Last year I wrote about how Mitsubishi was a great car company… in 1999. It’s been a tough, oh, quarter-century for the always interesting Japanese automaker. In 2017, the company was so bruised that it had to get shoehorned into the Renualt-Nissan alliance. It’s been five years since the merger, and it looks like Mitsubishi is starting to bear fruit. This is especially true in the United States.
In addition to Mitsubishi, we’ve got a veritable smorgasbord of news, new car teasers, and the like. Grab a fork and let’s dig in.
Fortunes Are Changing Fast For Mitsubishi
It was essentially two months ago when we shared the good news that the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance would keep Mitsubishi around as a brand and continue to invest in the company (it was a little dicey there for a while). Part of the appeal is Mitsubishi’s hybrid tech, which ain’t bad.
For instance, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is apparently quite good and also a little weird. It’s a three-row SUV based on the same platform as the Nissan Rogue, with a 2.4-liter inline-four and a front/rear electric motor setup. The 20 kWh lithium-ion battery is good for about 38 miles of EV-only range. It’ll also fast charge, but it still uses the CHAdeMO charging setup. The whole thing costs under $40k, which is extremely competitive.
Because Mitsubishi ended production in the United States back in 2016, the Outlander doesn’t qualify for government federal tax incentives… unless you lease it. The company is now offering a 24-month lease at $442 a month with $4,441 due at signing with a $1,500 federal tax credit. These days, that’s not bad.
Mitsubishi has still been rocked by supply chain issues, but sales of the Outlander PHEV more than doubled from Q1 2022 to Q1 2023. The company still has a long way to go, but it thinks it’s headed in the right direction. Good old Hans Griemel filed a report with Automotive News this morning in Japan and it sounds like the company has high hopes for the United States:
The upbeat outlook for North America, which should emerge as Mitsubishi’s profit engine and second biggest market after Japan, will help offset crumbling business in China and Europe.
Fortified internet marketing and online sales are also seen helping Mitsubishi reach North American regional markets where the Japanese carmaker has sparse dealer penetration.
The combined effect will cause North American regional operating profit to more than triple in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, as North America becomes the company’s top profit center, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. predicted Tuesday while announcing its latest financial results.
The U.S. is the new China for the Japanese, while Europe is the new China for China. That’s a weird sentence.
The Volvo EX30 Is Coming
Shocking absolutely no one, Volvo’s next electric vehicle will be a small crossover/SUV called the EX30. It’ll debut on June 7th and slot somewhere in between the C40 and XC40 Recharge and EX90.
A Lexus TX Is Coming
The first ever Lexus TX will debut next month in Texas (get it?). What is it? A fancier version of the Toyota Grand Highlander. Neat! The Grand Highlander seems like a perfectly cromulent three-row crossover. There are a lot of jokes here, so have fun.
GM Appoints A Head Of Software
GM is appointing an Executive Vice President of Software to oversee its vehicle software development, and the guy the company is hiring, Mike Abbott, was formerly the VP of Engineering for Apple’s Cloud Services Division and VP of Engineering at Twitter. Not bad credentials.
Here’s what the company is saying about the hire:
Abbott brings extensive technology industry experience in cloud computing, storage, networking, security and more at scale. As vice president of Apple’s Cloud Services team, Abbott led a team responsible for the development of core infrastructure for all of Apple’s cloud-based services including iCloud iMessage, Private Relay, Mail and account security. In addition to storage, networking and compute, his team created products for Apple’s Education and Enterprise categories
“We have entered the next phase of our technology driven transformation focused on rapidly scaling new EV models and our Ultifi software platform, which will drive faster innovation and enable new and exciting customer experiences,” said Barra. “Mike’s experience as a founder and entrepreneur coupled with his proven track record creating and delivering some of the market’s most compelling software-defined solutions for consumers and companies make him an excellent fit at GM.”
This comes as GM ponders dropping CarPlay and Android Auto from its vehicles, a move Patrick described thusly:
This seems, to me, like a stellar act of not just stepping, but actually stomping, with golf shoes, on one’s own metaphorical dong that I feel confident in predicting that even GM will, at some point in the near future, walk this back. I mean, I hope they do. Or that they prove me wrong about this being a bad idea and I have to eat my own socks.
I will be entertained by either outcome.
Seat Is Going To Stop Making Cars, Become eMobility, Maybe?
VW-owned Spanish automaker Seat successfully spun-off its Cupra sub-brand as the future of fast, small electrified performance cars. Perhaps Seat was too successful with the spinoff, because now there’s some talk of Seat not needing to make cars anymore.
Here’s the Autocar headline: “Seat set to ditch cars by 2030 as part of radical reposition“
Seat could ditch cars entirely by the end of the decade, bosses have told Autocar, and rebrand itself as an urban mobility brand targeting young people.
The Spanish manufacturer, whose only EV is the £5800 Mó scooter (pictured below), would also look at other aspects of “mobility solutions”, such as microcars and bikes, ahead of the European Union’s ban on new ICE car sales in 2035.
Huh. Obviously, take this news with un grano de sal but it sort of makes sense. When Europe makes it difficult to sell cars that aren’t powered by magical efuels, what purpose does Seat have if Cupra exists? Obviously, there’s a lot of brand equity there so…
A Bad Look For Lucid
Electric car startup Lucid Motors has done the hard part. The company has made cars. It’s just not making enough of them. Let’s check in with the company’s Q1 financial report to see how it’s going.
Lucid reported first quarter revenue of $149.4 million, having produced 2,314 vehicles at its manufacturing facility in Arizona and delivered 1,406 vehicles during the same period. Lucid plans to manufacture more than 10,000 vehicles in 2023 and ended the quarter with approximately $4.1 billion total liquidity, which is expected to fund the Company at least into the second quarter of 2024.
That sounds good. Let’s see what CNBC has to say:
Lucid has recently been moving to conserve cash. It said in March that it would cut about 18% of its workforce, roughly 1,300 workers, in a bid to lower spending.
The company is still addressing demand concerns.
The automaker’s expected 2023 production of “over 10,000” Air sedans is well below the “more than 28,000″ reservations it recorded as of its fourth-quarter earnings report in February. And, in April, Lucid said it produced 2,314 Airs in the first quarter while delivering just 1,406 to customers during the period, a gap the company blamed on a “slow January” and changes to the U.S. government’s EV tax credits.
In another sign that demand for the Air may be weak, Lucid declined to provide an updated reservation number on Monday.
Ok, so less good.
The Big Question
Would you buy a new Mitsubishi? Would you lease one?
Photos: Mitsubishi, Volvo, GM, Lucid, Seat
The death of Mitsubishi? It’s either very funny or very sad depending on how you look at it.
As I understand the story, Mitsubishi never really had a good dealer network in the U.S. and sometimes struggled to sell their cars because you could get the exact same car at any (a lot more common) Dodge/Plymouth/Chrysler dealer. Around 2000, they tried to break free from Chrysler Corp, and to build up sales at -Mitsubishi- dealers, somebody came up with a brilliant plan. Zero down, zero interest and no payments for a year. Seriously. Mitsubishi undertook to finance the cars internally as a company (Sort of like the old GMAC). Now, the dealers needed to be paid immediately- they couldn’t wait a year -so Mitsubishi corp paid them. Salesmen get paid, and dealers order more cars to sell.
However… the situation encouraged the dealers to sell the cars to ANYBODY: Bad credit, No credit, No pulse okay! All it took was a little winking and blinking by the finance manager and nobody was going to double check for a freaking year ! Everybody wins!
Except that what happened was exactly what you imagine: Come the 13th month, Mitsubishi wrote nice letters asking people to start paying and people just handed back the keys. Boom! A year’s worth of sales were almost all total losses, and Mitsubishi owned a ton of used cars that had had zero shits given about them since the owners knew from the beginning they were never going to pay. A lot of these repo’ed cars are almost worthless
In fact, another unintended consequence was that ALL used Mitsubishis were worthless. What fool would give you cash money or take a loan for a used one, when they could go to the dealer and get a brand new one for free!
However for that year “sales” had boomed and the company had stepped up production on that basis, so the dealerships were swamped with new cars. But when they finally realized what they had done to themselves and stopped the 0/0/0 loan program nobody wanted to buy their new cars because the word was out that used ones were worthless: if you actually had to pay for a car and start paying immediately you sure aren’t going to buy one that is known for having zero resale value. Right?
So the dealerships packed with cars that wouldn’t sell and Mitsubishi Corp ate two full years of sales… One year’s worth that they had sold and were never paid for and a second year that they never sold at all. But wait! There’s more! Since the dealers are loaded with a year’s worth of new cars the only way to get rid of them was to mark them down dirt cheap. This killed the NEXT year’s new sales because you could buy a year old one from the dealership for bottle caps, and used ones are worth dirt because you can buy a new one for bottle caps.
Repeat over several years …and ask what happened to Mitsubishi.
On my 2023 Bingo Card, one of the squares is “Mitsubishi revives the EVO as a high-performance electric car.” I don’t know if it’s because I believe it will happen or because I just want it to happen.
Re: Mitsubishi
[Insert “Stop, stop! He’s already dead!” gif]
Mitsubishi has always had a bad taste down here in Aus, we had the local assembly plant that gifted us such fine automobiles such as the Magna and 380, which did little more than ensure that the roads always got a little engine oil as a treat and that towing companies stayed in business. But watching the Lancer die, the Mirage die and the Eclipse suffer a fate worse than death, I can’t say I see anything desirable in that company. They’re floating on platform sharing and grafting as many new faces to the same car as physically possible to pretend they still have a competitive line up.
I really wish someone would just put them to bed instead of parading around doing this whole “Weekend at Mitsi’s” charade.
Aside from maybe the Mirage,
Mitsubishi just doesn’t have a whole lot that’s interesting anymoreMitsubishi doesn’t exist anymore, they mysteriously dropped off the face of the earth after making a series of great cars, and it seems that new Mirages appear occasionally out of thin air for reasons no one can figure out. Even then, the Mirage is only interesting because it’s affordable, which is stupidly rare among new cars nowadays.If Mitsubishi would bring back something,If someone were to revive the Mitsubishi brand and make something, anything, from their old interesting days for under $20k they’d sell like hotcakes and everyone would celebrate. If Mitsubishi wants to make a comeback, it’s not a difficult formula, just make something affordable and fun.And maybe, you know, advertise the Mirage? People are desperate for cheap cars, yet one of the few cheap cars available is so under-advertised that most car buyers don’t know it exists. That’s the only reason I can think of why people aren’t flocking to Mitsubishi dealerships to buy Mirages. They ought to make a Mirage competitor to the GR Corolla as well while they’re at it, to bring more attention and sales to the Mirage.
Yeah it’s a real shame Mitsubishi is a dead brand, they were committed to making true enthusiast cars until the very end…
I would buy a new Mitsu Mirage because A. It’s the only thing a lot of people can friggin’ AFFORD anymore, and B. I don’t want big tech-laced Crossovers and SUVs, just give me a cheap, basic, reliable car…
It’s actually Buick I’m always surprised to learn still exists.
My son’s girlfriend has a Mitsubishi. The smaller crossover. It seems like a pretty OK car. She’s never had any problems with it. If I were in the market for a cheap car, sure I’d give it a go.
I’ve got no problem with the Mitsu brand, so I would consider one if they had anything compelling to offer. I don’t think their current lineup of budget CUVs will make it to the top of my list. Mostly I’m just sad about what has become of them, they used to be pretty cool!
The closest Mitsu dealer is about 40 miles away from here, so it’s unlikely I’d be willing to take a chance on them.
Their current offerings in the cheap smallish car world are ancient, and not in a good way. I believe the Outlander Sport is roughly the same car that it was in 2011, which is a hilariously long time to sell the same economy car. The Eclipse Cross is genuinely hideous. The Mirage isn’t quite as bad as people make it out to be, but it needs a redesign to add some of the cheerfulness that design lacks.
Anyway, if Mitsu brought a version of the Delica here, or if they brought the Lancer or something similar back, I’d give it a shot as a budget alternative. Their current lineup is pretty bad though.
My wife loved her mitsu colt. I would not buy one now. so small a dealer network and way to boring of a product. I would look at a Bronco/Wrangler fighting Montero.
So Lexus is making a three row crossover. Good. So few manufacturers are meeting consumer demand in the CUV market…
If it is a hybrid it would at least be offering something different.
Mitsubishi… in general, no, I would not buy one. But, I don’t have any reason behind it, other than psychological, OH, and they are owned by Nissan. Unfortunately for them, their brand is stuck in my brain behind the memories of a colleague that owned one, and was an ass.
When I was young and DIamond-Star was a thing the Talon/Eclipse twins were the shtuff!, then they had the 3000GT and Stealth, heck yeah!
Then knew a guy with a Montero that drank oil, like a quart every fill up, worked at the Chrysler dealer and they said oh yeah, the valve seals drop, that’s a known issue. And not a recall! Just a pay us and we’ll fix the major flaw in our engine design.
Then I started seeing those sweet Talon/Eclipses not looking too old with grey smoke coming out the exhaust too, so it wasn’t just the Montero engines.
So to me they’re like the Hyundai of automobiles, they look good but don’t run good, and now teamed up with Nissan/Renault, may be a little better but heck no won’t try it. Like how whenever a bell chimes and people say “Hyundai’s better now!”, another engine failure angel gets it’s wings.
our 89 dodge minivan with the 3.0L mitsu motor had that valve drop. Every second it ran it made clouds of blue smoke.
Only matter of time before Mitsu drops a 3000GT cross on us, which will just be a three row version of the eclipse cross as a hybrid with a tiny turbo three and a 30kw electric motor. If they want to compete, they need a halo vehicle, which they no longer have to draw people into the showroom – competing in each segment solely on price is not a great long-term strategy.
Mitsubishi? Not a chance in hell. They make the cheapest econo car, and only CUV/SUV’s. I am not in the market for any of those.
That cheapest econobox was a potentially tempting proposition for shenanigans with a manual, but IIRC, they quit selling the manual Mirage, too.
Mitsu needs to bring back some variety to its lineup that isn’t a dull CUV aimed at the cheapest possible buyer.
I would give you that about the Mirage if it had a manual.
Yeah. It’s really depressing. Mitsubishi used to be great at building enthusiast cars, and now? Nada.
I can’t kill my Lancer and it’s been reliable enough that I’d consider another one, but they don’t make it anymore. Not even the base model. Fun has completely been sapped out of the entire lineup.