Mitsubishi Motors is officially putting its business in China on hold and dismissing personnel, The Japan Times reports quoting the automaker’s latest memorandum. Poor sales over the past few years had hurt the company’s standing in the country and prompted a major revision of its portfolio.
Mitsubishi stated that its business was dealt a heavy blow by China moving from ICE cars onto EVs. The Japanese classic automaker had continued to rely on its staple products such as petrol SUVs and crossovers until recently, ignoring the trends, and ended up plunging much deeper than anticipated.
Moving on, the company plans to re-enter the market in China with NEV offerings. NEW stands for ‘new energy vehicles’ and denotes all vehicles with innovative powertrains, including hybrid-electric, battery-electric and hydrogen. Just when it may happen remains unannounced.
The Japan Times points out that Mitsubishi has been slow with introducing electric cars in China and wound up losing the market to the likes of Tesla and BYD. Its only current EV on the PRC market is Airtrek, a crossover SUV introduced a couple of years ago (in the gallery and the video below). Even that one was not a full-fledged Mitsubishi product, but a lazily rebadged GAC Aion V.