Mitsubishi Motors North America executive vice president Don Swearingen has again confirmed the Outlander Plug-in Hybrid is coming to the USA in the first quarter of 2016.
After that, with no specific dates given, Mitsubishi will bring the plug-in hybrid version of the smaller Outlander Sport Plug-in Hybrid (called the ASX PHEV in some markets).
The technology in the plug-in hybrid will make the vehicles more expensive, but according to Swearingen, it won’t be “prohibitively expensive.”
“Clearly Mitsubishi is a smaller company so we have to do the business case on every model and it must show a value offer for our customers, a profit for us and our dealers, and if the business model doesn’t show that we’re not going to bring it to the US.”
“We cannot have a failure,” he said. “We have to make sure we study the market, we bring out competitive price vehicles that offer a value proposition, but also in a segment that we think there’s enough volume.” SInce no other automaker currently offers a plug-in hybrid vehicle in the CUV category, the ASX Plug-in Hybrid could fill a market gap.
