Evolution to kill off Lancer Evo
2011-03-03 07:05
JUDGEMENT DAY: For nearly two decades, Lancer Evos have crushed the vanity of supercar owners. Now it is all coming to an end.
Is Mitsubishi culling its Lancer Evo in favour of the brand’s new image as a manufacturer of electric vehicles?
In a media interview with British publication Autocar at the Geneva auto show, Mitsubishi’s global head of product planning, Gayu Eusegi, made it quite plain that there was no future for the Lancer Evolution X post-2013.
Eusegi said Mitsubishi must stop production of the Evo range and focus instead on becoming a leader in electric-drive vehicles.
ELECTRIC MOTOR RACE
Fans of the Evo will be surprised by Mitsubishi’s decision to end production of a car that still attracts strong demand but Eugesi was unrepentant - electric cars are the future, high performance forced-induction four-door supercar killers are not.
"Maybe the world can change, and maybe some day we can do a motor race with electric vehicles. Maybe then we can enter the market again."
Eugesi’s comments stand in rather stark contrast to reports, emanating from mid-2010, of Mitsubishi’s engineers working furiously on a new diesel-electric hybridised Evo XI.
Without the WRC involvement to justify its huge development costs (of many technologies that are not transferable to other models in Mitsubishi’s product portfolio) and some of the worst fuel consumption figures imaginable, it was only a matter of time before the four-door supercar-slayer became a victim of its own evolution.
