Talk about an assault with batteries … in addition to the ‘Kiwi Kona’ courtesy of Paddon Motorsport, Hyundai itself has shown off a slick electric racer and Ken Block has scored an ohm run!

ESSENTIALLY identical core components and closely-aligned performances, common basic aims … both behind the same badge.

As much as they are, quite literally worlds, apart each is being developed at a leading motorsport facility with intent to create race-winning performance, starting with some astounding grunt: Up to 745kW.

The timeline trajectories are uncannily close. Announcements about one seem to always be followed by an update on the other.

Who will be first? Is it a race? Who else might be competing?

As the days toward each project achieving readiness for full-out field testing draw closer, the nation’s interest in Haydon Paddon’s groundbreaking Hyundai Kona electric rally car is set to grow.

Meantime, in South Korea and in Europe, all eyes seem to be on a car that, while not a doppelganger, is clearly also from the same broad breeding, the RM20e Prototype.

Meantime, anyone taken notice yet of the Ford Fiesta ERX, an early starter in the FIA’s new World Rallycross Project E race series, recently subject of a wild run to victory with the world’s greatest hoonigan at the wheel? 

All remind how motorsport is heading fast toward where every day motoring is unavoidably gravitating … a future that involves electric assistance.

Paddon’s car deserves priority mention, being ‘local’ and all that. Even so, it’s the one we know least about, technically speaking.

Yes, everyone knows it’s a massively reworked edition of the electric Kona crossover Hyundai has been knocking out for road use; delivering with four-wheel-drive, raised suspension and all the other addenda required for rallying.

But in terms of the exact spec of the drivetrain, the battery size and capability … that’s still under wraps. The team website continues to talk of up to 1100Nm torque, and more than one motor – as few as two, up to four, each making 220kW – through a single speed drivetrain.

There’s been talk of offering around 670kW in hillclimb mode and around half that for longer rallies, to improve range.

Any lack of detail does nothing to diminish the achievement: A car driven by our best known and most credentialed rally talent and created by a handful of hand-picked Kiwi engineers, working from a lock-up at Highlands Motorsport Park at Cromwell, developed alongside Hyundai New Zealand with the assistance of the University of Canterbury, Yes Power and STARD, an Austrian racing team that specialises in electric rallycross cars and has supplied the battery, inverter, and motor  … well, it’s a heck of a thing.

We do know it works. It ran for the first time last week and, according to a report from international rally web site Dirtfish, remains on target for a November 4 launch in Auckland – so, just over two years since project start. 

The car will be seen in public for the first time when Paddon completes demonstration runs at the Battle of Jacks Ridge on November 15.

“It was 100 percent pride when I drove the car for the first time,” Paddon told DirtFish several days ago.

“Everybody’s been working so hard here to make this happen – some of the guys have been putting in 100-hour weeks to get here … and it went absolutely to plan, no problems at all. We were only running the car at 30 percent power, but the responsiveness from the car is so obvious.

 “The other thing that became obvious is how much more straightforward the Kona EV is compared with a conventional rally car – the number of mechanical, moving parts is significantly less.”

Paddon told DirtFish the aim is to have the car out on a full-length rally this time next year. In other reports, he has spoken of hope to run it in selected rounds of the New Zealand Rally Championship in 2020; a hope that, to be realised, will require some rewriting of motorsport regulations.

Various safety issues have yet to be satisfied but, beyond that, there’s another question: Is it fair – or even conceivable – to expect parity between fossil-fuelled race machinery and electrics?

 Paddon asserts he doesn’t want an electric car for an electric championship. “We want to showcase this against current cars, to show electric can be fast, cool and hold its own. Motorsport should be any car against any car. 

That thinking is built on a solid foundation; like it or not, electric propulsion has a place in rallying at local and international level.

Patently, this programme is not just to prove a point on local roads. Paddon is keen to exploit the car’s potential for his own driving career and, apparently, as a commercial venture. How many examples are created and to what aim has yet to be fully spelled, but the South Canterbury instigator has always seen a global market potential. He certainly hopes the Kona will give him an advantage as the World Rally Championship heads down an electrified path.

As Kona readies for its big day, so too comes news of another Hyundai headliner, this one from the brand proper. 

No shying with the stats in respect to the RM20e. Everything but the range has been provisioned. So, it has 598kW and 959Nm of torque deployed to its rear wheels, will smash 0-100kmh in less than three seconds and be travelling at 200kmh after just 9.88s. For the purposes of public road driving, top speed limits to 250kmh. Hyundai says it balances these “race-car-like levels of performance, balance, braking and grip” with “daily-driver quietness, responsiveness and road-going capability.”

The drivetrain has developed by an electric vehicle maker whose star power is somewhat brighter than STARD’s.

Rimac is a Croatian car manufacturer that develops and produces electric sports cars, drivetrains and battery systems. Founded just 11 years ago, it rocketed to world interest with the Concept One, the slinky realisation of ambition to create the world’s fastest production electric vehicle. It gained even more notoriety when Richard Hammond crashed it during filming for the Grand Tour Season 2. Was the car too hot to handle? Well, it’s a tame tabby compared with Rimac’s next electric performance flagship, the C-Two, will touch down in 2021 with 1490kW and a top speed of 415kmh.  

Eighteen months ago HMC paid 80 million Euros for an undisclosed share in Rimac, with intent to develop two models – a sports car for itself and a fuel cell car, likely for Kia. The investment represents a 14 percent shareholding for HMC; Porsche, another investor, has a 10 percent share. A Chinese battery maker, Camel Group, is Rimac's second biggest stakeholder with 19 percent, while Rimac founder Mate Rimac owns 43 percent.

As revealed at the Beijing international Automotive Exhibition 2020 last week, the RM20e appears in readiness for track racing, just like the Veloster N eTCR, designed to take on a new eTCR electric touring car series. 

However, motorsport is not the end game in this instance. The factory says the car’s primary purpose is to act as a development tool and test bed for the N-branded performance road car division. It has the remit of being the basis of what yet one day become Hyundai’s equivalent of the Porsche Taycan.

The name is explained thus: RM stands for ‘racing midship’, and refers to the car’s mid-mounted electric motor, which is said to offer “ideal balance and agility from a low polar-moment of inertia.” Meaning it is easier to rotate the car about its axis. The numerical? Well, it’s a bit of a muddle, but effectively it’s the latest of a lineage. There have been four previous incarnations, the first being the RM16.

Back to the Fiesta ERX, which screamed – in a way only electric cars can – into motorsport history the other day by winning the first World Rallycross e-racing event at the famous Holjes circuit in Sweden, ahead of two identical Fords. 

Directly developed by STARD, this car is also a monster: 0-100km in just 1.8 seconds is a blistering time huge horsepower fossil-fuelled rallycross cars with anti-lag systems have been chasing off the start line for years.

What gets the ERX going is a giant 450-kWh battery pack liquid-cooled by dry ice. It delivers oomph through a pair of independent two-speed gearboxes that operate as single-speeds in race mode. Will the Kona go the same way?