Tri-motor i-MiEV prepped for Pikes Peak
Strong, silent types out in force for this year's running of famous Colorado hillclimbHot on the heels of Nobuhiro ‘Monster‘ Tajima’s announcement that he’ll be turning up at for the 90th Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb in an all-electric machine
built specifically for the purpose, Mitsubishi has announced it will be fielding its own entry, a vehicle it calls the i-MiEV Evolution.
The company likes to say the Evo started out as a stock i-MiEV, but it’s an even more radical departure from its donor vehicle than the Evolution we know better – the car that hides its explosive, rally-bred light under the bushel of a benign Lancer exterior.
No such external modesty here. Beyond a cabin paying homage – and even there rather scant – this thing has the silhouette to show it means business. Its centre-set, single-seat cabin sits atop a tube chassis swathed in carbon fibre skirtwork a hovercraft would be proud of (Autoweek describes it aptly as a ‘a bit like an IMSA GTP car as imagined by Little Tikes’).
Predictably, given the use of the Evo nameplate, this is no benign little battery-powered errand runner. In place of the single rear-mounted 49kW motor driving the street i-MiEV are three 80kW motors, one for each rear wheel and a third up front. They draw their power from a 35kWh battery pack – that’s more than double the vanilla model’s 16kWh. They haven’t gone public with a torque figure, but it will be enough to make rapid progress through the 20km course, traversing 156 bends through 1400 vertical metres. At the wheel will be Mits team manager and Dakar rally ace Hiroshi Masuoka.
This year sees the EV class opening up dramatically. Last year, Nissan’s specially prepared Leaf was it. This year, Masuoka is up against Tajima’s Monster Sport Pikes Peak Special and two other high-powered specialist machines, Summit's Her-02 and HCE's Lightning XP12.
Mitsubishi is also fielding a near-stock i-MiEV, piloted by off-road racer Beccy Gordon.
The 90th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb begins on July 8.
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