Mitsubishi News

The long-promised electric revolution appears to have been pushed back, at least for a couple more years, with established brands and Chinese newcomers alike doubling down on big ICE-powered SUVs and utes – some without any electrification at all.

Mitsubishi reveals a sharply-styled new three-row SUV - but is it heading to Oz?

Mitsubishi warns it can't chase Chinese brands on price, and there are other factors buyers should consider.

Mitsubishi warns there's a big market correction coming, and automakers have to act to survive.

Taiwanese cars built in Japan? Foxconn eyes off historic Nissan factory as potential joint-venture.

Mitsubishi's CEO, Shaun Westcott, explained the effect he thinks Australia’s tough new emissions laws will have on the new car market, and why Mitsubishi will continue to stick with its PHEV-heavy strategy.Westcott said there are still significant hurdles to overcome for electric cars despite the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) coming into effect.“Just penalising us is not going to deliver the outcomes we need. The original thinking was that if you penalised us, we’d bring more EVs to the market.”“There’s no shortage of choice, what we lack is positive initiatives. You can give us as many sticks as you like, we need some carrots.”“The bigger challenge with adoption is that we need to have a government which considers the peculiarities of the Australian market. We’re not Norway. We’re not a small country. We don’t have cities that are 40 kilometres apart.”He said even with advancements in battery technology, which may result in vehicles able to travel between Sydney and Melbourne on a single charge, having infrastructure sufficient for the cities was an ongoing issue.“As we sit here today, Adelaide has 52 public fast chargers. 52 for a city of one and a half million people!”Westcott added if Mitsubishi’s number crunching was reflective of the wider market, price hikes could be headed for most brands as they try to keep up with the regulations which have effectively moved Australia from the emissions environment of the 1980s to the strict nature of Euro 6 overnight.He said despite the abundance of options, even at lower price points, Australian consumers still preferred combustion engines overall, which will cause a problem for many manufacturers, and soon.“I think the reality we’re looking at today is a lot of brands have dialled back their EV ambitions because they’ve realised that just bringing the cars to the market, you can fill your showroom with EVs but if nobody buys them you’d have to discount those cars to a point where they will be below the cost of production and that’s happening already just to get people to take them," said Westcott.“OEMs realise that to stay alive you have to sell cars - if Australians aren’t buying the EVs then we have to bring combustion and all the other powertrains to market and that will continue to happen despite the penalties because if the demand isn’t there, you haven’t got a business. It’s simple economics.“Every brand has to cover the cost of those penalties to survive and if customers are only buying single digit (percentages) of EVs - everyone is going to be copping penalties,” he said.Westcott still backs PHEVs in the short term.“We believe this is the correct transition technology. Our customers use their car in pure EV mode 83 per cent of the time," said Westcott.“ our customers have reduced emissions by 83 per cent right here, right now, today, with zero investment in infrastructure.“And if I wanted to do a trip to Melbourne, or Sydney, or across the Nullabor to Perth. It doesn’t matter, the car can do it.”Westcott was also blunt about how he sees the choice to remove the fringe benefits tax exemption, which (along with the original EV exemption) caused a spike in interest for PHEV models, was a political error when it comes to emissions reduction.“Stopping the FBT exemption on PHEVs was a mistake - Look what it did! PHEV Outlander was 20 - 25 per cent of the mix, it worked. It comes back to the carrots and the sticks. If we had a few more carrots it works. Lets do it.”It’s worth noting Mitsubishi has everything to gain by such changes. It currently doesn’t field a fully electric vehicle, with plans to bring in the eK X electric city car shelved after a brief local evaluation program.Plus, some manufacturers with diverse offerings in their line-ups have spoken out in favour of the NVES, as models they currently import from Europe or China already comply with even more stringent regimes in their respective home markets.Chinese manufacturers, meanwhile, are squeezing Mitsubishi on its plug-in hybrid home turf with unprecedented price-tags attached to incoming versions of the Chery Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 PHEV competing on price with combustion Outlanders and undercutting Mitsubishi’s Outlander PHEV by a significant margin.Mitsubishi isn’t alone though. Japanese manufacturers seem to be in particular trouble, as they struggle to adjust to a regulatory environment much more hostile to their historically popular nameplates. Subaru, Isuzu, Mazda, and to some extent, even Toyota will have work to do in the coming years if they want to avoid painful fines under the new laws.

Mitsubishi is currently on a hot streak of reviving classic nameplates for its line-up in Europe.

Chinese carmaker Jaecoo has confirmed its J5 small SUV will go on sale in the United Kingdom paving the way for the small SUV’s entrance to Australia.The J5 looks very much like the J7 mid-sized SUV only smaller, measuring 4.3m in length, and rivalling the Kia Seltos, Mitsubishi ASX and Mazda CX-30.The J5 will debut in the UK with a 1.6-litre turbo-petrol engine and seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.In the UK the five-seater SUV will go on sale in two trim levels: the Pure and the Luxury.Coming standard on the Pure will be a six-speaker stereo, power adjustable front seats and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Stepping up to the Luxury will add a panoramic sunroof, heated and ventilated front seats and wireless phone charging.Jaecoo is the luxury-focussed sub-brand of Chery and currently has two SUVs on sale in Australia - the mid-sized J7 and the J8 large SUV.The J5 will definitely be making its way to Australia as well, but as to when this will happen is unknown. Recently Jaecoo Australia’s Chief Commercial Officer, Roy Munoz, confirmed the J5 is headed to Australia to CarsGuide, but didn't reveal timing.Pricing for the J5 hasn't been announced in the UK nor Australia, but buyers can be certain it will be less than the J7 and the J8.As a guide the J7 starts at $34,990 drive-away and the entry grade J8 is $49,990.Jaecoo doesn't have any electric vehicles on sale currently in Australia with both the J7 and J8 using petrol engines, but the J7 is also available with plug-in hybrid power.Jaecoo is a very new brand to Australia having only arrived in May this year and follows its parent company Chery, which launched its vehicles here in 2023.Currently Chery has several models on sale in Australia including the petrol powered C5 small SUV and its E5 electric twin, while there’s three hybrid SUVs also available: the small Tiggo 4, the mid-sized Tiggo 7 and the large Tiggo 8. 

Which Mitsubishi do you wish would make a comeback? Pajero? Lancer?  Well, Mitsubishi is currently undertaking a massive overhaul of its Australian line-up with several new models to come to fill the gaps. So while they're at it we’ve put together our wishlist of cars they really should really revive or bring here. The changes to the Australian Design rules (ADRs) in March this year meant Mitsubishi had to axe three vehicles from its local lineup.  These were the ASX small SUV, the bigger Eclipse Cross SUV and the Pajero Sport off-roader. This leaves Mitsubishi with just two cars on sale in Australia — the Triton ute and Outlander mid-sized SUV. Meanwhile Toyota has 23 models on sale.Now we're not suggesting that Mitsubishi needs another 21 models, Ford is managing just fine on pretty much the Ranger, Everest and Mustang, but I definitely think there are some essentials the brand could use and a few dream cars while we're at it.Probably the most obvious model Mitsubishi needs right now is the Pajero. Yep once-upon-a-1990s the Toyota Prado and Mitsubishi Pajero wrestled for dominance all over Australia, from the outback to suburbia. The Pajero eventually lost the battle and was axed by Mitsubishi in 2020 … or so we thought! Imagine the comeback. Just when the new generation Prado had arrived and was still gloating, the Pajero could make its return. Sure the Pajero Sport is coming back in 2026, but that’s a Ford Everest rival. The beauty is Mitsubishi could easily plonk another, posher-looking SUV body on the ladder frame and call it the Pajero. And they’ve already got the badges made up. You just just take the “Sport” bit off. Think of the savings.Next on our wish list is not really a car that would sell in high numbers, but it'd be the halo car in many ways the brand needs so badly right now —  a reborn Lancer, and yes, with an Evolution grade as well. Or maybe just a standalone Lancer Evo XI. I think we’re up to XI, I can't remember but I tested the very final one in 2015.Back in the final glory days of Ford Falcon versus Holden Commodore there were two other tribes going to war: Subaru WRX v Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. These days the WRX lives on, but it looks so lonely without the Lancer EVO to play with.Finally, and given the number of grey imports we see of this car, Mitsubishi needs to add the Delica people mover to its Aussie line-up. What’s not to like about a high-riding all-wheel drive six-seater van?A sixth-generation of the people mover is expected in the next two years and whether it looks anything like the futuristic and silly Delica concept Mitsubishi revealed at the 2023 Tokyo Motorshow is yet to be seen.A wishlist for Mitsubishi could go one forever, who wouldn’t want to see the Colt come back, or the Cordia Turbo? Or the 3000GT?In reality the ASX will be back and so too will the Pajero Sport, and that might be all Mitsubishi needs as it faces bigger problems.  Challenges like how on Earth will it adapt to a rapidly changing market that’s been inundated with excellent electric vehicles from brands which hardly existed five years ago. Currently Mitsubishi doesn’t even sell one purely electric vehicle in Australia at all.

The latest Australian new-car sales figures show one clear leader among Chinese brands. GWM could be the first one to crack the top five for year-to-date sales in Australia as it overtakes MG and Isuzu.Japanese and Korean brands along with Ford have dominated for the past decade with their range of utes and SUVs drawing in plenty of buyers.Now manufacturers from China are storming up the sales charts. The original success story was MG, which rapidly fought its way to the top 10 off the back of an appealing array of cars at price points now abandoned by rivals, and a steady supply of new vehicles during COVID-era shortages.MG has now been surpassed by one of the longest-serving Chinese automakers in Australia, GWM.GWM has sold 25,189 new vehicles in Australia through the first six months of this year, which places it just ahead of both MG (21,674) and Isuzu (21,883).This puts it in a solid seventh position in Australia, with something of a gap between it and Mitsubishi in sixth (33,379).Mitsubishi will be looking over its shoulder in the second half of this year with stock of its ASX, Eclipse Cross and Pajero Sport SUVs runs dry, as the Japanese brand awaits new generation vehicles.GWM itself is rapidly being chased down by BYD (23,335), with its rate of growth at 144.6 per cent year-on-year much higher than that of GWM, which is up what would normally be an impressive 17 per cent.The rise of both GWM and BYD is thanks to a rapidly expanded or updated model line-up, which includes in-demand vehicles not being fulfilled by big name players.Both GWM and BYD now offer a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) ute, as well as a range of sharply priced PHEV SUVs (BYD), hybrid SUVs and off-roaders (GWM), and affordable electric cars.MG has languished slightly off the loss of its bargain-basement previous-generation MG3 hatch, ZS small SUV, and HS mid-sizer, which have all been replaced by more expensive new-generation offerings.MG is no doubt hoping its Kluger-rivalling QS large SUV and incoming U9 ute will be major volume additions in the latter part of the year. They will also be joined by the Camry-rivalling MG7 sedan.The next-biggest Chinese challenger, Chery, is also leaping up the sales charts, up an unprecedented 228.8 per cent so far in 2025 thanks to its bargain Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 mid-size SUV pair, and the Tiggo 4 small SUV which seems to have replaced the MG ZS as the bargain entry-level SUV of choice. It is still several thousand units away from a top-10 entry, but will almost certainly be within striking distance in 2026 if its growth continues.The rise of MG, GWM, and BYD has seen Nissan join Subaru as top-10 has-beens.The biggest gap remains between Toyota and the rest, with the 'Big T' still having moved a steady 120,978 units in 2025.