2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse Gt Coupe 2-door 3.0l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2015 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport Quick Spin

The Mitsubishi Outlander Sport is not new. It is also not sporty. Despite it all, the Outlander Sport is selling better than ever. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people take one of these crossovers home each month. That's good for Mitsubishi, a company clinging to life in the US market. But the Outlander's sales are a mere blip; that's about a week's worth of handshakes and signatures on Ford Escapes, at best. Until new product arrives, this is the stuff Mitsubishi has on the ground to sell, and the company has said it's committed to sticking around. That means I got to spend some time recently with a 2015 Outlander Sport SE with AWC (All-Wheel Control – you know, all-wheel drive). There are updates and changes for 2015, including an available 168-horsepower, 2.4-liter engine for ES and GT models, revised CVT, LED running lamps, thicker glass, better sound insulation, and electric power steering. But because I drove an E, I was locked into the 2.0 liter engine. It's the 4B11, a version of the GEMA engine, co-developed with Hyundai and DaimlerChrysler back in the Cretaceous. Driving Notes The most amazing thing I found after a week with the Outlander Sport is that it can bend the laws of physics. This is not a compact crossover so much as it's a time machine. Swing that door shut, and every trip takes place in 2008. Styling is pretty good. There's not a bad line on the Outlander Sport. It sits right on its relatively short wheelbase, and looks good doing it. I had low expectations for the powertrain. Most of my GEMA engine experienced comes from time with the Jeep Compass and Patriot, which are horrific NVH factories. Mitsubishi's version of this engine is more refined, and has a healthy 148 horsepower and 145 pound-feet of torque. The CVT has been revised to mimic the action of a seven-speed transmission. Why bother? The simulacrum doesn't hold. It's the typical 70/30 CVT split: unobtrusive 70 percent of the time, slippy and weird the other 30 percent. That same 70/30 split applies to on-road behavior. Most of the time, the Outlander Sport drives decently. Those other times, it just wants you to chill. Structural rigidity isn't up there with the segment leaders. Road noise is still higher than I'd have liked. This car has the single worst infotainment system I have ever experienced. Totally refused to pair with my phone, ever. This is not an isolated case for a Mitsu with this headunit.

2023 Japan Mobility Show Editors' Picks

No, it's no longer called the Tokyo Motor Show, but the Japan Mobility Show is still in Tokyo and it still has to do with motors. In fact, with the rise of EVs, it's more of a motor show than ever before. And there were an astounding number of motors (and engines) to see, or at least concepts that hypothetically have them. Truly, we haven't seen a turnout this amazing since before the pandemic.  As such, the 2023 Japan Mobility Show featured plenty of machines that could, and did, snag points from our editors. And yet, even with the massive field, one car, unequivocally, stole our hearts. Read on to see our favorites.   Toyota Land Cruiser Se concept View 4 Photos 5. (Tie) Toyota Land Cruiser Se  While this concept is not quite the off-roader that the Land Cruiser is known to be, a street-focused electric SUV seems like a fine fit for the Toyota portfolio. It's hard to imagine we won't see an electric Land Cruiser come to production one day, filling out that as-yet underrepresented three-row EV segment. Give us an even more rugged version, and we'll be happy — Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder   Subaru Sport Mobility Concept View 7 Photos 5. (Tie) Subaru Sport Mobility I'm still waiting for a fun, electric sport coupe, and as much as I enjoy the likes of the rear-drive BRZ, I could have some serious fun in something like this all-wheel-drive Subaru Sport Mobility year round. I could fill that hole in my heart left by my '04 WRX. — Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder   Toyota EPU concept View 4 Photos 4. Toyota EPU You know what I like? Useful, funky little vehicles. The Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz fit that bill well, and it seems a lot of other people like them, too, based on demand. You know what I also like? EVs. You know what combines those two things? The Toyota EPU. Assuming it was priced fairly reasonably (well below $40,000 is what I'm thinking), I would seriously be looking at getting one. I also seriously hope that Toyota's seriously looking at launching this, because it seems like a seriously great package. Seriously. — News Editor Joel Stocksdale   Mitsubishi D:X Concept View 8 Photos 3. Mitsubishi D:X Concept We sure do wish Mitsubishi sold the Delica here in the United States. We've long been fans of the van, which initially was sold in rear-wheel-drive form but adopted four-wheel drive in the early 1980s, and judging by the numbers we see imported to the States, we're not the only ones.

Self-driving Mitsubishis could use adapted missile technology

Mitsubishi is a big company made up of many different divisions and subsidiaries. Yeah, we tend to focus on Mitsubishi Motors, but the sprawling company also manufactures steel, builds televisions – we all knew someone in the 1990s with a hulking Mitsubishi "big screen" – and even screws together fighter jets and the missiles they carry. According to a report from Automotive News Europe, Mitsubishi Motors is hoping to leverage the capabilities of its sister companies to catch up to the competition and get driverless cars on the road by 2020. That means adapting millimeter-wave radars, sensors, and cameras built for missiles to automotive uses. As Mitsubishi sees it, having the development work done on this tech – albeit for a radically different application – gives it a big advantage over the competition. "All we have to do is to put together the components that we already have," Katsumi Adachi, the chief engineer for Mitsu's auto equipment division, told ANE. "None of our competitors have such a wide array of capabilities." As ANE goes on to explain with the help of Tokyo-based IHS analyst Goro Tanamachi, this is no plug-and-play application. That's largely because of the different economics of the automotive and defense industries. In the former, the bean counters have a tremendous say. There are cuts and cost reductions and all sorts of other stuff designed to maximize profit margins. The defense industry, though, is the land of sparing no expense – that, according to Tanamachi-san, could make adapting missile tech to autonomous vehicles a possible, but potentially very pricey proposition. "Cost-cutting requests are much more severe in autos than aerospace," Tanamachi-san told ANE. "I wonder if it's possible for them to bring down the cost of the systems to the levels manufacturers can use for cheap, low-end cars." Related Video: X