Yahoo Autos Honda CR-V Hybrid racer sports an IndyCar engine and supercapacitor hybrid tech
In the realm of things we weren't expecting to see, a Honda CR-V Hybrid with 800 horsepower wasn’t on the bingo card this year. Nevertheless, here it stands before us.
Honda Performance Development (HPD), together with the Honda Automotive Development Center, screwed together this rolling experiment, mostly because it could. And while we called this vehicle a CR-V Hybrid off the top, there are few things left to it that make this SUV a CR-V. For one, the engine (behind the driver) is the 2.2-liter twin-turbocharged V6 engine Honda uses in IndyCar. The electrified portion of the powertrain that makes it a hybrid is a unique setup that consists of Skeleton Supercapacitors — for high power — and an Empel MGU hybrid motor unit. It’s not the same hybrid powertrain that will power IndyCars in the 2024 season, but it’s designed as a preview of sorts for the kind of electrified powertrains we’ll see in the series next year.
On the same track of this having little to do with the actual CR-V Hybrid, the chassis itself is a Chromoly tube frame and is not based on the CR-V at all. Its front suspension and front brakes are from the Acura NSX GT-3 Evo22, and the rear suspension/rear brakes are from a Dallara IR-18 Indy car. It’s rocking what are likely the biggest tires ever fitted to a CR-V with 305-section-width rears and 285-section-width fronts.
