DESPITE being one of many oldest automobiles on sale, the Mitsubishi ASX nonetheless finds loads of love from customers because the model’s third most-popular automobile behind the Triton and Outlander – however a smaller, all-electric alternative looms on the horizon.
Time and market expectations will watch for no man – or SUV. A alternative for the ASX will sometime come, with two potential candidates just lately rising to the floor within the form of Mitsubishi’s personal XFC idea and the 4Ever Trophy idea from Mitsubishi’s alliance companion Renault.
Up to now this yr the ASX has racked up almost double the gross sales of its fresher-faced sibling, the Eclipse Cross. It’s also the fourth most-popular small SUV in Australia, sitting simply behind the Hyundai Kona, Mazda CX-30 and MG ZS.
If both of its two potential replacements have been to eventuate, it could mark a large shift for the ASX, shifting it down from the small SUV section the place it presently sits, to the mild SUV class the place it could battle rivals just like the Toyota Yaris Cross, Mazda CX-3, Hyundai Venue and Kia Stonic.
A retrograde step? From some viewpoints maybe, however it could allow two issues for Mitsubishi; extra room for the a lot newer Eclipse Cross to broaden its vary and worth window, whereas introducing the opportunity of an all-electric SUV successor to the pioneering iMiEV for the Japanese model.
Talking with GoAuto in Japan, Mitsubishi’s head of EV powertrain engineering Takashi Shirakawa stated that whereas automobiles from the C section and bigger made extra sense as plug-in hybrids from a CO2 discount viewpoint (when taking whole lifecycle emissions into consideration), automobiles within the B section and beneath would ship better environmental advantages by going to full electrical propulsion utilizing present-day tech.
The logic is that B-segment automobiles are lighter, require much less vitality to be carried to realize a helpful vary and deplete fewer sources of their manufacture (and thus emit much less CO2 throughout that part).
Each the XFC Idea and 4Ever Trophy idea characterize B-segment compact SUVs, and whereas the previous can be provided with inner combustion energy (and an eventual electrified powertrain), the latter can be strictly electrical.
This opens up the potential for Mitsubishi to do because it has finished with the Captur in Europe and rebadge the Renault 4 (which is the title the 4Ever Trophy will put on as soon as it enters manufacturing) for the European market, permitting it to benefit from that area’s low-CO2 vitality infrastructure and cater to European demand for electrical automobiles.
In parallel, the XFC would see service in different elements of the world the place energy technology is simply too soiled for an EV to make environmental sense, with a plug-in hybrid variant for markets which might be someplace in between – like Australia.
Mr Shirakawa additionally talked about that B-segment automobiles might even skip the PHEV stage altogether, their extra compact packaging presenting challenges when making an attempt to cram a combustion engine, battery, electrical motor and charging {hardware} collectively.
When unveiling the XFC Idea, Mitsubishi Motors president and CEO Takao Kato stated that whereas the compact SUV can be initially provided in South East Asian markets, “we hope to develop the mannequin from a automobile for the ASEAN market to a world strategic automobile”.
