Seems as if there aren't many of you that graduated from business schools. Mitsubishi has made a strategic move by going full hybrid. Thanks to Obama cars of the future are required to have a specific mpg and emissions ratings. Mitsubishi is not on par with this because of cars like the Evo. So in order to stay relevant in todays market, they must adapt or fail. It would require a massive amount resources and time to develope a new hybrid Evo. And Mitsu being the very low selling car manufacturer that it is (we all know the rest of Mitsubishis line up is trash), I very highly doubt they will sacrifice relevance to keep a few sports car enthusiasts happy.

I doubt we will ever see another "Evo". Mitsubishi may come out with a new hybrid sports car but it probably wouldn't share the "Evo" name.

 

Also, they stated earlier that they don't have the money to develop both their hybrid/electric car and Evo line-up at the same time. They don't have GM or Chrysler funding to literally sink millions in R&D. Well, my example is flawed because both companies have to be bailed out every 2 weeks, but I'm pretty sure you all get the point.

Anyways, they have been toying with electric technology for a while, there was a full electric Evo 7 IIRC. I actually can't wait to see what new technologies have to offer.

On this board, we can see the main American influence. Here in Canada, we have been denied many vehicules that just completely made sense because they wouldn't sell in the US. The fear of electric powered car is really strong, as many comments here show. Saturn EV1 anyone?

I just wish the Evolution to keep on Evolving. I don't care for gasoline engines that get 40% efficiency or less. The local university here have proven somewhere around 96-97% efficiency on an electric converted Smart car. You should see the way that thing could smoke it's tires. I honestly can't wait to drive a car like that.

 

Here are the problems that the electric car has:

1). Extremely limited range: current battery technology and charging infrastructure are nowhere near where they need to be to make EV's a viable alternative to internal combustion cars as of now. For electric cars to become "relevant", there has to be a significant shift in the paradigm of long-distance transportation. Keep in mind, it takes over 10 hours to recharge a car, and even the longest range EVs can only manage somewhere around 250 miles on a charge. We would need something along the lines of trains to carry people within grenade range of intended destinations and EV's waiting at the stop to complete one's trip -OR- batteries must evolve into super-capacitors (see Graphene). This is 10 or so years off. If and when this happens, gasoline engines are done for. Imagine an electric car that could be fully recharged in 5 minutes. However, we aren't there yet.

2). Huge volatility concerns: Lithium is an extremely dangerous substance. Like it or not, it is a major component of most quick-charge-and-discharge batteries. Tesla seems to be so concerned with this that it is now spearheading an NTSB investigation into their own cars, which I would argue are the best EV's on the road. Hydrogen fuel cell cars share a similar set of concerns, although storage technology has come a long way.

3). Huge environmental impact: NiMH batteries, used in the Prius, require a lot of Nickel. Mining Nickel is a devastating and dirty process. Lithium batteries aren't great in this regard, either. Plus, producing hydrogen for fuel cell powered vehicles requires a significant amount of energy.

The speculation is that many of the great import motors of our time were originally designed to be diesel engines. Even Mitsubishi's partners are slowly rolling out diesel engines. The new Titan is set to have a Cummins V8 in it (which I really like). I think that a diesel Evolution XI would have been an easier pill to swallow than killing it off, completely.

 

This actually makes me happy...

 

Great read.

What do you speculate will happen to the Evo?

 

I must have been the only one who read the future reports about the Evolution XI becoming diesel and thought "Finally!". Diesel is simpler. Better reliability, stronger components, and better gas mileage? Count me in. That could have been a great endurance race car. It would mean greater appeal in general.

I don't have a good feeling about this jump into EVs. They may be popular in Japan where commuting distance are smaller, but around here they rarely work. It must be a market that I don't understand. I see all kinds of wacky **** coming out of Japan, but none of it ever seems to make it into the marketplace, as far as I can tell. One person car/wheelchairs and insane looking GEM-car-like EVs to putter around some unrealistic city may garner publicity. They may even sell a few units. However, I think that most companies understand that they are gimmicks for now. Mitsubishi may be the first company to take the gimmicks seriously. Does that make them pioneers or fools? My gut is telling me the latter.

 

Sorry, the GSR only is being discussed for 2016 until the evo Xi is ready in 2017 or 2018.
Production of the evo x will continue as-is through 2015.

 

This contradicts the official statement from Tokyo. Do you have a source and maybe a date to determine validity? I want to believe it but it is opposite of what was said.