Jetour’s 4×4 hybrid jeep will debut at the Sertões rally

The Chinese Jetour announced that it will debut in the Sertões rally as a sponsor of the Bianchini Rally/Sportbay team. The automaker has given eight units of the Jetour T2 — its top-of-the-line plug-in hybrid SUV, with recently launched 4×4 units, to the team’s support fleet at the 34th edition of the largest rally in the Americas, held between August 22 and 30.

It is the first time that the brand appears on the race grid , but the cars will not compete: the function is to provide logistical support to the team, transporting equipment and supplies between the specials and the support points along a route of 3,984 kilometers, divided into eight stages through Goiás, Bahia, Tocantins and Maranhão, with start and finish in Goiânia.

“Sertões is a great laboratory to test the launch,” said Fabrício Bianchini, founder of the team. According to him, the vehicles should reinforce the structure offered to competitors in a race marked by long displacements.

Bet on a future hybrid category

Bianchini, who has 27 participations in Sertões between motorcycles, UTVs and cars, sees the agreement as a first step to electrify the competition. The driver recalls that the team took the first alcohol-fueled motorcycles in the country to the rally in 2007, and says he hopes that the partnership will be “the beginning of a new hybrid car project for the grid“. The creation of a specific category, however, is not announced by the organization of the race.

What T2 XWD Takes Down to Earth

Launched in Brazil in July, the Jetour T2 XWD 4×4 combines a 1.5-liter turbocharged gasoline engine and three electric motors, two on the front axle and one on the rear. The sum of the installed power of the four engines reaches 597 hp, with 91.7 kgfm of torque — Jetour informs that it does not disclose combined values because there is no official measurement standard adopted in Brazil. The battery, 43.24 kWh, is the largest among plug-in hybrids sold in the country, according to the company. The SUV costs R$ 339.900 for the first 599 units and R$ 349.900 later.

For use off the asphalt, the model has eight driving modes and features such as Tank Turn, which reduces the turning radius on the ground by up to 20%, and Crawl Mode, which manages torque, braking and descent control on low-grip terrain. There is also a mode that pre-activates the cooling system before stretches of greater demand, to keep the engine and battery at working temperature.

“The Sertões Rally is one of the few places in the world where there is no room for promises,” said Henrique Sampaio, Director of Marketing and Product at Jetour Brazil. For the executive, sustaining the team’s operation for thousands of kilometers is the most direct way to prove what the brand presented at the launch of the SUV.