The future - right here, right now.

 

 

It's the future, and it's here now and it was made right here in New Zealand.

While the WRC ambles toward adopting petrol-electric hybrid drivetrains, Kiwi rally star Hayden Paddon and a small team of engineers have created the world's first viable full-EV rallycar.

The new Kona-bodied car is the fruit of a project sparked by an idea early in 2018 and officially commenced in March 2019. Following 18 months of intensive work at their Cromwell facility, Paddon and his six-strong team of engineers and designers are delighted to reveal the completed, fully functional Hyundai Kona EV rally car to the world. 

The car was in the end built to the spec we saw today in just six months, and from this point its development will be carried out in the public eye, unlike WRC teams which do their proving and testing in private.

Body-kitted like a WRCar or AP4 and supported by Hyundai New Zealand, Paddon's creation weighs in at 1400 kg - not exceptional given it's mostly composite panels, but very good given that includes the prototype battery pack that propels the car to  AP4 - level speeds.

More to the point, the car - with two electric motors but able to up-spec to four that deliver up to 700kW of power - has an incredibly low centre of gravity, with the liquid-cooled electric motors sitting at wheel hub level.

Although the tech is not all being revealed, have a think about what controllers would allow on a two motor (front-rear) or four motor EV: infinitely variable and driver controllable torque split.

Paddon says the project marks a significant milestone in New Zealand automotive and motorsport history, with 80 per cent of the car designed in-house in terms of chassis design, engineering, aerodynamics, suspension, steering, cooling and electrics. Austrian company Stohl Advanced Research and Development (STARD) contributed to the project as Paddon Rallysport’s technical partner, providing guidance and advice.

EV technology currently powers a range of competitive motorsport vehicles, primarily in disciplines which are based at one location, such as a race or rallycross track, and usually run over a relatively short period of time. Rallying delivers very different and demanding challenges such as day-long events across multiple timed rally stages, competing in remote locations, and limited time for vehicle servicing during competition.

Though EV rallycross cars and hillclimbers have been around for a good long while, nobody has yet produced an actual rally car. Paddon's long term goal is for this project to take an all-Kiwi team back into the WRC.

In the meantime, the Kona EV rallycar will do demonstration runs at the coming Battle of Jack's Ridge, Andrew Hawkeswood's rally superstage event, in Auckland.