Hyundai has not completely written off the internal combustion engine yet. A hybrid solution might be the salvation of the fun cars, says the brand's technical advisor.
There are slightly different messages from Hyundai at the moment. Late in February, it emerged that the brand's entertaining models have completely disappeared from Denmark.
And that they won't come again. In fact, production has already ground to a halt. To make room for electric cars. Read more about it here.
Conversely, Hyundai's technical advisor Albert Biermann, who was previously head of the brand's entire performance department "N", says that hybrid cars are still an option.
Specifically, in an interview with Australian Drive, Biermann refers to the Elantra N, which is not available in Europe, but is technically a sedan-shaped i30 N.
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A car that Hyundai has already confirmed will get "a bigger engine than the two-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine" currently available.
Albert Biermann, who has a past as boss at BMW M, believes that hybrid cars can close a gap between performance cars with combustion engines and pure electric cars.
However, Hyundai is not alone in the bid for how the fun cars can be kept alive in a time of increasingly strict requirements for the internal combustion engine.
At Toyota, they are trying to get the internal combustion engine to burn something other than petrol. Namely hydrogen. In fact, the Japanese are already testing the technology in racing cars. Read more about it here.
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Austrian AVL Racetech has developed a 2-liter engine with four cylinders and an output of 405 horsepower. The torque of 508 Nm is also worth noting in that context.
And at Porsche, we believe that synthetic petrol can be the way forward. Since 2022, the Germans have been producing synthetic gasoline at a test facility in Chile. The synthetic gasoline does not require any changes to existing cars to work. Just pour on, turn the knob and sing.