Autoblog

Click image for a high-res gallery of the turbocharged Mitsubishi i

I'm the resident kei car obsessive here at Autoblog. That means I'm the guy who actually thinks, "That is awesome," when he reads the (Google translated) announcement of yet another Suzuki Wagon R variant. Hell, I did two posts on the one-off Hello Kitty Mitsubishi i. Keis are cool. So, you can imagine how happy I was to see that Mitsubishi brought along a small fleet of its i minicars to the New York Auto Show this year.

Mitsubishi's focus at the show was squarely on the the all-electric i MiEV, which goes on sale in Japan next year and will be tested in North America this fall. The gasoline-powered version was on hand, too, though. I drove the i MiEV for AutoblogGreen, and was a passenger in a black i Turbo. Head over to AutoblogGreen for driving impressions of the i MiEV, and note that many of the observations there apply to both the electric and gasoline-powered cars.

The i Turbo you see here is powered by a 660cc 3-cylinder that delivers around 64 horsepower. It's got around half the torque of the electric i MiEV and it's buzzier-sounding (obviously), but it felt just as well-suited to city driving in New York as its battery-powered counterpart. It can comfortably transport four adults and a bit of cargo, too. Try doing that in a smart.

Mitsubishi is monitoring public reaction to the cars this week, so if you go to the show and like what you see, make sure to let them know. Me? I'll happily take one in black -- with a DAMD kit for optimum not-exactly-badassedness.

Head to AutoblogGreen for a full i MiEV review and video.



All photos Copyright © 2008 Alex Núñez / Weblogs, Inc.

If you've had the opportunity to pilot Mitsubishi's road-going rally rocket, you know that few vehicles in its price segment can match its combination of performance, handing and road-holding ability. So why mess with perfection? The answer is simply 'progress.' The Evolution has been the test bed of Mitsubishi's engineers for over a decade and when new technology needs a place to call home, the EVO is one of the first recipients.

Mitsubishi has been toying with in-wheel electric motors (or MIEV) for some time and although the first commercial application of this technology will find its way into Kei cars and other sub-compacts, the performance potential is undeniable. So when Mitsu's eggheads needed a development mule to show off what an all-electric performance car could do, they turned to their stalwart, the EVO.

Pop the hood and where the loveable, long-in-the-tooth 4G63 turbo'd two-liter used to reside, there now sits a large black computer module. In the trunk, it's the same story. However, move around to the wheel-well of your choosing, get down on your hands and knees and you'll see where the EVO gets its go. Behind each 20-inch (!?) roller, a 50kW motor is mounted. With four motors altogether, the MIEV EVO produces about 270 BHP and 382 ft.-lbs. of torque. With that kind of power, Mitsubishi expects their electric EVO to get to sixty in under seven seconds and have a range of about 150 miles.

We've seen concepts of such a vehicle in the past and rumors about Mitsubishi's endeavors into electric power are widely publicized, so it isn't a stretch to predict that some variation of an all-wheel-drive sedan is on the horizon. How far out, is another question entirely.

[Source: AutoExpress]