Cruise Electric Avenue in All-Wheel Drive Civic Type R
Orbis Electric’s Civic Type R loses the stock rear wheels for pair of electric motors, providing a combined 100 horses to the hot hatch.
Honda-Tech is bringing you the best of SEMA 2018 in Las Vegas, where the showgirls aren’t the only hot ticket in town. There are plenty of wild Honda builds for you to check out, so let’s go.
You thought the Civic Type R was already wild on its own? Wait until you see this 2017 Type R hybrid from Orbis Electric of Mill Valley, California (located 14 miles north of San Francisco).
Nothing was changed under the hood of Orbis’ Type R, but the stock rear wheels were ditched in favor of their Ring-Wheel system. The Ring-Wheel uses a “3-pointed stationary bearing spider” to directly attach the wheel to the suspension.
The setup amounts to a moment of inertia matching that of “a conventional carbon composite wheel,” and can accomodate a continuous brushless motor weighing 31 pounds and delivering 50 horsepower.
Thus, this Civic Type R gains not only all-wheel drive, but a total of 100 horses and 70 lb-ft of torque on demand on top of the 306 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque put out by the 2.0-liter K20C1 turbo-four, all through a pair of 19×8 wheels.
Cool hybrids are a rare sight, especially ones as cool as this Type R. We can’t wait to see what Orbis does next.
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