(That's 28 pounds, 1000 hp peak, 470+ hp sustained.)
The 40% improvement is actually 36% and is versus the previous model of the same company.
I wonder if we defined peak as sustained peak over 100 milliseconds, or some more meaningful number, what that would do to the claims. You aren't really generating meaningful torque over 1 microsecond.
Wheel hub motors are obviously bad, for harshness reasons, but if you could have a motor like this weighing 1-2 kg, and put one on each wheel, that'd be okay.
Power-wise this would be okay if things are linear. 26 kW per wheel sustained power output is more than enough for a light car. The question is what torque a scaled-down machine can be expected to have.
30kW sustained/60 kW per wheel peak power is easily enough even for large passenger vehicles. Sustained could take 3 ton vehicle up a 10% grade at 120 km/h.
MW Motors eventually made a version where the electric motors were moved from the wheel hubs to a more conventional arrangement, so presumably they felt that it was some sort of problem, but they still make the original version and I've never been in one, so I can't be sure.
or about the same as a small dog
Basically all EVs have small and light motors compared to ICEs or compared to the battery. Shaving off ten pounds there is irrelevant.