The rumor that Mitsubishi may be developing a Outlander Evolution it originated in the Japanese publication Best Car Web, which brought together the main news that we were scheduled to see at the 2021 Tokyo Motor Show to be held in October.
The Japanese motor show, however, was canceled (due to the pandemic), but it seems that plans for an Outlander Evolution are not.
The idea that there is one, albeit hard to believe, Outlander Evolution is related to the Ralliart renaissance , announced last May, that is Mitsubishi's high-performance and competition division and has given us a huge legacy of amazing machines, from the Lancer Evolution on rallying to the Pajero Evolution, which dominated the Dakar.
In other words, Mitsubishi's idea was to combine the useful with the pleasant, to promote the rebirth of Ralliart as well as to introduce the new generation of its SUV in the Japanese market, with the revelation of a Mitsubishi Outlander Evolution.
With the Tokyo Hall canceled we will no longer see it there, but according to the Japanese publication, Outlander Evolution will even happen, with the launch scheduled for June 2022, a few months after the arrival on the Japanese market of the new generation of Outlander.
What can we expect?
Predictably, there are no details about this intriguing “muscled” version of Outlander. There only seems to be one certainty: if that happens, Outlander Evolution will be a plug-in hybrid. The new generation of Japanese SUV was unveiled last February in its North American version, but we still don't know the European and Japanese versions.
However, it is known that the Japanese Outlander will be exclusively plug-in hybrids (the same should be true for the European Outlander), which does not happen with the North American Outlander. So, living up to that, you wouldn't expect anything other than a high-performance plug-in hybrid SUV.
Although the Outlander's new generation is derived from a Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance platform, the plug-in hybrid system that equips it (and which made the Outlander the best-selling plug-in hybrid in Europe for many years) will continue to be of Mitsubishi origin.
The system consists of two electric motors, one per axle, and an internal combustion engine in front of which is coupled a third electric motor, which serves as a generator. There is a battery, but the function of the combustion engine is, mainly, to also serve as a generator to power the two traction electric motors.
We recently had the opportunity to try this system on the much renovated Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross across Portugal:
In the case of the Outlander Evolution, to live up to the name, it is to be expected that, if revealed, it will bring many more kilowatts (kW) or horsepower than the close to 190 hp we saw in Eclipse Cross.