2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Se, Sportonic Transmission, Navigation!! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Despite missteps, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV a hit in UK

Like a stiff breeze off the White Cliffs of Dover, UK sales of the Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in Hybrid may have the wind at its back. That's because the Japanese automaker isn't charging any extra, relative to the diesel-powered Outlander. And UK's Duxford Auto Group says it's already feeling the positive effects. The auto dealership is conducting about a dozen test drives a day for potential (and curious) customers, Cambridge News says. More tellingly, Duxford Auto is rebooking another dozen or so test drives per weekend day because of pent-up interest. The company hasn't released UK sales figures, Mitsubishi spokesman Dan Irvin told AutoblogGreen, but Duxford Auto says sales will be stronger than expected, especially since the Outlander PHEV is exempt from UK congestion charges. Mitsubishi introduced the Outlander PHEV to the UK this spring. The bonus there was that, inclusive of a UK government grant, the car was priced at the equivalent of about $47,000, or about the same price as the base diesel-powered version. The model, which pairs a 2.0-liter gas engine with an electric motor, has an all-electric range of 32 miles. Mitsubishi ran into problems with the Outlander PHEV in spring 2013 after a battery melted at a Japan dealership, causing the company to halt production on the model. The company later discovered that some of the batteries were short-circuiting due to a flaw in the screening process. Once those issues were solved, Mitsubishi doubled its production rate last year to make up for lost time. Meanwhile, Automotive News reported last month that California regulators will delay sales of the model in that state to late next year or early 2016 because of battery issues. The state, easily the largest US plug-in vehicle market, wants Mitsubishi to include battery-degradation monitors for the car's lithium-ion batteries. Mitsubishi spokesman Alex Fedorak refuted the report that the Outlander PHEV may not be available in the US until 2016. "Launch plans for the US version of the Outlander PHEV remain unchanged with an expected debut of Fall 2015," Fedorak told AutoblogGreen.

Mitsubishi Electric EMirai xS Drive concept revealed ahead of CES 2022

Mitsubishi Electric is showing the latest version of its EMirai concept vehicles. The EMirai series has made recurring appearances at CES, showing off the company's — which is a separate entity from Mitsubishi Motors — latest driving technologies. The newest iteration, whose complete name is the EMirai xS Drive Concept, is scheduled for debut at CES 2022. Past EMirai concepts ("Mirai", like the Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, means "future" in Japanese) have focused on technologies such as driver biometrics and augmented reality to make help alleviate the task of driving. The EMirai xS Drive continues on this theme with two primary advancements. In the realm of biometrics, the concept monitors the the driver with a near-infrared camera to detect their health. It not only checks on drowsiness, but emergency situations where an autonomous intervention may be required. It does this by keeping tabs on the driver's respiration rate and pulse, as well as checking for sudden changes in facial expressions like the closing of eyelids or opening of the mouth. If an emergency is detected, the car will take over and park to prevent accidents. This seems to be geared towards elderly drivers, which tend to live in rural and suburban areas in Japan where public transportation isn't always an option. Mazda recently released a similar technology in Japan as well. The system can also detect passengers, including children, using radio waves. By not relying on a weight sensor embedded in the seat like in some modern vehicles, the system can detect a child even if he or she is hiding in a footwell. The EMirai xS Drive also uses a Mitsubishi Electric High Definition Locator to operate adaptive headlights. Operating in conjunction with the driver monitor above, it turns the headlights to better illuminate the direction where the driver's head is turned, such as a curve or slope ahead. The system also looks for other hazards, like pedestrians who may be crossing a dark road, and uses the adaptive headlights to cast more light on those subjects. It also looks for vehicles approaching from behind, and projects a warning onto the road surface ahead, within the headlight beam spread, so the driver knows what's behind without shifting focus onto a rear-view mirror. It appears, though, whereas past EMirai concepts have been built around an actual show car, the latest evolution is just a four seats and a dashboard in a standalone cockpit.

Weekly Recap: Toyota wants cars to be your 'close friends' around 2020

Toyota confirmed plans this week to launch autonomous technology in its production cars around 2020. The automaker's version is called Highway Teammate, and it's one element of a broader mobility strategy that includes vehicles communicating with each other and the grid. "Toyota believes that interactions between drivers and cars should mirror those between close friends who share a common purpose, sometimes watching over each other and sometimes helping each other out," the company said in a statement. That sounds utopian, and perhaps a bit cheesy, but it's an acknowledgment that autonomous driving requires more than technology developed in a vacuum. Toyota is looking at its research in a broader context, and dubs its overall strategy the Mobility Teammate Concept. Highway Teammate is the first step. Its test vehicle is a modified Lexus GS, which uses road-mapping data and external sensors to merge or exit highways, change lanes, and maintain safe distances during driving. It's operated on the Shuto Expressway in Tokyo. Toyota has been working on autonomous tech since the 1990s, with the goal of providing mobility for older people and the disabled, as well as lowering the frequency of traffic accidents. Toyota's push comes as an early adopter, Nissan, is hedging on its own deadline to implement the autonomous tech by 2020 due to a lack of firm laws governing self-driving cars around the world. Conversely, Volvo took the landmark step of being the first automaker to accept liability for when its cars will operate in autonomous mode, and urged the US government to set federal guidelines to regulate the technology. OTHER NEWS & NOTES 2016 BMW M4 GTS: Your water-injected, turbo-boosted demon BMW is unleashing its most powerful M4 ever, a 493-horsepower special edition that's road legal yet bred for the track. The company is making 700 copies for sale around the world, and 300 of them will come to the United States. The twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter six-cylinder revs to 7,600 rpm and uses a water-injection technology to cool the intake air and lower the compression temperature. BMW says this allows it to wring more power out of the inline six. The car also uses carbon-fiber reinforced plastic for the roof, hood, engine compartment strut brace, drive shaft, and rear spoiler to reduce weight. The M4 features BMW's organic light-emitting diode taillights, which are said to be an industry first.