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2018 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport gets a mild makeover

While we wait for the upcoming Eclipse Cross and the Outlander Sport's smaller successor, Mitsubishi is doing everything it can to keep the current, aging Outlander Sport relevant. The latest move is a mild refresh inside and out. The company is also offering a new option package. All 2018 Outlander Sports receive slightly tweaked front and rear fascias. Up front, the most significant change is the addition of LED daytime running lights inset of each fog light. Just below them are new air inlets. The main grille with the Mitsubishi logo also now features two slim chrome bars. At the back, the rear bumper has a new faux skid plate in the center. On each flank are more angular reflectors. Inside, Mitsubishi says the center console and shift lever have been redesigned. More importantly, the Outlander Sport now has a 7-inch infotainment display that comes with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There's also a new Touring Package option. It adds a panoramic sunroof, some tweaks to make the car quieter and more refined, and safety features including forward collision mitigation, land departure warning, automatic high beam headlights, and a rear camera. The updated Outlander Sport will arrive at dealers this fall, but pricing has yet to be announced. Related Video:

Mitsubishi has 6 all-new models in the works, plus 5 redesigns

Mitsubishi has revealed its plans for the next three years, and they're all focused on expansion. The company wants to improve unit sales and revenue by 30 percent, which would have it selling 1.3 million cars worldwide. It also plans to improve profit margins from 0.3 percent to 6 percent. This will entail an investment of nearly $5.3 billion. To do this, the company will work on reducing development and manufacturing costs and concentrating on improving in existing markets. But the most interesting part for consumers and enthusiasts: its expanding product plans. Mitsubishi says it will have 11 new model launches over the three-year expansion period. Of these models, six of them are completely new, and the other five will be significant updates and redesigns of existing models. Two of the new vehicles have been shown already including the Eclipse Cross, a compact crossover we'll get in America, and the Xpander (shown below), a minivan-type thing that won't come to the States. The addition of redesigned and new models should be great news for Mitsubishi dealers, especially in America where the company only offers two flavors of aging Outlander, and the bargain-basement Mirage. Fans of Mitsubishi cars might not have much to be excited for, though, since the company says it will be focusing on SUVs and trucks. In fact, it expects that its five best-selling models and 70 percent of its sales will be SUVs, trucks, and plug-in hybrids. If we had to guess what the next four Mitsubishi models could be, we imagine that at least one of them will be some type of full-size crossover. Something sized similarly to the foreign-market Pajero SUV, but designed for pavement pounding. This would especially make sense given other companies entering that space such as VW with the Atlas, and Subaru with its Ascent. As for the three other slots, it's harder to guess. The future Outlander will grow, and the Outlander Sport will shrink, so Mitsubishi will have its midsize and subcompact bases covered, and with a hypothetical full-size crossover, it would have a full line. Those three other slots could be cars, or perhaps specialty crossovers, maybe even a sporty one based on the e-Evolution. But they could also be vehicles aimed at other regions in segments that don't really exist in the U.S. For instance, they could include new microcars for Japan's Kei class of vehicles, or possibly ultra-bare bones, low-cost compacts for Southeast Asia, India and China. Related Video:

Self-driving Mitsubishis could use adapted missile technology

Mitsubishi is a big company made up of many different divisions and subsidiaries. Yeah, we tend to focus on Mitsubishi Motors, but the sprawling company also manufactures steel, builds televisions – we all knew someone in the 1990s with a hulking Mitsubishi "big screen" – and even screws together fighter jets and the missiles they carry. According to a report from Automotive News Europe, Mitsubishi Motors is hoping to leverage the capabilities of its sister companies to catch up to the competition and get driverless cars on the road by 2020. That means adapting millimeter-wave radars, sensors, and cameras built for missiles to automotive uses. As Mitsubishi sees it, having the development work done on this tech – albeit for a radically different application – gives it a big advantage over the competition. "All we have to do is to put together the components that we already have," Katsumi Adachi, the chief engineer for Mitsu's auto equipment division, told ANE. "None of our competitors have such a wide array of capabilities." As ANE goes on to explain with the help of Tokyo-based IHS analyst Goro Tanamachi, this is no plug-and-play application. That's largely because of the different economics of the automotive and defense industries. In the former, the bean counters have a tremendous say. There are cuts and cost reductions and all sorts of other stuff designed to maximize profit margins. The defense industry, though, is the land of sparing no expense – that, according to Tanamachi-san, could make adapting missile tech to autonomous vehicles a possible, but potentially very pricey proposition. "Cost-cutting requests are much more severe in autos than aerospace," Tanamachi-san told ANE. "I wonder if it's possible for them to bring down the cost of the systems to the levels manufacturers can use for cheap, low-end cars." Related Video: X