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If you want a Mitsubishi Evolution, you’d best hit up your dealership in the semi-near future. As The Truth About Cars reports, the current Evo X will be the last of the line. Despite rumors that an Evo XI was under development (featuring a hybrid or turbo-diesel drivetrain), Mitsubishi’s global product director, Gayu, Eusegi, says that’s not the case. In an interview with Britain’s Autocar, Eusegi was quoted as saying, “There is still demand (for the Evolution series), but we must stop. Our influence now is EV technology.” In other words, there’s been a paradigm shift at the Japanese automaker, who will now focus on developing and launching some eight electric or hybrid cars in the next four years.
The shift away from performance and racing to embrace green technology was one of the reasons why Mitsubishi shuttered Ralliart and abandoned the WRC. In Eusegi’s words, customers would find it easier to understand the brand’s change in direction if they were no longer involved in world-class motorsport competition. One thing is certain: whatever strategy (or lack thereof) they’d been using for the US market wasn’t working. I seriously doubt that taking on cars like the Toyota Prius or the Nissan Leaf is a sound business plan, but at least it gives the struggling automaker a direction, something they’ve lacked in the U.S. market for quite some time.
Source: Autocar, via The Truth About Cars
WHAT THE HELL MITSUBISHI!? ARE YOU GOING FULL HIPPY? You just possibly signed your death warrant……..
They are throwing away by far the best thing they have going for them. To me, the evo is pretty much their only source of credibility at this point. Arg
Way to kill your cash cow there, Mitsu.
Mitsu performance has been their saving grace… look at what happened to Toyota… they make boring ass cars that lack performance….
So, the only car that actually sells off Mitsubishi’s lots is about to be canceled? That’s like GM not making trucks. Just dumb.
This actually seems like it should be a crime. Someone should definitely stop it from happening.
I agree with all of you, but I also understand Mitsubishi’s decision. Mitsubishi sells mostly Evos and sport utes in the United States; I don’t know what their Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) is, but I’ll bet they can’t hit the 2012 requirement of 31.7 MPG with their current product mix. It gets worse from here, since they’d have to achieve 35 MPG by 2014 and 39 MPG by 2016. The EU has similar requirements, although most are driven by CO2 emission and not by actual fuel economy. To stay alive as a company, Mitsubishi sees building boring-but-green cars as their best alternative.
Get used to it, because the Mitsubishi Evo won’t be the last performance icon sacrificed at the altar of fuel economy.
Well I guess this is excellent news for Mitsu’s long time rival Subaru!