Mitsubishi released today two sketches of an i-MiEV prototype, which is going to compete in this year's Pikes Peak International Hill Climb held annually in Colorado, USA. Even though the car you see in these drawings looks like it means business, we have to tell you that in fact, it's based on an all-electric city car. The Mitsubishi i-MiEV Pikes Peak racecar is powered by the same electric powertrain as the production vehicle. We speculate however, that Mitsubishi's engineers did tweak it a bit. After all, Pikes Peak is a really serious, and dangerous, race. It's not a trip to the market for groceries.
The production i-MiEV is a four-door four-seat passenger vehicle. The Pikes Peak prototype is a single seater, which has received loads of modifications.
The i-MiEV Pikes Peak is much wider, comes with a full roll cage, a sport bucket seat and a full harness.
Mitsubishi says they're going to use the data gathered through this endeavor to enhance the durability and reliability of future EVs and plug-in hybrid EVs.
The Mitsubishi i-MiEV Pikes Peak will be driven by Hiroshi Masuoka, who raced in the Dakar Rally 21 times, and managed to get two victories in 2002 and 2003.
