Sports car manufacturer, Lotus could be looking to build an electric sports car thanks to the success of the Tesla.

The Tesla Roadster, hailed as the world’s first high-performance electric sports vehicle, is based on the Lotus’ Elise model and is assembled at their Norfolk plant.

“Don’t be surprised to see an electric Lotus shortly,” Michael Kimberley, chief executive, told the Financial Times. “We are working on the technologies that will go behind it.”

The car, like General Motors’ planned Volt, could be equipped with a fuel-based ‘range extender’ to back up its battery, the newspaper reports. Lotus may show it in concept form at the Geneva motor show in March.

A range extender could allow the sports car to drive between 300 and 400 miles on a single tank of fuel, taking Lotus into the new, highly competitive and unsteady market of electric and hybrid ‘green’ cars.

Despite a large order bank for the Roadster, Tesla themselves have struggled to secure financing and iron out technological problems while Norwegian electric carmaker, Think, has interrupted production and temporarily laid off around half its staff.