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It's nice to know that there are places in the world where there are enough i-MiEVs to write a ditty about them.

Rather pointless exercise here in the U.S., I'm afraid - nobody'd have any idea what you're talking about.

I really hope that's going to change this summer - (re-?)welcome the 2014 (2015?) i-MiEV to North America!
 
It's not that Mitsu is having trouble selling iMiEV's - They're having trouble selling cars PERIOD.

In North America for CY 2013 they sold 1,184 iMiEV's out of a total sales of just 57,000 cars - About 2% of all sales were iMiEV's

Nissan for North America on the other hand sold about 20,000 Leafs out of a total sales or over 1 million cars, so Leaf sales were . . . . also 2% of production

Don
 
You would think Mitsubishi would have sold more than that. I see Lancers and Outlanders everywhere. The Outlander Sport is barely bigger than the i-MiEV.

Although lately, they have been hitting hard with commercials for the Outlander. Dropping the Galant and Eclipse was a bad idea.
 
Now that the thread has been thoroughly derailed....

NADA says Mitsubishi has 400 dealerships, Nissan 1,057. Further, not all Mitsubishi dealers are certified for the i-MiEV. Additionally, Mitsubishi and other manufacturers are having difficulty obtaining sufficient numbers of battery cells. Many people complain that Mitsubishi isn't doing enough to market the car, but there's little sense in advertising something you can't produce in quantity. If you do, you end up like Toyota in 2004 when the Prius was "Car of the Year" and 8-month waiting lists were common.

http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/mitsubishi-i-miev-sales-figures.html
Interestingly enough, January @ 257 and February @ 337 were the biggest sales and lease months in 2013 for the i-MiEV in the US. IIRC these were before the $10k dealer deduction, but reflected a lowering of the monthly lease rate. Dwindling supply of the 2012s slowly took its toll after the April-May price cut. 6000 units per year in the US seems easily possible at the new, lower MSRP.

Mitsubishi took a big hit, but has been recovering. Still, they're relatively small. 20,000 units a year for any model would be wildly successful for them.
 
Again (on the de-railed thread), Mitsubishi is going to miss a great chance to beat the competition on a perfect vehicle for the US. That would be the Outlander plug-in. This would be a SUV that I would buy today if they would sell it in the US ! But like the I-MiEV that could have been brought to market before any other viable BEV, they waited until after the LEAF came on the market and then tried to sell the I-MiEV at the same price point. The Outlander has no current competition in the US---but might by the time they get it here. I really don't think Mitsubishi cares if it survives or not in the US market. It's a telling thing about the US economy that any manufacturer would release a product in another country without releasing a similar product in the US let alone not releasing it in the US for at least two years after it became available in foreign countries. BTW---this includes some US manufacturers who are selling in China first--GM anyone?
 
Japanese manufacturers routinely take care of the "home market" first with US deliveries being years behind. Look at the first model Prius sedan, which came out in Japan in 1997 but wasn't introduced in the US market by Toyota until MY 2001. Further complicating Mitsubishi's production is the fact that the NA standard i-MiEV is, in effect, a separate car than the i-MiEV for the rest of the world. Japanese manufacturers also have to deal with the right-hand/left-hand drive switch. Manufacture of PHEVs and BEVs distant from their battery suppliers doesn't seem economically feasible. One of the reasons Toyota didn't start manufacturing the Prius in their Blue Springs (Tupelo), Mississippi factory was the lack of immediate access to batteries. The other issue is currency exchange rates. Toyota moved Corolla production to the US instead when the exchange rate and rising transportation costs made it unprofitable to ship them from Japan to the US. But as the old retail saying goes, "Sales cure all evils."
 
siai47 said:
But like the I-MiEV that could have been brought to market before any other viable BEV, they waited until after the LEAF came on the market and then tried to sell the I-MiEV at the same price point. The Outlander [PHEV] has no current competition in the US---but might by the time they get it here. I really don't think Mitsubishi cares if it survives or not in the US market.
I've been kind of wondering about that myself, but this reference from another thread suggests Mitsubishi wants to be here and thinks it's important:

http://www.autonews.com/article/20131216/OEM02/312169989/mitsubishi-chief-automakers-growth-starts-now#axzz2ojHnP6T2

PV1 said:
You would think Mitsubishi would have sold more than that. I see Lancers and Outlanders everywhere. ....Although lately, they have been hitting hard with commercials for the Outlander. Dropping the Galant and Eclipse
was a bad idea.
Again going back to the Masuko interview, it's clear that Mitsubishi sees itself as a niche player, and has decided that niche is going to be SUV/CUV with distinctive electrification options. Seen in that light, the i-MiEV has mainly been important as a test mule for components that are getting their first "true" outing in the Outlander-PHEV - and it's a huge hit!

As for the Galant, it was just no longer competitive in a very tough segment at the heart of the market. Many reviewers dubbed it the worst car in its class, not because of any particular faults, but because it had fallen behind years of improvements by everyone else.

The Eclipse had its fans, but honestly hasn't been all that interesting since switching to the chopped Galant chassis; without the Galant in production to provide scale, the Eclipse was no longer viable. Masuko makes pretty clear that Mitsu sees sports cars as a niche where they just don't have any competitive advantage and can't afford to divert resources.

I think the good news in all this is that Mitsu really wants to stay alive in this market, despite limited resources. We've seen the effects of a few years of house cleaning, but new product is coming online and things may look very different in the next few years, especially as the Nissan alliance bears fruit. On the other hand, they also seem quite realistic on the role they can expect to play given their size and capabilities. The business might be good enough to keep running, but not strong enough to fetch a decent price in an over-capacity industry, so Masuko et al are partnering and maneuvering to take advantage of what strengths they still have. The Outlander-PHEV is the clearest evidence we have of what's possible for them. I just hope they can work through their battery supply problems and get that car here before it's too late.
 
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