Photo: Mitsubishi
Together with Peugeot and Citroen, Mitsubishi was among the first traditional manufacturers to offer an all-electric mass-produced vehicle with its i-MiEV battery-powered tiny city car.
Calling the i-MiEV "mass-produced," however, can be a little deceiving. Sharing the same platform as the Citroen C-Zero and Peugeot iOn (remembering which letters are capitals and which are not is a pain in the...), the first electric Mitsubishi was a complete flop.
It's not like the company was actually expecting to get rich off it, but it didn't even manage to make Mitsubishi a respectable name in the EV industry. Not producing any other models using the same alternative propulsion method after its inevitable death must have helped as well.
The e-Evolution Concept should not be seen as a return to the EV market for the Japanese manufacturer, but rather as a plan for it. This electric crossover is as much of a mythological beast as a unicorn, a cyclops or a centaur since Mitsubishi has absolutely no plans to build it.
Not that it would be easy, you know. Not having to bother about the constraints of reality, Mitsubishi chose to let its imagination run wild with the e-Evolution's specs. That's how it gets three electric motors, one at the front and two on each of the wheels at the back, making torque vectoring a child's play.
But if that's not nearly crazy enough, the AI system controlling the vehicle is. The artificial brain is supposed to do a lot of things, all of which could be summed up into one sentence: making you a better and safer driver.
It's not just that the CPU can jump in and take a better trajectory through the bend then the one indicated by the steering wheel in your hands, but it can also be less coy about it by giving you real-time advice both visually and audibly. It would be like having Sebastien Loeb right next to you, albeit with a slight Japanese accent.
From what we can make out of these teasers, the styling of the e-Volution seems to follow Mitsubishi's latest in-your-face, Manga trend which we're not convinced is to everyone's taste. Other than that, the crossover seems to remind us of Faraday Future's FF91 somehow, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Finally, there's the slight issue with the name. We can probably all agree that the Lancer Evolution was the best car in the Mitsubishi lineup for as long as the manufacturer produced it. Now that it is discontinued, it's quite painful to see it used on a crossover, and an electric one to boot. We really hope Mitsubishi has enough sense to save this monicker for the moment it brings back the Lancer. Electric or otherwise.
It's not like the company was actually expecting to get rich off it, but it didn't even manage to make Mitsubishi a respectable name in the EV industry. Not producing any other models using the same alternative propulsion method after its inevitable death must have helped as well.
The e-Evolution Concept should not be seen as a return to the EV market for the Japanese manufacturer, but rather as a plan for it. This electric crossover is as much of a mythological beast as a unicorn, a cyclops or a centaur since Mitsubishi has absolutely no plans to build it.
Not that it would be easy, you know. Not having to bother about the constraints of reality, Mitsubishi chose to let its imagination run wild with the e-Evolution's specs. That's how it gets three electric motors, one at the front and two on each of the wheels at the back, making torque vectoring a child's play.
But if that's not nearly crazy enough, the AI system controlling the vehicle is. The artificial brain is supposed to do a lot of things, all of which could be summed up into one sentence: making you a better and safer driver.
It's not just that the CPU can jump in and take a better trajectory through the bend then the one indicated by the steering wheel in your hands, but it can also be less coy about it by giving you real-time advice both visually and audibly. It would be like having Sebastien Loeb right next to you, albeit with a slight Japanese accent.
From what we can make out of these teasers, the styling of the e-Volution seems to follow Mitsubishi's latest in-your-face, Manga trend which we're not convinced is to everyone's taste. Other than that, the crossover seems to remind us of Faraday Future's FF91 somehow, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Finally, there's the slight issue with the name. We can probably all agree that the Lancer Evolution was the best car in the Mitsubishi lineup for as long as the manufacturer produced it. Now that it is discontinued, it's quite painful to see it used on a crossover, and an electric one to boot. We really hope Mitsubishi has enough sense to save this monicker for the moment it brings back the Lancer. Electric or otherwise.
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