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Mitsubishi Mi-Tech turbine-PHEV buggy blows the doors off our dreams

TOKYO — For this year's Tokyo Motor Show, Mitsubishi went all out with the Mi-Tech concept. It's a tough-looking open off-roader with a wild hybrid powertrain. It's glorious, which makes it all the more sad it will likely never see the light of day. From the outside, the Mi-Tech impresses with blocky lines and fat fender flares. But its star feature is the fact that it has no roof and no doors. The only thing that comes close is the pair of cowls behind the seats. The inside has a spare design with a body-color dash and cutouts for vents. It does have modern cues such as the piano-key buttons and fullscreen heads-up display. Under the skin, it's powered by four motors, each controlling an individual wheel. This allows it to adjust power precisely in off-road settings. It's a plug-in hybrid, and when the battery runs down, electricity is produced by a turbine engine, similar to the Jaguar C-X75 concept. Mitsubishi opted for the turbine for its high power, small size, smooth operation and the fact it can run on just about any combustible liquid. As much as we love the Mi-Tech, it's obvious it's not going into production anytime soon. Mitsubishi has no car-ready turbine engines, and it would be expensive to make an SUV with no doors, or even removable doors, pass safety standards. And the people that would buy a vehicle like this will probably be satisfied with a Jeep Wrangler or the upcoming Ford Bronco. Oh well, it's at least a pleasant dream, and a sign that Mitsubishi still has some spark.

Subprime financing on the rise in new car sales, leasing too

We all remember the financial crisis that began several years back. At its core was a splurge of subprime lending for housing loans. The housing bubble burst, triggering a collapse of the mortgage-backed securities market. Apparently, those types of loans still exist in the automotive industry, and the market share for these types of "nonprime, subprime, and deep subprime," loans has grown 13.6 percent compared to the third quarter a year ago.
According to an Automotive News report, high-risk lending expanded to 24.8 percent of total loans in Q3, up from 21.9 percent for this time last year. As this level increased, average credit scores of borrowers dropped to 755, down from 763 a year ago. In that time, the average financing amount increased $90 per vehicle, to $25,963.
At 818, Volvo maintains the highest per-owner credit score, while Mitsubishi has the lowest, at 694. The highest rate of borrowers was at Toyota, with 14 percent of the market, followed by Ford with 13.1 percent and Chevrolet at 11.1.

Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes also under diesel emissions scrutiny

The controversy over Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal isn't limited to the US. In Europe, where diesel engines are far more popular, the issue is shining a harsh light on the NEDC emissions test. As already known, the evaluation does a poor job of reflecting real-world production of NOx, and it appears a significant number of automakers are affected. The Guardian in the UK has been reporting on real-world test results from a company called Emissions Analytics. After the latest round of checks, vehicles from Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi were found to generate far more NOx than they should. The newspaper also published similar results for Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Fiat, Volvo, Jeep, Citroen, VW, and Audi. On average, the figures are about four times over the limit of producing the pollutant. Unlike VW and its defeat device, these automakers aren't actually breaking the rules. The vehicles perform up to the NEDC lab test for emissions, but those results simply aren't translated to the street. "The VW issue in the US was purely the trigger which threw light on a slightly different problem in the EU - widespread legal over-emissions," Nick Molden from Emissions Analytics said to The Guardian. A big fight to decide the future of this issue appears to be on the horizon. Automakers claim that they can't meet the next round of tightening emissions regulations and are asking for compromises. Although, spokespeople for Mercedes and Honda told The Guardian that the brands would be in favor of the stricter rules. Meanwhile, some European governments began backtracking their support of diesels well before this scandal came to light. The added scrutiny certain hasn't helped the future of the oil-burner. Related Video: