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Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV selling well in Netherlands

Talk about a Dutch treat. Mitsubishi says sales of its Outlander Plug-in Hybrid are brisk in Europe, helped in a big way by plug-in vehicle tax incentives in the Netherlands that are getting more people there to buy the world's first production plug-in hybrid CUV. The Japanese automaker has taken more than 12,000 orders for the model from Europeans and had delivered about 8,200 of them as of the end of last year, all but 200 of which were to the Netherlands. Mitsubishi will start broader sales throughout the continent this year and is also expected to start sales in the US by next year. The company is looking for plug-ins to account for 20 percent of its global sales by the end of the decade. Mitsubishi, which also sells the model in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, hopes to reach an annual production rate of 50,000 Outlander PHEVs by the end of the year. Last August, the company resumed full-scale battery production after shutting things down for a few months for a safety probe stemming from a short-circuiting issue. The Outlander PHEV can run for 32 miles on electric power alone and gets a European-rated 124 miles per gallon. Check out Mitsubishi's press release on its Euro sales below. MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER PHEV CY13 SALES – EUROPEAN INAUGURATION With a plan for EVs and EV-derived PHEVs to represent 20% of its global sales by 2020, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation has set itself an ambitious, yet realistic target. More so in Europe, Mitsubishi Motors' largest market for these technologies. 12,000+ orders / 8,000+ deliveries In this respect, the successful sales launch of Outlander PHEV in Europe – MMC's first plug-in hybrid electric vehicle and forerunner of a wider PHEV range – tends to vindicate the Corporation's objectives. First launched in selected markets (The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland) from October 2013,Outlander PHEV has collected over 12,000 orders in Europe and these have already translated into 8,197 deliveries to end-customers by the end of December, of which 8,009 units for The Netherlands, the latter boosted by a tax scheme favourable to eco-friendly technologies such as low-emission vehicles. With more cars currently on their way to Europe, Mitsubishi Motor Sales Netherlands will soon be able to deliver the 11,000+ orders currently in its books and growing.

The Tesla Model S was the best-selling EV of 2015

According to numbers crunched over at Hybrid Cars, the Tesla Model S was the best selling pure electric vehicle last year with 50,366 deliveries. These numbers might not tell the whole story, since Tesla reports deliveries made in 2015 that might have been sold in a different calendar year, while other makers are tallying sales. However, it's inarguable that the Model S ended up in more worldwide driveways than the second-place Nissan Leaf, which did about 43,000 sales. In the US alone, Leaf sales were down 42.8 percent year-on-year, from 30,200 in 2014 to 17,269 last year, and that decline also increased throughout the year. That marks a great finish to a great start to 2015, when Tesla took the lead in EV sales in the US for the first quarter. On top of that, as of last year the Model S becomes the second-best selling EV ever, with 107,148 deliveries since the middle of 2012. It trails the Nissan Leaf, with well over 200,000 worldwide sales. The Chevrolet Volt/Opel Ampera combo takes a close third, with about 106,000 sales. The Nissan and Chevy rivals both launched at the end of 2010, a 16-month head start on the Tesla. Down the charts, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV which continues to be forbidden fruit for our market notched 39,000 sales. The BYD Qin PHEV sold 31,898 examples in China, and BYD would take the overall victory from Tesla with 58,728 deliveries if you counted all of its EV and PHEV production, such as its electric buses. The BMW i3 nabbed fourth place with 24,057 global sales. In 2011 the Munich automaker said it wanted to sell 30,000 i3s annually by 2014, but by the time the car launched the company considered 15,000 annual sales 'great for now,' so the 2015 number seems a fine place to wind up. Related Video: News Source: Hybrid Cars Green BMW Chevrolet Mitsubishi Nissan Tesla

Yes, the Mitsubishi Evo could become an electrified crossover, but don't panic

By now, many of you have seen that Mitsubishi will reveal a concept with the Evolution name at the Tokyo Motor Show, and it will be an electrified crossover. On the surface, that sounds like heresy when the Evolution name has always stood for an uncompromising, rally-bred, turbocharged sports sedan. But don't jump to the conclusion that this will be a terrible, halfhearted product that ruins the Evo name. It's a smart move for Mitsubishi, it could be the only way we get a performance vehicle from the company, and there's no reason it can't be good. Creating an Evo version of a crossover, or even a standalone Evo model, simply makes the most sense for Mitsubishi right now. There's no sign that people are getting tired of little lifted automobiles, which means that's where the sales and money are. Because of that, crossovers are the only product that Mitsubishi can safely afford to invest in right now. As much as we'd like to see another Evo sedan, the company can't afford to sink a big development budget into a one-off sedan for the very small enthusiast market. Investing in a basic sedan to use as a base isn't a good idea either, since that market also continues to shrink, and it's populated with very competitive models. Those facts won't comfort Mitsubishi fans, but looking at it another way could. Rather than looking at this concept as Evolution blasphemy, consider it a sign that the company wants to make something exciting again. Since most of the news from Mitsubishi has been the discontinuation of really old models, and updates to the less-old models still in the lineup, it's been hard to tell if any of the Mitsubishi that fans loved was left. Look at this crossover as a gateway to getting a fun Mitsubishi again. And this possible future Evo could genuinely be fun. We're not exactly raving fans of crossovers, either, since they're often heavy, expensive, slow and inefficient compared with similarly sized hatchbacks and sedans. But that's not a hard and fast rule. Nissan proved this with the Juke Nismo. Despite its tall body, it had a healthy amount of power and entertaining dynamics. There's no reason Mitsubishi couldn't do the same with a small crossover. It might even be better, because Mitsubishi clearly has some wizards when it comes to weight and cost, as evidenced by the one-ton, ultra-affordable Mitsubishi Mirage. The same goes for electrification.