Mitsubishi Evo XI – Greener, But Meaner?
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010With all car manufacturers being pressured ever further to reduce their cars emissions, Mitsubishi faces a challenge in the 2013 Evo XI. The current Evo X, while massively entertaining and one of the best drivers cars available, is not particularly kind to the daisies and butterflies, and if Mitsubishi have any hope of getting another Evo out of the design room and into production then it needs to be much kinder to our fragile friends.
To that end the wonder kids at Mitsubishi have come up with a new plan for the Evo XI, namely dumping the legendary 2.0 turbo unit that has helped make the Evo such fun, and slotting in a diesel alternative with an electric motor attached.
How many green Evo's can you see...? That's soon to change.
While this new plan may be seen as a traitorous act by Mitsubishi among die hard Evo fans, the truth is it was never going to be possible to get another Evo out that could keep a powerful petrol engine in place whilst getting the emissions down to an acceptable level.
Going diesel, and making use of a self recharging electric motor is probably the best option, keeping the tree huggers at bay, and keeping the Evo family in production, given the choice of no new Evo at all, or a diesel/electric version, we know what we would rather choose, and most Evo fans would probably admit the same.
We understand the layout will use the electric motor to drive the front wheels, and the diesel power plant to drive the back wheels, with the option for the driver to switch to all electric mode for small drives and thus helping drastically reducing overall emissions, Evo fans will obviously be hoping the changes don’t also drastically reduce performance too, but we think the Evo team will know well enough what is expected of them and we’re sure what they deliver wont disappoint.
The Evo XI is due out in 2013, cant come quick enough for us, but in the meantime we look forward to hearing more details seep out of Mitusbishi’s secret lab as the months roll by.
