Mitsubishi Admits It Can't Go It Alone on EVs, Relies on Partnerships and Badge-Engineered Models

Mitsubishi Motors has acknowledged it currently lacks sufficient funds to independently develop a new electric vehicle (EV). Its latest model, the Eclipse Sportback, is not an in-house development but rather a rebadged version of the Nissan Leaf. At the company’s annual general meeting on June 18, Mitsubishi CEO Takao Kato stated that developing a battery-electric vehicle from scratch requires massive investment, and with the global EV market’s growth slowing, weaker-than-expected sales could severely impact the company’s operations. In contrast, Honda recently canceled its planned “0 Series” EV lineup before launch and incurred approximately $16 billion in restructuring costs. Mitsubishi forecasts global sales of 884,000 vehicles in 2025—far below Honda’s projected 3.396 million units for the same period—highlighting its comparatively limited resilience to market risks. Mitsubishi plans to introduce another EV later this year, to be manufactured by Foxconn in Taiwan and primarily targeted at neighboring markets such as Japan and Australia, with no current plans to enter the U.S. market. Its currently available all-electric Eclipse Cross also uses a non-proprietary platform—it is a rebadged version of the Renault Megane E-Tech. Mitsubishi was among the earliest automakers to enter the EV space, launching the i-MiEV in 2009. However, it never introduced a second-generation model, and its other small EVs sold in Japan have never been offered in the U.S. In recent years, Mitsubishi has largely relied on the Outlander—based on the Nissan X-Trail—and its plug-in hybrid (PHEV) variant to sustain its electrification strategy. Notably, Nissan has recently rebadged the Outlander PHEV as the X-Trail PHEV, establishing a two-way badge-engineering partnership between the two companies.