2008 - Mitsubishi Lancer on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution will live through 2015

If it were only so easy for humans. Mitsubishi has extended the life of the Lancer Evolution X by at least a year. An MMNA spokesperson tells AutoGuide that it is "committed to introducing the 2015 model year Lancer Evolution," noting that production for said models will begin in July. This gives us a year of clarity about the future of a model whose future blinks in and out of existence quicker than a boson particle.
As far as we can tell, the Evo as we know it is definitely going to die, the question is when. In March, Mitsubishi said it "does not have any plans to design a successor with the current concept, as a high-performance four-wheel drive gasoline-powered sedan." What is rumored to fill the hole left by the Evo might or might not be a linear descendent, but is expected to be some kind of hybridized high-performance model about which much has been speculated.
MMNA PR manager Alex Fedorak told Autoblog, "Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) is committed to introducing the 2015 model year Lancer Evolution in the U.S. Production of North American-specification Lancer Evolution models for the 2015 model year will commence in July 2014." Our previous advice still stands, however, even with the extension: If you want one, get an Evo while you can.

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

French investigators will question Carlos Ghosn in Lebanon

BEIRUT — A team of French investigators will come to Beirut next month to participate in interrogating former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn, a Lebanese justice ministry official said Saturday. The official gave no specific date or details of what information the investigators would seek from Ghosn. Former auto executive Ghosn, who is a Lebanese, Brazilian and French national, fled Japan in a dramatic escape that drew headlines last year, arriving in Lebanon on Dec. 30, 2019. In addition to his trial in Japan, the 66-year-old businessman is facing a number of legal challenges in France, including tax evasion and alleged money laundering, fraud and misuse of company assets while at the helm of the Renault-Nissan alliance. The Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the French investigators would be working alongside their Lebanese counterparts. Information about investigations is secret under French law, and French judicial officials did not respond to requests for comment Saturday on the report. After leading the Japanese automaker Nissan for two decades, Ghosn was arrested in Japan in November 2018 on charges of breach of trust, misusing company assets for personal gains and violating securities laws by not fully disclosing his compensation. He denied wrongdoing and fled Japan while out on bail awaiting trial. He is unlikely to be extradited from Lebanon, where he has been since last year. At least two Ghosn-related investigations were opened in France. One focused on suspicious transactions between Renault and a distributor in Oman, as well as suspected payments for private trips and events paid by Renault-NissanÂ’s Netherlands-based holding company RNBV. Another investigation focused on suspected misuse of company funds for a party for Ghosn at Versailles. The French inquiry aims to determine who is at fault for a string of alleged financial violations between 2009 and 2020. That includes “suspicious financial flows” between Renault and the SBA car dealership in Oman. This aspect of the inquiry is targeting several million euros of travel and other costs paid by the Netherlands-based Renault-Nissan holding RNBV but suspected to have been for GhosnÂ’s personal use. GhosnÂ’s French lawyers have said the payments to SBA were “justified bonuses” for having boosted car sales in the Persian Gulf and denied allegations that the funds benefited Ghosn or his family personally.