Motorsport 2025

Each year the LA Auto Show pits the best of the best of designers from the automakers to try and design some creative looks at our automotive future. Last year, it was all about "green," but this year, the project's called Motorsport 2025, and it's designed to show off what the race car of 2025 will look like. While we don't have the full gamut of responses to show off yet, we do have a sneak peek at Mitsubishi's entry to the quasi-esteemed contest based totally in unreality. It's called the MMR25 Rally Racer and yes, it's meant for the rally courses of the future. Frankly, we were kind of hoping dirt would be abolished by 2025. Full press release after the jump — along with a rear view of the dirty red racer.

Mitsubishi Motors Enters its Innovative 2025 Rally Racer for LA Auto Show’s Design Challenge

Continuing its world racing heritage and its industry leading expertise in electric vehicles, Mitsubishi Motors has introduced the most revolutionary racing technology that will defy automotive racing standards in the year 2025.

The MMR25 will have nine motors in each wheel, one to spin the main structure and eight more to control smaller embedded wheels for traction while deftly maneuvering along the highway, maybe even driving sideways. Special "oblique aerodynamics" mean that the sideways driving won't be penalized by wind resistance, either.

There's no glass: It's too damn heavy, and you won't need it, what with visual information coming in via a crazy camera array that feeds a 360-degree panoramic screen that surrounds your "pod."

It's plenty power efficient, too, getting 1,000 miles per charge out of lightweight composite-nano-fiber-jiggied lithium-based batteries. (Now word on explodeyness, but presumably that's solved too.)

We're gonna go one step further and guess that the electric charge itself will come from just an hour or two under the hot sun, thanks to efficient solar cells. But ha ha, that would just be ludicrous, right?

The MMR25 incorporates an omnidirectional wheel design that consists of eight independently-controlled electric motors within each wheel hub. This makes the MMR25 the first and only “8 x 4” wheel drive vehicle. The rotational direction of the tires allows the vehicle to be driven forward while pointing the nose of the vehicle in any direction, instead of drifting you can actually drive sideways (or at any angle.) Innovative “Oblique Aerodynamics” gives the vehicle aero advantages when driving sideways.

A driver sits inside a windowless pod just below the center wing. The center wing spoiler is located directly over the cabin, which rises and lowers as the vehicle moves sideways. This pod is surrounded by a seamless, 360-degree panoramic screen displaying images from outside cameras. Removing the heavy glass windows significantly reduces vehicle weight and enables the driver to see changing environmental and track conditions throughout the day. Special Memory Metal Alloy is used in fabricating the sophisticated front and rear spoilers, which also act as suspension blades.

 Martin Ivanov