Hyundai’s first electric vehicle racer, the Veloster
N ETCR, has debuted at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Designed and built at Hyundai
Motorsport’s headquarters in Alzenau, Germany, the electric racer is eligible
to compete in the newly-founded ETCR series which will kick off in 2020.
Based on the road-going Veloster N, the Veloster N
ETCR is radically different from an engineering point of view as it features
four mid-mounted electric motors and rear-wheel-drive — two firsts for a Hyundai
Motorsport project. Hyundai started design work on the Veloster N ETCR in November 2018
and the first shakedown of the prototype was completed in August 2019. A full
testing program will begin later this month with the help of Hyundai
Motorsport’s trained and experienced engineers. The goal is to build two
Veloster N ETCR cars for the first ETCR season.
Hyundai did not reveal much about the specs of the
Veloster N ETCR but did mention it packs a 65-kWh battery and has a weight of
1,700 kg. Since it will compete against the likes of the Cupra
e-Racer, expect a similar output of around 700 hp and a 0-100 km/h time of just
over 3 seconds.
The Veloster N ETCR project will be integrated
alongside Hyundai’s ongoing commitments as a manufacturer within the FIA World
Rally Championship (WRC), as well as its Customer Racing efforts with the i20
R5, i30 N TCR and Veloster N TCR. More importantly, all lessons learned from
racing the Veloster N ETCR will be shared with Hyundai’s global R&D
facility in Namyang, South Korea to be used in developing production cars.
