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Mitsubishi wants a compact pickup for the U.S. market, but won't rush it

A Mitsubishi dealer told Wards Auto last year that "the most requested model at the brand's U.S. dealer meetings is 'a pickup truck, a pickup truck, a pickup truck.'" This month, Mitsubishi North America's COO told Wards that the carmaker has its eye on getting back to the compact pickup segment in the U.S., but that it will take time. "[We'd] have to have one that's the right fit for Mitsubishi," he said, "for our demographic, and something that's really competitive in the market." That wasn't the case with the last compact pickup the brand sold here, the Raider. A product of the Daimler-Chrysler alliance with Mitsubishi at the time, the Raider was a rebadged Dodge Dakota. The pickup sputtered through four years of meager sales, being pulled from the market in 2009. As part of the Renault-Nissan alliance, Mitsubishi's been put in charge of the group's next midsize body-on-frame platform, Automotive News reports. The chassis will underpin the next-gen Mitsubishi Triton (2019 model pictured), Nissan Navara and Renault Alaskan, and if Daimler continues the tie-up with Renault, the next Mercedes X-Class. It sounds like Mitsubishi has already made room for electrification, the COO telling Wards, "you start mixing in some of that electrification technology and these hybrid drivetrains, the aspect of performance is really going to change in the future." The carmaker does very well with its compact Triton pickup, sold in 150 overseas markets under that name as well as L200 and Strada. Wards says LMC Automotive predicts a Triton will come to the U.S. as a 2025 model, but we can't know how similar our model would be to the international model. Our Nissan Frontier, for instance, is not the same as the Frontier sold overseas, the global truck also known as the Navara and NP300. The five-year wait shows Mitsubishi won't be reckless with any new launch now that it has a vision and momentum to protect. The Japanese carmaker has posted sales gains in the U.S. for six straight years. The last two years surpassed 100,000 units, 2018 delivering a 14 percent jump over 2017 in spite of Mitsubishi having just four models on sale here.

Even Consumer Reports is savaging the Mitsubishi Mirage

When we reviewed the 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage a few months ago, we absolutely hated it. Our conclusion was that if you needed a car in this segment to either pay a few hundred dollars more for a Chevy Spark or spend less for an entry-level Nissan Versa. Basically, avoid this Mitsubishi at all costs. It turns out that we weren't the only ones who despised it. Consumer Reports can often find something positive about just about any vehicle, but even the usually gentle publication struggles to find compliments when it comes to the Mirage.
It's most serious gripe concerns the model's handling. CR describes the way that the Mirage wallows around turns with tons of body lean even at low speeds as "scary." A little car with a curb weight of 2,051 pounds just shouldn't corner this poorly.
While Consumer Reports definitely has no love when it comes to the 2014 Mirage, finding something to dislike about practically every aspect of the vehicle from its powertrain to the interior, the reviewers do end up digging out one positive aspect. You'll have to scroll down and watch the video to find out what it is.

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV sales reach 33,000 worldwide

It can be difficult to see from the US, where the Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in Hybrid is not yet available, but the all-wheel drive SUV is a big hit in Europe and Japan. In fact, we learned at the Plug In 2014 Conference in San Jose, CA this week that Mitsubishi has sold over 33,000 copies of the PHEV around the world. The breakdown is that Mitsubishi has delivered 15,000 units in Japan and 18,000 in Europe. Fuminori Kojima, Mitsubishi Motors North America's senior manager of incentives, told AutoblogGreen that the country with the highest sales rate in Europe is Holland, with about 6,000 units sold that thanks in part to generous incentives for plug-in hybrids there. The Euro-spec version on hand in San Jose has three regen levels (the normal D mode, plus B1 and B2). We got to take a spin around the block, but the battery was mostly depleted (it was a popular attraction in the Ride & Drive) and so we were driving on gas. In the gallery from Plug In 2014, you'll note that the Outlander PHEV requires at least 95 octane (RON) unleaded fuel, which is 91 octane (AKI) premium fuel in the US. We don't know what the US version will need, but we've heard it will be "completely different." The Outlander has a 12-kWh battery and should have an EV range of around 30 miles. Whether or not it will have a CHAdeMO fast-charging port in the US is still undecided, as is the question of whether it will have a 3.3 or 6.6 kW onboard charger. The timeline Kojima gave for the Outlander's US arrival was October or November of 2015, since the SUV still needs to be tested and homologated for the US, Kojima said, but the real problem is that Mitsubishi can't build enough. "The battery production capacity is limited," he said. "So that's why, [the] first [focus is the] domestic market and Europe showed more demand." As as an example, he mentioned not only the incentives but also said that the charging infrastructure is more built up in Europe. "We'd like to have it [in the US ] as soon as possible, of course," he said. According to numbers from the European group Transport And Environment (see press release and sales chart below), overall plug-in vehicle sales have been doubling each year since the new breed was introduced in 2010. Last year, almost 50,000 plug-in vehicles were sold in the EU, with the Renault Zoe EV, Outlander PHEV and Volvo V60 Plug-in at the top of the pack.