The last quarter of car sales was a shitshow for even the most successful brands. Does this mean the car market is collapsing? Absolutely not. The market is in a strange neutral period where the difference between a good month and a bad month can come down to a slight nudge. Unless you’re Mitsubishi. Nothing is stopping Mitsubishi.
It’s sales day so I now have third-quarter delivery reports from all the big players to talk about, and I am jacked-to-the-tits as Ryan Gosling loves to say. I’m going to start off this Morning Dump with the general market and why I think that Mitsubishi is particularly well positioned here.
What about Stellantis? They’re still at the bottom and it’s worth calling out just how bad it is over there. And Tesla? The brand is somewhere in the middle. Finally, let’s wrap up with how hybrids are doing in this “Year of the Hybrids.”
Overall Q3 Market In U.S. Probably Down 1-2%, Mitsubishi Is Up 42%
Spending on automobiles is “volatile” according to Cox Automotive, which is as good a description as you’ll find anywhere. The difference between an up month or a down month can come down to a hurricane, a cyberattack, a port strike, the number of selling days, or a recall. In a robust market, there’s room to absorb disruptions, but that’s not the market we’re in right now.
Automotive News has a roundup of the automakers that have reported Q3 sales in the United States, and the numbers are weak almost across the board, with brands overall averaging sales down about 0.5% compared to Q3 2023. Adding in dismal Stellantis numbers and assuming weak performance by Tesla, it’s likely the market is down even more.
Even stalwart brands like Toyota are seeing a drop, though in Toyota’s case, its 10.4% quarterly drop has a lot to do with a stop-sale on its three-row crossovers. The brand also regularly has the lowest inventory in the country, and it’s extremely difficult to get incentives on a Toyota that doesn’t rhyme with “Bees Forks.” Honda is up for the quarter, but even that brand suffered a 7% sales drop in September after reporting 18 straight months of sales gains.
What’s the deal? Affordability. It’ll take a long time for interest rates to come down, and there are still likely buyers on the sideline waiting.
From the Automotive News story linked above:
The average annual percentage rate on a new vehicle was 7.1 percent in the third quarter, Edmunds said, marking the sixth consecutive quarter that new-vehicle finance rates have hovered above 7 percent.
Edmunds, citing an August survey, said 62 percent of car owners planning to buy a new vehicle in the next year have delayed a purchase because of high interest rates.
I also think political uncertainty plays into this. If rates can come down a little in November and the election creates a clear winner I think people might be more confident about making the purchase and we could see a huge end to the year. At the same time, another disaster or war in the Middle East could cause the opposite to happen.
If there’s one way to get through this market it’s to have affordable vehicles or hybrids. Do you know who has both? Freakin’ Mitsubishi! Back from the dead! The Automaker Voted Most Likely To Not Be An Automaker Anymore! The company nearly collapsed in 2016 after a testing scandal, and a hasty alliance was arranged that saw Nissan acquiring a third of Mitsubishi.
The brand’s Q3 sales rose to 42.3% over last year, which is better than everyone else. The closest was Mazda, but that brand was only up 24.9%. While Mitsubishi is still a small-ish brand, only selling 31,588 cars in that period, this makes it almost as big as Acura and twice as big as Infiniti. If it keeps growing at this rate it’ll start catching up with brands like Buick and Audi.
How is it doing it? Let’s look at Mitsubishi’s own sales chart:
Mitsubishi doesn’t sell many vehicles and it sells no vehicles with a starting price above the industry average transaction price (which is about $48k). The most expensive vehicle for sale in the lineup, the Outlander PHEV, starts at around $42,000 with destination charges included. The cheapest is the $17,000 Mitsubishi Mirage.
Which models are selling better than they were a year ago?
Sorry, couldn’t help it.
Sales of every single model are up, but it’s the cheap Mitsubishi Mirage that’s up 153% year-over-year. I don’t think there’s any trickery here as the Mirage hasn’t been updated much and has been on sale with few disruptions since coming out of the pandemic. People need cars and these cars are cheap.
Of course, Mitsubishi said they’re going to stop selling the Mirage after 2025, though the brand plans to stockpile cars to sell through next year. Perhaps Mitsubishi should reconsider?
Tesla Did Fine, Not Great, Just Fine
If you look only at the third quarter then Tesla’s 462,890 deliveries is an ok number. If you want to zoom out and look at the bigger picture it’s not that great.
Tesla Inc. posted its first increase in quarterly vehicle sales this year, though the automaker let down investors expecting more of a bump from China boosting electric car subsidies.
The Elon Musk-led company handed over 462,890 vehicles to customers in the last three months, up 6.4% from a year ago. Deliveries came up shy of the roughly 463,900 units expected among analysts tracked by Bloomberg.
“We will see some pressure on shares this morning as investors walk away from delivery numbers expecting more,” Daniel Ives, a Wedbush analyst with the equivalent of a buy rating on the stock, wrote in a report Wednesday.
Tesla will be showing off its Cybertaxi and other products later this month, which might cause the stock price to go back up if CEO Elon Musk can take a break from tweeting to deliver a good presentation.
Stellantis Sales Down 20% In Q3
Yeah, Stellantis didn’t stick the landing. It’s grim folks. You know how bad the news is? The one bright spot is Fiat, whose sales were up 118% this quarter with a whopping 316 total vehicles delivered overall. I’m pretty sure our Mercedes has sold more cars than Fiat this year.
Dodge is down 43% year-over-year, Chrysler is down 47%, Ram is down 19%, Jeep is down 6%, and Alfa is down 29%. It sucks. I haven’t seen this many negatives since that semester I volunteered in the junior high newspaper’s dark room. Excluding the new 500e, the cars that saw increases quarter-over-quarter were the Wagoneer (+3%), Compass (+71%), and the Hornet (+120%). The Hornet rolled out last year so some of this might be because Hornet had an incomplete quarter.
And what are the models that have seen sales decrease?
- Wrangler
- Gladiator
- Cherokee
- Grand Cherokee
- Renegade
- Grand Wagoneer
- Ram
- ProMaster Van
- 300
- Pacifica
- Charger
- Challenger
- Durango
- 500X
- Guliia
- Stelvio
That’s most of them. The Compass is one of the few affordable vehicles in that lineup and that’s the only one that’s selling.
Hybrids Rule Everything Around Me (HREAM)
It’s clear that affordable cars are doing better this quarter. What else? Hybrids. Ford is one of the few major automakers with quarterly gains (of 0.7%) and, while some of this has to do with F-150 delays, a lot of it has to do with hybrids. Last quarter Ford’s ICE sales were down 2.8%, its EV sales were up 12.2%, and its hybrid sales were up 38% year-over-year in Q3 2024.
While the rollout of the new Ford Ranger helped boost the brand’s sales, the company still sold 33% more Mavericks than last year, bringing total sales this year to over 100,000 models. Ford is finally breaking out specific hybrid truck sales numbers and we now know that Ford sold 16,561 hybrid Mavericks in Q3. That would make it the best-selling hybrid truck, except… the F-150 Hybrid just hit 20,129 sales.
It’s like this across the market. Hyundai hybrid sales rose 36% in September even though overall Hyundai deliveries dropped by 9%. Toyota dealers are saying that customers are waiting months for hybrids. The third quarter was Honda’s biggest ever for “electrified sales,” which is Honda’s hybrids plus a few Prologues thrown in there.
Hybrids are where it’s at.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
How have I never done A Tribe Called Quest here yet? Everyone is great on “Scenario” but it’s probably Busta who steals it.
The Big Question
Would you consider a Mitsubishi?
Oh my, people are not taking the advice of the people who post on car news websites and buying cheap new cars instead of buying a used car. Is the sky falling? (just being snarky)
Yeah, let me spend all my money on a used car with no warranty at an inflated interest rate, I got a sunroof and leather! So much better than a brand new car.
Excelent!
So if you keep your cars for a while I think the equation changes a bit. So maybe your choices are a new Stellantis product or a just off warranty Honda with 25,000 miles. In five years you have either an off warranty Stellantis with 60,000 miles or an off warranty Honda with 85,000 miles.
Would argue the Honda will cost you less in the long run and be worth more when you do eventually sell it.
If you cycle through new cars on warranty by whatever you can get a cheap lease on.
Mitsubishi has sold only 20,000 cheap cars this year; the rest were cheapish SUVs, and they have only sold around 60,000 of those.
Per data available on the interwebs, around 38,000,000 used cars are sold in the US per year.
It seems the vast majority of car buyers are taking the advice of buying a used car instead of a cheap new car.
Yeah, but based on a survey of Autopian writers, each one is buying several cheap used cars while the new cars are going out one per customer. My guess is if you assume the average number of cheap used cars on Autopian writer’s lawns is 4, there is probably some math to think that 80,000 new Mitsubishis, is quite a lot.
What about the writers’ driveway, garage and backyard?
I was being snarky and you assume several things like there are equal Mitsubishi dealerships to other manufacturers, equally distributed across the country, and equally accessible as used cars that cost the same as new Mitsubishi. That 38 million were all not the same price as a new Mitsubishi.
Now figure out the number while excluding stuff that Mitsubishi doesn’t compete in. Any pickup truck, any van, an midsize sedan, any large SUV, any sports car, any coupe, the list goes on…if you want or think you need one of those, no new Mitsubishi can be a contender But what’s the proportion of new Mirage sales to used Yaris, Versa, Mazda2, Fiesta etc and then normalize it to markets where you can actually get a new Mitsubishi without driving more than 50 miles away… The number is far, far fewer than 38million…and maybe it shows there is opportunity for growth, both in model selection as well as dealer outlets.
If Mitsubishi could somehow bring the Triton over or decide to build it in Mexico, it’s a very competitive midsize pickup everywhere but here. Or just rebadge Nissan’s Frontier…
I’m a simple man. I see Rashida Jones, I click.
Sorry, did you say something about cars?
ANN PERKINS!
<double finger point>
Some 25 years ago I sat next to Rob Lowe for two hours in an restaurant and had no idea who he was. Missus pointed it out and I was like huh?
After Parks and Rec he became my favorite actor… ok perhaps behind Offerman.
He’s done a great job reinventing himself. In most scenes, Chris Traeger would start as the straight man and then morph into a wonderfully low-key weirdo. Such good acting.
I’ve worked with just about every PLC manufacturer out there, and Mitsubishi is by far the worst.
What is PLC?
programmable logic controller
Although I struggle to associate the word “programmable” with theirs.
Peugeot, Lotus, Changli.
Keep up, dude.
Is that the same Mitsubishi that makes the cars? Or just part of the massive industrial creature named Mitsubishi?
Most assuredly not the car company, Mitsubishi Motors was spun off as a separate company back in the ’70s, largest shareholder is Nissan at 34%, followed by Mitsubishi Corp at 20% and their former parent company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, at just 1.4%.
Mitsubishi Corp does own like a token 0.5% of Mitsubishi Electric, which would be the closest, but still fairly indirect, connection between them and the car company
Yes and no. Japanese business conglomerates are weird.
I would not really consider a Mitsubishi Mirage. the size of the tires make me think of those police cars in Idiocracy every time I see one. And a Jetta or even a base Camry is close enough in base price to look past it.
But, if Mitsubishi Grew a pair again and decided to drop a hot 350HP 4 into the China only Mitsubishi Grand Lancer and say offered that in AWD or even perhaps made it a Hybrid to get off the line without massive torque-steer. I might consider it.
At least the tires look better on the now mandatory hatch; they looked esp. comical on the awkward sedan.
Mitsubishi? I almost traded my VSport for an Evo earlier this year, but a new Mitsubishi, no not interested.
I don’t think I’d buy anything in their current lineup. There are better options for a little more money. If Mitsubishi’s long term quality doesn’t get you, the short term depreciation will. The only scenario would be one where I had to have a new vehicle and all I had was a Mitsubishi amount of money. They would be good enough then for a while, but I’d have to be confident I could climb my way out of the purchase and do better for the next vehicle. That is a risk scenario right there.
For a little more money, I’d 9/10 times chose a base Jetta, 7/10 a Trax.
I might consider one if they had an Evo. A real Evo. Still, I might take a WRX over that.
long term quality does’t seem to be any manufacturers strong point currently, at least the Mitsu’s are affordable.
Glad to see people are finally stopping. These companies need to get back down to earth with their price points. If it takes me driving a mirage, then it takes me driving a mirage I guess. Mitsubishi would be insane to cancel it now.
Dude, Mitsubishi gets it. Sell a $17K car. Inflation is so far up from pre-pandemic levels. People are still coming to grips with cost of living exploding. The market for a $48K+ vehicle is drying up, even with the fed rate dropping half a point.
More car brands need a $17K car. Give people some cheap thing that you can beat on, gets good gas mileage, and won’t cost an arm and a leg every month. I feel like this segment of the market has been forgotten by so many of the big brands.
Just sell a cheap car.
I think the trick is to make them cheap, but still pretty much reliable.
Most Mirage’s I see have 1 or 2 hubcaps missing and apparently the body panels are maybe one step about tin foil. but they do seem to keep on trucking.
Do they get it?
They sold 31,000 cars in the quarter. GM sold 696,000.
I get that there is some demand for a cheap car. But not much if you can only sell 31,000 of them across 3 models.
There’s defnitely demand for cheap cars. Not everyone wants the top trim level, flagship car. But I don’t have the data on why only 31K sold. Maybe they’re too small (they are really small). Maybe, here in the US, more people prefer domestic cars. Either way, in the current economic climate, I think a cheap (or maybe I should say “way more affordable”) car is a good idea. We are just coming off of the trimflation of the pandemic, and in my opinion, the pendulum swung too far to the “everyone wants expensive cars” side.
And I’m personally not a Mitsubishi fanboy, but I would really like to see the US car brands stop killing off their small sedans and economy car segments. I’m tired of $40K beige crossovers.
I love my Fiesta ST, it has every single option except for navigation and was still only 24k. If I needed to get a new daily right now, I’d go used because I don’t really want to spend much more than that on a new car and there just aren’t any brand new cars on sale today that are both something I actually want to drive and is a price I can afford.
I’d consider a Mitsubishi A6-M Zero, but the Big E shot most of them down 80 years ago.
Wonder how the Lincoln Corsair, Ford Mustang and the F150 Lightning would fare against the Zero?
Don’t forget the Hellcat!
Well, Mustangs were not used in the Pacific theater, but if they were, they’d splash the Zeroes easily. Unless a Zero got inside him, which would be bad.
Mustangs arrived in the Pacific at the tail end of 1944 and flew combat air patrol and escort (B—29s) missions through the end of the war. Twenty-eight percent of all US Mustang squadrons were deployed in the Pacific.
Is this a Battle 360 reference? Great show.
TV was good back when History Channel was the Hitler Channel.
Check out Weigel’s “Story Channel”, one of many over-the-air subchannels on regular old terrestrial television. It’s all old History Channel stuff.
And wood rot took everything else.
For the same money as a new Outlander Sport, you could buy a 3-year-old CX-30, or CH-R, or HR-V. I’ll pick any of those over a new Mitsu.
So a new, larger vehicle with leading warranty or a used, 3 year old, smaller vehicle nearing the end or out of warranty?
Is this limited to 25+ year old kei class vehicles and home HVAC equipment?
If I could go to my local Mitsubishi dealer — is there one? I don’t know, but not within at least 20-30 miles — and buy a Dangan ZZ4, I’d be on my way now.
Some of the Old School Mitsus were pretty solid machines. The AWD Eclipse Turbo was a blast to drive, and seemed to be a quality piece.
I loved the 2nd gen Eclipse.
Can’t imagine there is a decent one left in existence that isn’t insanely overpriced.
Those Space Wagons are pretty awesome, though it’d probably fold itself into an origami if a butterfly flaps its wings in China.
We’re definitely considering an Outlander PHEV as the RAV4 Prime is unobtanium. The Outlander PHEV drivetrain is more series hybrid than parallel hybrid so hopefully that equates to a little more reliability, but the main reason is price and availability, and that it’s a fairly beefy comfy ride that can still go 38 miles on a charge.
The third row is hilariously fake, unfortunately. But I guess if you are cross-shopping RAV4, that isn’t a dealbreaker.
Yeah there’s posts online on removing the 3rd row to make room for a spare, really should be an option from Mitsubishi.
Then we’ll just need something to keep them from cosplaying as valid candidates for Uber/Lyft XLs.
Both of our Outlanders have the third-row and our 7 and 9 year olds love it back there. It’s a welcome addition to have while still being a sporty handling non-bus like SUV.
What about the lack of HVAC back there?
They’re young, they’ll bounce back.
My kids would be puking, third row HVAC is mandatory for the family car.
When they where young my kids would be puking any time we drove more than 30 miles from home. In fact it was almost always about 30 miles from home. Had ac in the back (3rd row) but it didn’t matter. They got over it eventually. We started giving them barf buckets before the the start of any longish trip and they soon got over it. YMMV.
Regarding the Maverick hybrids, I am sure that they will sell so many more of them for a couple reasons:
1) you can now get it with AWD
2) you can now tow 4k lbs (matching the EB)
3) they cut the EB’s power by adding a gasoline particulate filter, so now the power gains are negligible.
However the Base price is not the Sub 20K it was initially touted as but was only available to fleet customers in a set qty. It certainly seems to have been a loss leader to get the rest of the public to buy the ICE AWD/4K towing versions for Ford escape money.
Pretty happy with my 2.0 EB, 4K tow, Lux Package, FX4, CP360 Maverick. A lot of truck for the money.
I can only go so far as to call them a UTE. It is difficult to refer to them as trucks for me. That being said, I don’t have any issue with your package. I imagine all of the recalls were handled already, but the point was the original, non plug in hybrid, mavericks were just a tick under 20K on paper and delivered 42 MPG, again on paper. Remove those two selling points and the volume that people would want one, seems like at lest, would dwindle drastically.
Mine actually has a license plate that says TRKL3T (or Trucklet). I came from a first gen crew cab Tacoma (so the short bed isn’t a huge deal). I will miss the offroad abilities, but appreciate the better towing characteristics, more power, and 2x the MPG’s. Recalls were all done at once (6?). Most were BCM recalibrations. One was a curtain airbag. All done for free and they gave me a loaner (can’t complain). The biggest issue on these trucks is the weak CV axles (not uncommon for 35K mile replacements). I hope they come up with a better solution and replace them under a recall.
Check your VIN at NHTSA. There’s a new recall for the back-up cameras not working properly.
-Fellow Maverick owner
Aware…the App informed me.
As a Mazda fanboy, all I can say is yay Mazda. I’m glad their push “upmarket” hasn’t killed them like I thought it would.
I still miss Mazdaspeed though…
Gone but not forgotten. I’m in a Mazda owner’s club and someone commented at the lack of MazdaSpeed representation at our last meet. Then, I had to point out that the newest MazdaSpeed model was the 2013 3…
It didn’t help that the DISI engines in all the Mazdaspeeds after 2005 were known for Zoom Zoom Kabooming.
Especially the ones in the Speed6. The 3 was a little better by 2012-2013, but most were used/abused by boyracer types anyway.
I’ve had 2 cars with that platform (2007 MS3, 2008 Volvo C30). You could tell which one had had a bad owner previously. The Volvo was a MUCH nicer car to own.
I’m pleasantly surprised too that Mazda is doing well being fancy and would like to see a breakdown on that. Seeing a lot of new ones these days. My only Mazda is a 2010 5 minivan. It’s rusting out pretty badly but I still love that thing and keep it going. Put a new radiator in it on Sunday.
“Would you consider a Mitsubishi?”
Given they are cancelling the Mirage and the Elipse Cross barely exists, isn’t the more accurate question “would you buy an Outlander?”
For me, the answer is no. I could see buying a Mirage since they are in a class of two when it comes to new cars under $20k. I have a hard time seeing a situation where I considered an Outlander since it is a generic transportation box priced similarly to numerous other generic transportation boxes. If I am in the market for a generic transportation box, I would probably buy an HR-V. Honda makes the best generic transportation boxes.
I am surprised to see that the Mirage was 25% of Mitsubishi’s sales in 2024. I assumed it wasn’t selling well, but that does not appear to be the case. It seems odd to cancel this product and go to a lineup that includes two generic transportation boxes I can’t even tell apart.
Perhaps another question should be “Is Mitsubishi even trying at this point?”
Petition to use the term “generic transportation box” or “GTB”, for short, in articles from now on.
I think GTB would be good shorthand for a transportation appliance, but owners of the Ferrari 296 GTB might object.
HRV is not a bad option. I don’t think Honda makes anything that is not compelling (sans the Prologue). They have a decent lineup these days.
I would say they are trying even though historically and probably in reality for them, the profit margin on small cars is notoriously difficult to obtain and even if they managed to get the same Percentage for the 17K versus the 40K car, they still have to sell more than double to actually see the same number of dollars in profit.
But you have to give them credit for still playing in the sandbox everyone else seems to have abandoned.
I presume the Mirage doesn’t make much money per unit sold, but as long as it is at least some profitable it doesn’t make sense to cancel it. Realistically, there aren’t a lot of reasons to set foot on a Mitsubishi dealership at the moment. Killing off the Mirage won’t help that.
I just looked at the inventory of the Mitsubishi dealer where I live, and they have 74 new cars and 444 used cars (mostly non-Mitsubishi) in their inventory. It seems that dealer is a used car dealership that also has a Mitsubishi franchise. Maybe that is their new business model? Sell relatively cheap new vehicles along with a wide range of used vehicles?
This doesn’t surprise me one bit… most manufacturers have axed their affordable cars and the formerly affordable cars have skyrocketed in price. If you want something under $20k you have almost no options, and even at under $30k it’s slim pickings. Maybe other manufacturers will take note and will bring back small cheap cars.
I am normally a huge proponent for cheap cars. I’ve owned plenty of compact and subcompact cars (I think 50-60% of American’s could daily a Honda Fit and it would make the world a better place). HOWEVER, I had the misfortune of driving a Mirage as a rental car lately. I’ve never been so upset to walk out to a car before. The AC couldn’t and wouldn’t keep the car adequately cool in Phoenix, it had lifter tick on start up, every feature was depressing, and it was almost dangerously slow on the freeway. I hated it, and gave the rental place a poor review for even stocking such a pathetic automobile. I will not miss this when it’s gone. Yes, I get that American’s need cheap new cars, but the Nissan Versa does it better.
Honda, please bring back the Fit.
I drove a rental Mirage and laughed because its NVH was on the same level as my 1990 Pontiac Sunbird.
My 2002 Toyota Echo was better to drive, more efficient, and didn’t sound like a tractor on start up.
The Mirage has…checks notes…carplay.
It’s a reminder that the subcompact market used to have genuinely good cars instead of just cheap cars.
Honda, please bring back the Fit
Preach it, fellow Autopian. I think the Fit is one of the greatest transportation appliances ever made (and that is not meant as a slight in any way). The have good fuel mileage and reliability (our 2011 has never required anything but routine maintenance and consumables), and they are incredibly space efficient – it’s crazy how much stuff you can “fit into a Fit”.
True story: my family of four was returning from a Christmas trip and being picked up at the airport by our neighbor’s son, who is not the most brilliant person who ever lived. Instead of bringing a Suburban like he was supposed to he brought our Honda Fit. We managed to cram in five people and all our checked and carry-on luggage. The interior space is absolutely enormous for the size of the car. If only they had ever made a Fit Si I’d be dailying one today, because although my Fiesta ST is more fun than a barrel of monkeys it doesn’t have 10% of the practical utility of a Fit.
PREACH! A K24 Fit and some Civic SI seats would make the perfect daily. I loved my 2017, but always wanted more power and better seats. On 205-width all seasons and a rear sway bar, the car could handily outmaneuver my NA Miata.
My friends who are on their second Fit with two teenage boys constantly scratch their heads over people who buy big SUVs. I remember one discussion where some Explorer owner was chastising my friend for not having a safe family car. His answer was, “it’s remarkably safe. You can fill it up with so much crash protection.”
Logically you would think the Mirage should stay in production, but my guess is that Mitsubishi doesn’t want to invest in an eventual redesign on a low margin car and are hoping Mirage customers will just buy one of their crossovers instead.
I should add that the strong sales for the Outlander were to be expected since Dodge stopped building the Journey. The Outlander now stands alone as the official vehicle of broken condoms and “Christian family planning.”
My snide remarks aside though it is good that we still have a cheap 3 row vehicle on the market.
As long as you get a later Pentastar model, I actually like the Journey. With an out the door price of about $8,000 less than an equivalent Toyota or Honda, it was a great vehicle.
Just don’t compare it directly to things that cost a lot more. I kind of wish they’d start making it again.
I hope Mitsubishi is just stacking their money so they can come out with a new Evo, Eclipse (a good one like the second gen), and 3000gt.
Mitsubishi going full bore n a 3000gt halo car would be as hilarious as when you’d go by a Dodge dealership and see a random Viper in a row of Stratuses back in the day.
If a no-frills Mitsubishi remains reliable/robust: this is a springboard for return buyers to continue to consider them for their next car-shaped-appliance. There are many out there that can’t justify paying for automotive frills (or simply cannot afford them) but appreciate new/reliable/warranty.
They also have a unique position with cheap cars for younger buyers that the rest of the brands have stepped away from. Remains to be see if they can capitalize on return buyers as their needs change to something bigger/nicer or even just more of the same.
The Big 3 used to do this (the Old Navy/Gap/Banana Republic approach): Have an intro brand (Chevrolet/Ford), then when you’re successful you get something more upmarket (Pontiac/Lincoln) and then move onto something luxurious when you can (Cadillac).
In the last decade, though, the only concerted effort I’ve seen to target young consumers has been Kia (god, the hamsters) and Mazda (zoom zoom).
It’s also baffling to me that the Big 3 ignored the success of Kia/Hyundai here. Hyundai was the first with a 100,000 mile warranty, which they took a massive bath on, but was appealing to young consumers looking to buy their first car. They’ve parlayed that into decent market penetration, but also – and this is the takeaway here – upmarket products like the Genesis lineup or the Telluride. 20 years ago, if you’d told me Kia or Hyundai would make something in the “luxury” segment, I would have laughed.
The willingness of the Big 3 – Stellantis to some degree excepted – to just cede the intro points of the market is baffling.
It’s like the Harley Davidson logic of aiming for older folks with money. Without effort for bringing in new blood: it all becomes a self-consuming spiral.
Wouldn’t the flow have been Ford/Chevy for Entry level, Mercury/Buick for Mid-level, and Cadillac/Lincoln for luxury, with Pontiac in as the “sporty” equivalent of Chevy? Then again, they’ve done such a bad job with brand imaging over the past few decades that it’s not really been this was since before this millennium. GM had Saturn and Oldsmobile, Ford bought Jaguar, Volvo and a chunk of Mazda, and Stellantis/FCA/DaimlerChrysler/Highest Bidder has been a rotating door of whatever they can get their hands on.
Rashida is always welcome, but…why? Did Ann Perkins drive an Outlander on Parks and Rec?
No, but Ms. Jones does do ads for Mitsubishi.
Ah, that’s what I get for ignoring commercials!. Thank you.
Mitsubishi has ads?
Would not consider a Mitsu unless it was equipped the optional (pictured), babe in the front seat on delivery.
But that’s just me. YMMV
Only if they started making the early 2000’s Evolution again.
Not much automotive news is shocking to me, but learning just this minute that Fiat still sells new vehicles in the US counts as one of those times.
I compared a new Eclipse Cross to similar vehicles from other makes recently and price was the only thing the Mitsubishi had going for it. Every other metric was worse, but I guess if you are shopping on a budget and absolutely must have a new car then they’re an option.