km (26.6 mpg UK) Urban Cycle 5.8 l/100 km (48.7 mpg UK) Extra Urban Cycle
Elise R - 196 g/km CO2	8.2 l/100 km (34.4 mpg UK) Combined Cycle 11.6 l/100 km (24.4 mpg UK) Urban Cycle 6.2 l/100 km (45.6 mpg UK) Extra Urban Cycle
Elise SC - 199 g/km CO2	8.5 l/100 km (33.2 mpg UK) Combined Cycle 11.8 l/100 km (23.9 mpg UK) Urban Cycle 6.4 l/100 km (44.1 mpg UK) Extra Urban Cycle
Exige S - 199 g/km CO2	8.5 l/100 km (33.2 mpg UK) Combined Cycle 11.9 l/100 km (23.7 mpg UK) Urban Cycle 6.5 l/100 km (43.5 mpg UK) Extra Urban Cycle

GALLERY » 2009 Lotus Exige S Update

Click here to read Mark’s review of the 2008 Lotus Elise R.