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Bruce Newton27 Mar 2014
NEWS

Hybrids a hard sell for Mitsubishi

Dealer wary of Outlander PHEV because of i-MiEV, Leaf and Volt
While Mitsubishi in Japan is hyping the global sales potential of hybrids and electric vehicles, its Australian division has revealed selling the new plug-in Outlander PHEV to its dealer body – let alone the public - has proved a hard task.
The petrol-electric hybrid Outlander has just gone on sale in Australia with a $47,490 starting price and a claimed fuel consumption rate of just 1.9L/100km.
It is the first plug-in SUV globally and signals the start of a Mitsubishi roll-out of plug-in and orthodox hybrids over the next few years that will include the next generation ASX, Pajero, Triton and Challenger and a high-performance Evo hybrid.
All up, Mitsubishi plans for hybrids and electric vehicles to account for 20 per cent of its global sales by 2020.
In Australia, however, that appears at least optimistic given the minimal sales penetration of hybrids and the almost non-existent interest in electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf, Holden's range extender Volt and Mitsubishi's own i-MiEV.
In fact, it's those three vehicles that have prompted dealers to be so negative about the Outlander, admitted Mitsubishi Motors Australia marketing executive director Tony Principe.
"The reality is the network is very negative because of the Nissan Leaf, the Holden Volt and our own i-MiEV. Their experiences have not been great.
"The Australian consumer is not prepared to pay for that technology.
"Our dealers are multi-franchise and all they ever tell us about is the Volt, the Leaf. And they just keep telling us 'we have all these problems and you want to bring in this other one'. We have had to say 'look guys this is different, we are going to put it here and we are going to hold it here. Trust us'."
To win the dealers over, Principe said a guarantee that launch pricing would hold for at least 12 months was extracted from Mitsubishi Japan. It has also gained guaranteed supply, albeit constrained by the limits of lithium-ion battery pack production and high demand in other markets where subsidies are applied to green vehicles.
The Outlander PHEV is initially rolling into 70 predominantly metropolitan Mitsubishi dealers, but eventually the entire 200-strong network will have access to the car. Its launch will be backed up by a strong media launch campaign emphasising its startling claimed fuel economy.
MMAL is hoping the PHEV will act as a brand statement, luring potential customers into showrooms and act as a trigger for higher sales of conventional petrol and turbo-diesel Outlanders as well.
"So we have good price, we have a reasonable supply and we think we have made the network understand this is the future and eventually this technology will be in every car and will help the brand and will be able to expand the volume base," said Principe.
"It means for them [dealers] investment, because they have to invest in new technology too. They have got to be able to service these cars; they have to train their technicians and all that kind of stuff."
Meanwhile, the $48,800 i-MiEV electric car has disappeared from Mitsubishi's VFACTS sales listing, although the company insists it is still on-sale.
"It is still officially on sale," Principe insisted. "It gets back to the battery situation. Obviously for us we'd rather all the batteries went into PHEV.
"The pricing of i-MiEV we obviously need to review because it is still sitting up at that high end and the Leaf has come down [to $39,990] and we need to be thinking about that. But right now it is a moot point because battery supplies are limited and we have told them all available batteries should go into PHEVs."
Twelve months ago MMA reacted crossly to reports in various automotive media including motoring.com.au that lack of demand meant the i-MiEV was effectively going off-sale.
"We haven't ordered any for a while," Principe confirmed.
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