Beware: An 800 Horsepower Hyundai Kona EV Is Going Off-Road

Hello and welcome to another ChargeSmart blog! Today, we will be talking about the very real 800 horsepower Hyundai Kona EV that will be racing in rally New Zealand next year.

I will admit that my mind wanders from time to time during the day, it's a phenomenon called daydreaming and most of us do it. However, even the most imaginative of us couldn't have dreamt up the 800 horsepower Hyundai Kona EV that Hayden Paddon and Hyundai New Zealand are working on.

The Kona in question is being developed by Hayden Paddon's team, Hyundai New Zealand, the University of Canterbury, Yes Power and an Austrian racing team called Stard. This miracle Kona EV is being built to compete in rally New Zealand next year but get this, it will be competing against 'old-school' petrol powered cars! It's based completely on a road going Hyundai Kona except that everything has been stripped out and the engine replaced by an electric powertrain.

Above: The 2020 Kona will provide the shell for the 800 horsepower EV rally car.

The idea behind this was so that they could show off the potential of electric cars in motorsport alongside promoting the fact that electric cars can be cool as well! The idea is that they want to change the public's perception of what electric cars can do. Paddon said that the car will have 270hp to 400 hp on tap for the rally stages depending on the length of the stage and the intensity of it. The max output will be around the 800 horsepower mark which comes courtesy of a single speed electric powertrain which will be used for the shorter stages. Don't you wish your Kona had 800 bhp?!

Another key aspect of rally racing is the noise. It not only entertains fans but also warns unruly spectators of oncoming cars. We've all seen those videos of rally spectators narrowly escaping death. Paddon hasn't commented on the noise that the EV Kona will make but he did confirm that it will make some sort of noise. One can assume that it would be spirited.

Thanks for reading! This Kona EV is going to be amazing to watch on the rally stages.