Next-gen Mitsubishi EVO hybrid confirmed for 2014!

2013 Mitsubishi EVO XI conceptual rendering

If you wonder what Mitsubishi is up to these days then, read on to find out their ambitious plans for the future. If are a fan of the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO and you don’t want to miss this. The Japanese car maker is coming up with an all new Mitsubishi EVO by 2014. However, this car isn’t what you’d expect from a car maker who have dominated the cross-country rally scene with its powerful four-wheel drive saloons. The latest from them has been the Misubishi EVO X. To put in plain English, the next-generation EVO will be a hybrid!

Surprised? Well, that is correct. Mitsubishi President Osamu Masuko, has confirmed this with Autocar but refrained himself from revealing the technical details of the new car. According to him, the Mitsubishi EVO XI will feature a diesel-hybrid powertrain. The new changes are aimed at controlling emissions. Now, the EVO is known for lightning fast 0-100 kph times and nimble reflexes. It is difficult to image an EVO without its USPs and that is what Mitsubishi engineers also feel. The new EVO XI will thus retain its trademark handling and performance characteristics.

The only change then, could be under the hood. That said, the acceleration will certainly be spine smashing with a diesel engine and an electric motor working in unison. The team at Mitsubishi will start work on the new EVO project next year. The actual car is expected to arrive in the three years time. Earlier in the year, there were reports of the EVO being axed for a more sustainable electric car over which the world reacted in criticism. Taking notice of the reaction from fans, Mitsubishi was quick respond. So with a hybrid EVO taking shape, Mitsubishi’s marketing bumph might read, “EVO XI- Its Green and goes like stink “.

Source;
http://www.indiancarsbikes.in/cars/nextgen-mitsubishi-evo-hybrid-confirmed-2014-50510/

Tech News: European Diesel Hybrids

Here's a good article at Road & Track about what I thought was going to be the 'next big thing'....
Diesel-electric hybrid concepts from European automakers are all the rage at the 2009 Frankfurt International Motor Show.
Hybrids are great. Their clever interaction of combustion engine and electric motor can be optimized to exploit both means of propulsion.
Diesels are great too. Compared with gasoline counterparts, they offer a 25-percent benefit in fuel economy. And, unlike gasoline engines, diesels have gobs of low-end torque — just the thing for getting off the line adroitly.
Electric motors are great as well. They use no petroleum at all. And they too have gobs of low-end grunt, producing maximum torque from the first twist of the output shaft.
In fact, though, Europeans got on the hybrid bandwagon only lately. For a while there, they were most vocal in pointing out hybrid shortcomings of dual-propulsion complexity, battery weight and cost. Diesels, they propounded, were a much more rational engineering solution (especially when encouraged by fuel tax benefits in many European countries).
But there's an excellent argument that a diesel-electric hybrid is the automotive equivalent of wearing a belt and suspenders.
Diesels are more expensive than their gasoline counterparts, as are gasoline-electric hybrids. Thus, in a very real sense, a diesel-electric hybrid pays double for its technology. The costs of a diesel's necessarily robust construction, high-pressure injection and complex emissions controls must be added to the hybrid's electric motor, power electronics and battery costs.
What's more, a gasoline-electric mating is a fundamentally better one than diesel-electric. A gasoline engine's relative lack of low-end torque blends perfectly with an electric motor's instant twist. Also, a diesel's inherently abrupt startup and shutdown are a real challenge for engineers seeking transparent transitions, especially in Start/Stop, a key feature in the efficiency of hybrid interactions.
A diesel is super efficient at light load, when its air-fuel leanness extends to 50:1 and beyond. By contrast, a gasoline engine demands its ratio closely kept to around 14.7:1, and it's notoriously inefficient at light load. What's more, light load is the most efficient time for hybrids to run in pure electric mode. Whether off the line or at light load, gasoline and electric characteristics complement each other. Diesels and electrics are redundant.
Among European automakers, Porsche seems to sense this. The company has a quandary at the moment, whether to bring its highly successful Cayenne SUV to the U.S. in diesel form or as a newly developed gasoline-electric hybrid being introduced in Europe next spring.
The latter is quite an elegant system, its powertrain consisting of a 3.6-liter 333-bhp supercharged V-6 engine, intermediate clutch, 38-kW electric motor, lock-up torque converter and 8-speed automatic transmission, in that order. Think Honda Integrated Motor Assist with a clutch added between engine and motor. Disengagement of this clutch gives the Cayenne S Hybrid its pure-electric modes, including one called "Sailing," a coasting mode at speeds up at 86 mph.
Porsche's system is modular, and in time we can expect its recently introduced Panamera sedan to have a hybrid version — a gasoline-electric one.
No Zuffenhausen engineers are wearing belts and suspenders.

Source;
http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=36&article_id=8379&print_page=y