Mitsubishi reportedly playing with four-motor plug-in hybrid

Friday, 11 December 2020

Mitsubishi representatives unveiled their new SUV, the Mitsubishi GT-PHEV, at the 2016 Paris Motor Show at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre on Wednesday.

Mitsubishi is working on high-performance plug-in hybrid powertrains, featuring as many as four electric motors paired with a combustion engine.

The news comes from an interview between Australian journalists and the chief engineer of the new Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross PHEV, Masahiro Awano. Awano-san said both tri- and quad-motor PHEV configurations were under consideration for future performance-oriented vehicles.

Mitsubishi showed off the GT-PHEV concept a few years ago, which was based around an Outlander with a single 90kW electric motor at the front axle and twin 45kW electric motors at the rear, hooked up to a 2.4-litre petrol engine.

The Outlander is still selling well for Mitsubishi but the Japanese carmaker isn’t sitting on its laurels with PHEV development.

The current Outlander uses a 2.4-litre engine and two electric motors and a 13.8kWh battery for 55km of claimed electric-only range and 94kW/199Nm of combined output. That’s not much when shifting an SUV weighing nearly 1900kg but remember, the same powertrain can be had in the lighter Eclipse Cross PHEV, here now.

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The Eclipse Cross has been given the Outlanders dual-motor plug-in hybrid powertrain. Could it one day receive a tri- or quad-motor design?

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The next-gen Outlander is due to be revealed next February. It looks evolutionary rather than revolutionary but we’ll have to wait and see to be sure.

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This was meant to be the base of Mitsubishi’s future plug-in hybrid powertrains but Awano-san’s revelations means there is more to be uncorked.

According to carsales, Awano-san said “… Many customers want more high-performance motor vehicles so that’s one opportunity we’re already thinking about.

“I can’t say any more, sorry!”

The comments follow what carsales previously reported, that being the company’s new design boss Seiji Watanabe revealing that the brand “wants to push more performance design” and that with the combination of PHEV and its Super All Wheel Control (S-AWC) system “we can provide that super-high-performance SUV and 4WD system in the future”.

I’m not saying that sounds like a return of the Lancer Evolution, but that sounds a lot like the return of the Lancer Evolution. Or the GTO, at least.

But really, it’ll be some super-fast SUV of some sort. A plug-in Triton could be on the cards too, with Awano-san expressing a desire to expand its PHEV tech to more vehicles in the future.

To be honest, it will just be nice to see Mitsubishi back in the high-performance game.

We will see Mitsubishi release the next-generation Outlander shortly, with the first teaser being shown this morning. It looks to be more of an evolutionary update than revolutionary but we’ll know for sure in Februaru 2021.