Experience Cars, Coffee & KEF with the new 2026 Lotus Eletre & Emeya

We were recently invited to experience the new 2026 Lotus Eletre & Emeya at Lotus Cars Malaysia’s Cars, Coffee & KEF event.

In case you missed it, Lotus Cars Malaysia recently updated its EV lineup by launching the 2026 model year (2026 MY) version of the Lotus Eletre and Emeya, featuring a more streamlined lineup plus some key equipment upgrades.

To help us experience these new EVs, the automaker has organised a special event revolving around cars, coffee, and the KEF audio system found inside them, held at their flagship Lotus Kuala Lumpur showroom in the heart of Glenmarie.

Without further ado, here’s how the Cars, Coffee & KEF test drive experience went down for us…

THE CAR

The cars in question were, of course, the newly updated 2026 Lotus Eletre and Emeya, which were launched earlier this month ahead of this special event.

2026 Lotus Emeya (left) & Eletre (right)

The main part of this 2026 MY update is the lineup streamlining, where both the Eletre and Emeya are now offered in five distinct variants with two powertrain guises—the 600 and 900 series. Aptly, prices for both the updated Eletre and Emeya have also been revised, with prices starting from RM499,000 for the former and RM459,000 for the latter.

At RM499,000, the 2026 Lotus Emeya 600 is now the most affordable new Lotus model you can buy in Malaysia today.

For this quick test drive session, we were tasked with the entry-level Emeya 600 variant, which now stands as the cheapest new Lotus car you can buy today.

But don’t let its ‘entry-level’ moniker fool you, as the Emeya 600 still packs a serious punch, featuring a dual-motor all-wheel drive (AWD) that produces a combined output of 603 hp and 710 Nm. Lotus claims this is good enough for a quick century sprint time of 4.15 seconds, plus an electronically-limited V-max of 250 km/h.

Surely, our short driving stint, nor the limited driving routes, wasn’t enough for us to fully extract the power of this Emeya 600, but a quick blast through the Subang airport main road was just enough to sate our power-hungry appetite.

That said, what’s more surprising was how settled and supple the whole ride felt, especially for a supposed sporty four-door GT’s standard. While it tackled sharp bends like a confident roadster, ride comfort was also quite impressive for the Emeya 600—a fact further bolstered by the cabin’s sublime NVH suppression.

And thanks to its less mind-boggling power output, the Emeya 600 also makes for a more practical daily driver, with its sizable 102-kWh battery pack being good for up to 610 km (WLTP), Lotus claims. With an 800-volt EPA platform from Geely, the entry-level Emeya can also accept both 22 kW AC and 420 kW DC charging methods.

All in all, we’d reckon our short yet meaningful seat time with the Emeya 600 is enough to warrant a more in-depth review on this electrifying beast—something you can expect to see on our website in the near future…

THE KEF

Next was the KEF audio experience, where we got to try out the sublime audio system primed for these updated EVs. Regardless of variants, both the updated Eletre and Emeya now come standard with the KEF Premium 15-speaker, 2,000-watt audio system.

All variants of the 2026 Eletre and Emeya now come equipped with the KEF Premium 15-speaker audio system.

Upon listening to the first musical note coming out of these KEF speakers inside the Eletre, we immediately noticed the near-perfect sound separation from this audio system, where you can clearly distinguish the mids and the highs. The highs were just crisp and detailed enough but not to the point where they got irritating, while the mids provided a good amount of warmth.

While the deep lows and bass weren’t noticeable at first, they gradually crept in from behind, where they became a solid foundation for all the tones to blend in. And even when we cranked up the volume, we only noticed a very minimal rattling or cracking noise from the subwoofer unit inside the car’s boot space.

Another thing to note was the decent soundstage, especially when we put the system on the spatial mode. Even with the car’s relatively limited cabin space, the whole audio system sounded ‘massive’ and expansive, with the whole experience akin to listening to songs inside a studio.

What’s more impressive for us was this audio system only features 15 speakers, which is less than what you commonly see in premium vehicles nowadays, with their speaker numbers often going beyond the 20s. But thanks to decent soundstage design and clear tonal separation, the KEF Premium audio system definitely felt like a more ‘complete’ package, easily making it one of the best in-car audio systems we’ve experienced.

THE COFFEE

Our half-day experience concluded in a bittersweet manner (literally) with a hands-on coffee tasting session.

For this session, baristas from One Half Roastery (@onehalfroastery) were invited to craft a three-course tasting menu, each featuring a bespoke coffee drink—all using the same Ethiopia Alo Chilaka coffee bean.

The first course was a simple cafe latte paired with mini croissants, followed by a drip-style coffee alongside a sourdough slice with homemade tea butter spread.

The third course was perhaps the most interesting one, as they paired a simple cold-brew coffee with blueberry juice, lemon extract, and several herbs to make a signature coffee-based mocktail. Paired with a chocolate mousse topped with olive oil, the unique combination delivered a surprisingly pleasant result.