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Lotus Eletre electric SUV reveal: Tune in today at 2:30 p.m Eastern

The upcoming electric Lotus SUV formerly known as the Type 132 officially has a name. It will be called the Lotus Eletre, and the vehicle’s full reveal is today, Tuesday, March 29. For those curious, Lotus says that Eletre means “coming to life” in some Eastern European languages. If you want to pronounce it properly, Lotus provides the phonetic spelling: “El-etra.” Basically, the "e" at the end is to be pronounced as an "a." Beyond the name announcement, Lotus doesnÂ’t have anything extra to share with us today. The name itself was revealed in a dramatic fashion, as a specially-made yellow cube containing the car was piloted up and down the River Thames in central London. Boats and cars being in the same news story as of late havenÂ’t always been for good reasons, but thankfully, this one seems to have gone just fine. If you want to watch the reveal live, make sure to tune in here at 2:30 p.m. ET Tuesday. WeÂ’ll have the live stream in this post waiting to start, so you can check back in right here at reveal time.

Lotus hands Pastor Maldonado a new Evora S in Monaco

Being a Formula One driver has its privileges. First off, you get to drive F1 cars for a living. You get treated like royalty and fly around the world. And if you're lucky, you might get a supercar thrown at you once in a while. It all depends on which team you drive for.
Fernando Alonso, for example, has had countless Ferraris, Maseratis, Abarths and Jeeps thrown his way. Lewis Hamilton was a little disappointed not to get the keys to that rare McLaren F1 LM when he won the championship. But Pastor Maldonado just got his hands on a new Lotus Evora S.
Pastor who now, you ask? Pastor Maldonado. The first Venezuelan driver in F1, Maldonado won the GP2 title in 2010 then made the jump to F1, driving for Williams for the past three seasons, impressively winning the Spanish Grand Prix in 2012. Now he's at Lotus filling Kimi Raikkonen's seat, and took delivery of his white Evora - complete with 3.5-liter supercharged V6 and six-speed sequential gearbox - in Monte Carlo last weekend during the Monaco Grand Prix.

Lotus opens the 2013 Formula One season with the launch of the E21 [w/video]

Lotus has broken the seal on the 2013 Formula One season, launching the E21 car at its factory in Enstone. With the regulations this year quite similar to those of last year, there are no dramatic changes in form compared to the E20. After some teams lobbied to be able to cover the stepped nose with a "vanity panel," Lotus retained the configuration, the team's technical director saying that the panel would add more weight and didn't make sense to put on the car unless it also added performance.
Beyond that, the E21 is said to be an comprehensive advance in its details - the suspension gets a new layout, the Coanda exhaust and the passive double DRS system are evolutions from last year, the front wing is "a continuation of concepts" from 2009.
After securing fourth in the Constructor's Championship last year, this is the chassis that drivers Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean will use to try and move the team up a place, which would mean beating one of the big three teams over the course of the season. The quietly and impressively consistent Räikkönen managed third in the Driver's Championship, and we're sure he wouldn't mind a move up in the standings, either.