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Chinese consumer electronics company Dreame Technology has announced plans to enter the electric car ranks with a bold ambition: to build the world’s fastest production car by 2027.

Best known for its robot vacuum cleaners and home electronics, the Xiaomi-backed firm has confirmed its first car will be an electric hypercar aimed squarely at the ultra-luxury segment, with Bugatti identified as the performance benchmark. 

The Suzhou-based company – a competitor to Dyson among others – has already assembled a team of around 1000 engineers and specialists for its car programme and is continuing to expand its automotive division.

The move makes Dreame, founded in 2017, the latest in a growing list of Chinese tech companies to enter the electric car ranks, following Xiaomi, Skyworth, Huawei, Roborock and Baidu.

But Dreame’s target of redefining the limits of road car performance – in direct competition to long established brands such as Bugatti, Ferrari, McLaren and others – marks a particularly audacious start.

The new Chinese hypercar will reportedly draw on Dreame’s proprietary high-speed electric motor technology, developed in-house for its consumer devices.

The firm has expertise in manufacturing compact motors design to operate at more than 200,000rpm - experience that its founder and CEO, Yu Hao, said will translate directly into the high-power demands of motor performance at the hypercar level.

“Our dream is to create the fastest car in the world,” read an internal letter issued to employees on Thursday. “Great dreams are born from fearlessness.”

Dreame’s technological credentials extend beyond motors. The firm has commercialised vision recognition systems, AI-based path planning and spatial modelling - all developed for its robot vacuums.  

As of the end of 2024, Dreame had filed more than 6300 patents globally. Many of them relate directly to competencies common in the EV field.

The company also boasts a global retail footprint across more than 100 countries, with a claimed 6000 retail centres and 30 million customers worldwide.

In preparation for its transition from consumer electronics to the automotive field, Dreame has hired a number of senior executives from established car manufacturers, covering areas such as research and development, production engineering and quality control.

While no technical specs or platform details for the hypercar have yet been disclosed, Dreame said it's pursuing a dual-track development approach: combining its rapid-cycle consumer technology culture with automotive-grade engineering standards.

The approach mirrors that of Dreame’s key robot vacuum rival, Roborock, which launchd its first production electric car, the 01, through its Rox automotive division in China in 2023.

Despite the growing influence of SUVs, the estate car is still a strong presence in the UK car market. 

There are several reasons for their continued popularity, ranging from their daily versatility to their huge levels of practicality.

The best estate cars are also better to drive than most SUVs, often surpassing their high-riding counterparts in terms of interior space and versatility. Many argue they satisfy the cliché of being 'all the car you'll ever need.'

The current crop of estates is incredibly diverse, too, which means there are endless options when it comes to size, performance and functionality.

The list is so broad that you can have anything from a simplistic, mile-munching diesel to a more luxurious, materially-rich shooting brake.

There's also a growing choice of electric estate cars on sale, with models from brands including Volkswagen, Audi and MG.

Be it superb ride comfort, exceptional efficiency or supercar-baiting performance and handling, there’s an estate to suit every taste and budget. 

We think the best estate car on sale today is the Skoda Superb, which lives up to its name thanks to its spacious interior, versatile powertrain lineup and its driving dynamics to such a degree that we rated it a perfect five stars in our road test.

There's a host of other rivals worth considering, though, so read on as we list the 10 best estate cars on sale in the UK today.

Lotus has confirmed it is planning a plug-in hybrid version of the Emira sports car as well as an ‘upgrade’ to the V6 model as part of a facelift timed to comply with the Euro 7 emissions regulation change in 2027.

Lotus CEO Feng Qingfeng told analysts on the company’s second quarter results call the model would gain the same ‘Hyper Hybrid’ technology scheduled to be rolled out first in an SUV model later this year, expected to be the Eletre.

The current four-cylinder turbocharged Emira, which uses a Mercedes-AMG powerplant, appears to on the chopping block amid the EU7 makeover. The V6 uses a Toyota engine but Lotus has previously said that can’t be upgraded to meet the EU7 regulations.

The inclusion of plug-in hybrid technology in the Emira as part of a closer cooperation between the Chinese-based Lotus Tech division and Lotus Cars in the UK, which focuses on sports cars.

Feng made no reference to the Thursday 28 announcement that Lotus would cut around 40 percent of the workforce in the UK – 550 jobs – but said that the recent decision to combine Lotus Tech with Lotus Cars would bring efficiencies.

“We see big room for efficiency improvements while we consolidate a lot of the functions together, including the technology synergies,” Feng said.

The CEO confirmed his commitment to the UK arm, which had been rocked by news – since denied – that Lotus wanted to move production out of the UK

“We have ambitious goals for the Lotus Cars operation in the future,” Feng said. “We will focus on the very high performance attributes and also high-performance engineering services.”

Lotus’s commitment to the future of the Emira will bring a sigh of relief to those remaining workers at the company’s production plant in Hethel, Norfolk, who faced an uncertain future as the planned electric replacement was halted while sales in the US plummeted on the imposition of higher tariffs in April.

Lotus deliveries in the first half slumped by almost half to 2813 as the company halted Emira exports to its key US market on the tariff increase. Emira deliveries fell 64% to just 891 in the first half. Exports to the US resumed in July after the UK government negotiated cut in the tariffs from 27.5% to 15%

Lotus posted a net loss of $313 million (£230 million) for the first half of 2025, an improvement from the previous half-year performance, when it lost $424 million.

Lotus has pivoted to plug-in hybrids after sales of its electric Eletre SUV and Emeya saloon fell short of ambitious targets amid a wider reluctance among luxury car buyers to move to electric. “We will actively promoting our Hyper Hybrid technology,” Feng said on the call.

Lotus previously tested a plug-in hybrid version of the Evora sports car featuring a 1.2-litre three-cylinder engine mated to an electric motor and 17kWh battery giving a potential range of 35 miles. The so-called 414E never made it to production.

There was some good news for Lotus in that sales of its Eletre and Emeya models rose in the second quarter in China helped by upgraded versions of the Eletre.