Although the US automotive sales could have been better during the year's second quarter, most carmakers thrived – especially the Asian ones. Bar one, of course.
It's interesting to note some of the conundrums. General Motors, for example, barely kept its pace ahead of Toyota with a 0.4% dip while the runner-up rose more than 14%, and now, there are a little more than 103k sales between them. Stellantis, on the other hand, dropped 21% during the second quarter and didn't even announce the H1 sales, while Ford kept its lead in very important positions like the full-size and compact pickup truck segments.
One Asian carmaker, though, even though it reported a 12.3% rise compared to the first six months of 2023, was a mere shadow of a shadow of its former self. We are talking about Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA), which closed the first six months of the year with "strong" sales of just 51,130 units! All others – Mazda, especially Subaru, Nissan, or Honda – did better, not to mention Hyundai or Kia.
Seriously, it's quite a shame that Mitsubishi – once a brave automaker that fought on equal footing against Subie – is now relegated to the corner while the witty rivals from Subaru nail a lower six percent increase but have a total of 322,443 deliveries during H1! It's all in the model's mix, of course, where Mitsubishi sells useless stuff like the Mirage models or the Eclipse Cross, not to mention the ultra-old Outlander Sport. Alone, the regular Outlander and Outlander PHEV can't ensure the brand's survival forever, right?
Mitsubishi announced the Momentum 2030 five-year business plan for America, and it will finally unveil some new models in the North American region. However, some people believe they don't even have to innovate much in order to regain a solid foothold – and, of course, the parallel universes of vehicular CGI have suggestions.
More precisely, someone dwelling across the imaginative realm of digital car content creators – the virtual artist better known as Theottle on social media, has recently resorted to CGI slicing and dicing the Nissan Evo concept into a new Mitsubishi Lancer. The pixel master emphasizes the fact that he didn't envision the Evolution model here, which is the equivalent of Toyota's GR or Honda's Type R – but rather a rightful rival for the best-selling Toyota Corolla sedan and latest Honda Civic four-door. Funnily enough, his starting template was a concept from Nissan called Evo, which was then treated in the latest behind-the-scenes making-off video to the front fascia of the Renault Clio and some Mitsubishi DNA around the back.
Well, the result is not bad at all – this time around, the combination of Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi works like a charm rather than a bad dream. Unfortunately, it's all wishful thinking!
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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