This four-motor EV is not your average Acura NSX - Roadshow

Acura NSX EV Pikes Peak — Each wheel has its own individual electric motor, allowing power to be shuffled to each wheel with the utmost precision.
Acura

At last year's ruing of the Pikes Peak Inteational Hill Climb, Honda rolled out an electric prototype. Wearing the body of a Honda CR-Z and sporting an advanced, battery-electric powertrain, the vehicle participated in the Exhibition class. This year, it's changing classes, and it's changing bodies as well -- to that of Acura's latest supercar, the 2017 NSX.

The car might not look that much different from a traditional NSX with some extra race prep, but rest assured, you're never going to see anything like it at the dealership. Both axles have twin-motor setups, giving each wheel the torque it needs, when it needs it. If all four wheels require different power outputs, the system can provide it.

It's basically an extreme evolution of Acura's Sport Hybrid all-wheel-drive system on the production NSX. Acura uses electric motors to provide AWD on two other models: the current RLX and the forthcoming 2017 MDX. Considering the run up Pikes Peak comprises 156 individual tus, those motors will be getting quite the workout.

Sliding behind the wheel of this crazy prototype is Tetsuya Yamano, who also drove last year's CR-Z. This year, he'll be moving from the Exhibition class to Electric Modified, but the goal is the same -- get up the mountain faster than anyone else. We'll find out if that happens this coming weekend.