Outside of all of the speculation and the internal fanboism (i.e., my model EVO is better than the next), I think the question on all of our minds is can and will Mitsubishi be able to keep up the performance that has become synonymous with EVO. If not, it might as well be just another Mirage or Lancer. Very few cars under $50,000 can even hang with an EVO on the track, and I would like to see it stay that way.

That is why I'm hoping they do something along the lines of what I mentioned. CAFE is happy. Performance drivers are happy. Everybody wins. I know there is a fondness for the 4G63 and 4B11T (seen as almost the heart and soul of the EVO), but how many of the people holding such allegiance to those power plants actually wrench on them themselves? Some, sure. But a vast majority of EVO owners just get in their cars and drive them. They go to professionals to design, build, and install any aftermarket parts, so for all they really care, the EVO could come with a steam engine. As long as it gets the job done, they should be happy.

 

Great to see a new diesel vehicle..

 

sigh...no, pls read my expert analysis again. it'll either: come late, be somewhat on time but rushed/crappy (Evos have traditionally hit around Nov of the year before, so the '14s would have to hit 11/13), OR late AND rushed/crappy

the source was high up in Mitsu btw

 

The new Outlander plug-in hybrid that is based on a similar drive train is scheduled to be out this March in the United States. Let's see if that happens.

 

The issue with hybrids is increased weight. The Outlander has a 12 kWh battery, which will add around 300 lbs in weight (for reference, the Nissan Leaf's 24 kWh battery weighs 600+ lbs). If you think the 250 lb weight bump from IX to X was bad, think about this 300 lb bump!

The other issue is that the hybrid AWD system has ONLY the electric motor powering the rear wheels. That's fine for normal usage, but in the rare cases (racing/canyon runs), when you're fully using the AWD a large portion of the time, I'm not sure if the battery will have enough charge (even w/regen braking) to last the whole canyon run/track session/rally stage.

Food for thought

 

I'm more worried about losing the ability to equally add power to all 4 wheels with that configuration.

Now when we mod the motor the electric stays the same. Hopefully the motor at least powers the rear.....

Otherwise you'll have all 400hp or more going to two wheels with barely anything hitting the other two. Can we say FWD burnouts all over again..

 

I think unfortunately that's how it's gonna end up. Think it through, why would they keep the driveshaft, rear diff, etc. and add ON TOP the 300 lb battery pack and 100 lb (conservative) motor? The Evo would then be a 4000 lb pig that's nowhere near as fast as the GT-R AND less reliable due to added complexity of both a full internal combustion system AND electric motor + battery.

From an OEM/investment perspective, they would also not develop 2 new AND different hybrid AWD systems. The Evo will be at best a high performance version of the system on the Outlander hybrid, or maybe just the exact system w/different software tuning.

 

AWD cars are penalized the least from this type of conversion, because you are replacing a heavy transmission and center, front, and rear differentials. The three electric motors themselves will barely weigh more than the three differentials.

Definitely, but I think it should be fine. Even without regenerative braking (which really won't do that much for recouping energy in a canyon/track run anyway), the front engine/motor combo will be able to feed ~ 60 kW or so back into the battery (and that will occur even during deceleration or steady state driving... basically, any time you aren't WOT and need AWD) . It's really a matter of balance, which I'll be interested to see how Mitsubishi handles that.

And in terms of tuning, that's going to be very interesting. Basically, we might need to reassess how we look at tuning, but I don't think that you can completely discount the possibility for improvements even to the ICE. The electric motors and controller might be tunable through the ECU, and if you can up the motors a few kW, the ICE can be further tuned too.

I think the primary focus on tuning will be with the suspension and weight reduction, which I've always found more interesting anyway.

 

Who knew the Evo would go from competing with the STI to competing with the Supra?

http://www.motortrend.com/future/fut..._the_pipeline/

 

I just finished reading through the first 100 posts. Thus far, I like what I have read, both positive and negative. I will leave the negatives alone and only focus on the positives. We have to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. We tried to accomplish this with E85, but it did not take to flight as anticipated in the Nation. I am a fan of torque-on-demand and a lighter EVO with a hoped for base of 300whp and about 325wtq sounds great to me.

 

400 HP AWD Supra??

 

it's interesting that they have a system that can do BOTH parallel and series hybrid on the Outlander. this means that they still have a transmission up front (and a complex one at that), which probably has 2 input shafts...1 for the motor, and the other for the electric motor, AND a transmission in the rear (contrary to popular belief electric motors still need transmissions ). http://www.plugincars.com/mitsubishi...ev-125872.html

the Evo will also need this transmission as there just aren't many electric motors over 80-100 kW (107 to 134 hp), so both gas and electric motor will need to be power the wheels at WOT.

yeah, depending on the battery chemistry, the regen will have to be turned off after a bit of canyon/track due to heat buildup (or the car goes into limp mode). on the track though, you're either WOT, braking, or maintenance throttling mid-turn (full AWD) - and braking doesn't take too long, so you're going to run out of juice in the battery sooner than later.

I'm all for going green, but I fear this will severely compromise the Evo. It won't make a difference for 80% of owners who don't track, but for the 20% who do, it's no longer viable I wish Mitsu took Lambo's route of adding lightness to gain efficiency

 

Does anyone have updates on this? I was under the impression that Mitsubishi was abandoning the U.S. market.

 

Was at my mitsubishi dealer yesterday. No mitsubishis on the lot....uhhh ohhhh

 

I'm excited....