Will Mitsubishi Make a Sports Car Again
| Future Cars
Will Future Mitsubishis Expect as Good as the 2022 Outlander?
Nosotros talk with Mitsubishi's blueprint main about the new Outlander, electric cars, the Montero, and a pickup truck.
The new 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander SUV has launched amid positive reviews, raising the prospect this is the start of a long but wearisome crawl back to relevancy for the Japanese automaker that'southward lost much of its luster in North America.
In 2016, Nissan rescued beleaguered Mitsubishi, buying a controlling stake and bringing information technology into the Nissan-Renault Brotherhood. Nosotros were told at the time that Mitsubishi would find its identify as an SUV-centric brand with all-wheel-drive expertise and plug-in hybrid technology to share with the family. Futurity Mitsubishi products would use shared Brotherhood architectures—starting now with the much-improved new 2022 Outlander, which shares underpinnings with the Nissan Rogue.
MotorTrend spent some time with Mitsubishi global design boss Seiji Watanabe. At the 2017 Tokyo auto show, Mitsubishi showed the e-Evolution concept, a crossover showcasing the company'southward future design direction. It is still a vanguard for the new 2022 Outlander, which Watanabe says is the flagship, embodying a more confident design philosophy with a planted stance, sharper hexagonal lines, a raked windshield, and the "dynamic shield" for a grille.
2022 Mitsubishi Outlander Is Kickoff of a New Wave
The Outlander is just the "commencement of the next generation of authentic Mitsubishi [vehicles]," and the "frontrunner of our evolving design strategy," Watanabe says. He started with the vehicle'southward proportions and worked from there to create a bolder Outlander. The SUV'southward more premium interior is also a sign of things to come and reflects the company's want to drag Mitsubishi above its status every bit a value brand.
Still in the pipe is a new version of the Outlander Sport, built on the platform used by the Nissan Kicks, the Nissan Versa, and a new redo of Mitsubishi's Eclipse Cross meaty crossover. Previous plans to introduce the new Outlander Sport next year and add an electrical SUV may have been pushed back, but Watanabe says we volition see an "updated EV vehicle" side by side year. He could be referring to the next-generation Outlander PHEV coming to the U.S.; there is a plug-in hybrid version of the Eclipse Cross in Nihon, only it is not coming to this market. Mitsubishi's showtime pure electric car will be a micro or kei car for Nippon. It has said Mitsubishi will aggrandize its electrified lineup to one-half of its global sales by 2030.
Mitsubishi Is More Than SUVs
Watanabe says Mitsubishi will non be an SUV-only brand—information technology has a meaty pickup truck for other parts of the world and even so sells the 78-hp Mirage hither, in add-on to assorted sizes of SUVs. But don't wait a return of the Eclipse, Evo, or a next-generation Mirage. And although dealers keep clamoring for a pickup, there are no immediate plans to requite Mitsu a truck from the Nissan Frontier platform, built by Nissan in the U.S., which is the just manner it would be feasible. (Watanabe wouldn't shut the book entirely on a pickup, saying Mitsubishi is withal studying the possibility.) The Dodge Dakota-based Raider was the last pickup Mitsubishi offered in the U.South., just the visitor discontinued information technology in 2009.
The designer would not say if he is penning an SUV to revive the Montero proper name; his response to our enquiry: "You tin can imagine." Executives in the past said the Montero will return, but today the prospects await bleak. Montero sales ceased in North America after the 2006 model year, and the global Pajero/Montero is being discontinued this year as part of downsizing thanks to the pandemic's effects on overall sales.
Design Culture in the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Brotherhood
Asked how design works within the Alliance, Watanabe says he talks with Nissan pattern chief Alfonso Albaisa, likewise as the head of Renault design, about future products to ensure each brand keeps its unique image and strengths in terms of looks, technology, and performance. Information is but shared at the blueprint-head level, he says, "to avert a like direction." The Alliance wants commonality and sharing to reduce costs while ensuring each make remains distinct. The 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander has different window angles, silhouette, trunk sides, and cabin from the Rogue. It is also wider and has inverse the placement of its larger 20-inch wheels. Engineers tuned the break differently, also. Simply as much the Outlander has taken a pace in the right direction, Mitsubishi nonetheless has a big chore ahead to testify information technology can deliver a compelling portfolio at whatever price bespeak its next new products aim to slot into.
Source: https://www.motortrend.com/news/2022-mitsubishi-outlander-design-boss-interview/
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