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Mitsubishi slashes annual profit forecast on slowing car sales

TOKYO — Mitsubishi Motors on Wednesday cut its full-year profit outlook by 67% as it expects sluggish demand in North America and China will continue, while a strong yen and research and development costs will also hurt the automaker's bottom line. Japan's sixth-largest automaker now expects operating profit to come in at 30.0 billion yen in the year to March, down from a previous forecast for 90.0 billion yen. The new outlook would be Mitsubishi's lowest profit since the year ended March 2017. The downgrade comes after Mitsubishi, in which Nissan holds a controlling stake, reported a 78% plunge in operating profit during the July-September quarter to 6.3 billion yen, lower than a mean forecast for 16.26 billion yen from analysts polled by Refinitiv. It joins a growing number of Japanese automakers which are bracing for lower profitability. Earlier on Wednesday, Subaru lowered its annual profit forecast due to a stronger yen and a cut in domestic output due to a major typhoon last month. Mazda and Suzuki have also cut their respective outlooks within the past month due to slowing demand for their cars. Earnings/Financials Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross will be crossing over to the US sometime in the fall

Here it is, Mitsubishi's latest effort to take a piece of the CUV pie, the Eclipse Cross. The crossover makes its official debut at the Geneva Show, and it looks just aggressive enough to be unique, but not so strange that it will scare away the average buyer. Most interesting are the aggressive cues cribbed from the XR-PHEV II Concept, like the forward-raked rear hatch, chunky rear fenders, and deep crease along the side. However, the shape is still clearly crossover, and the nose isn't too radical. In fact, it may be the most attractive version of Mitsubishi's shield grille yet. Interestingly, the Eclipse Cross is within an inch or two size-wise compared with the existing Outlander Sport, though this should change down the road when a newer, smaller Outlander Sport is introduced. The interior follows a similar theme to the exterior. The most striking aspect is the center stack, which slants downward toward the shifter and juts out over the climate control buttons. But everything is finished in simple, inoffensive black and aluminum-look trim. The sliding and reclining rear seats should be useful for comfort and cargo space. Next to the shifter is a touch-pad that looks extremely similar to the pad Lexus uses for its systems. A couple of our editors find the Lexus version to be rather awful, so hopefully Mitsubishi has refined and improved it. As a back-up, you can simply use the touch screen perched atop the dash, which may be more handy for using the car's default user interface, or the supported Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Also on the dash is a pop-up heads-up display similar to that in current Mazdas. View 11 Photos One big selling point for the Eclipse Cross is its standard all-wheel drive. There is also just one engine and one transmission. Power comes from a turbocharged 1.5-liter gasoline inline-four, and it's channeled through a CVT with 8 ratios that can be manually shifted. Mitsubishi has yet to announce output for the four-pot. Other markets will have the option of a 2.2-liter turbocharged diesel four-cylinder with an 8-speed automatic, but it won't make the trip to the States. Europe will be the first to get the Eclipse Cross, where it will show up at dealers this fall. Afterward, it will arrive in other markets, including the US. So expect it to appear sometime at the end of this year, or possibly the start of next year. Pricing has not been announced yet. Related Video:

Ghosn flight prompts renewed focus on Japan's strict justice system

TOKYO — Carlos Ghosn's daring flight from Japan, where he was awaiting trial on charges of financial wrongdoing, has revived global criticism of the nation's "hostage justice," but in Japan is prompting talk of reversing more lenient curbs on defendants. The ousted boss of Japan's Nissan and France's Renault fled to Lebanon, saying on Tuesday that he had "escaped injustice" and would "no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system." Ghosn was first arrested in November 2018 when his private jet landed in Tokyo and kept in jail for more than 100 days as prosecutors added more charges, all of which he has denied. He was released on $9 million bail in March — only to be arrested and bailed again the following month. He was facing four charges, including underreporting his Nissan salary and transferring personal financial losses to his employer's books while he ran Japan's No. 2 automaker. His apparent escape from Japan's legal system — Tokyo and Lebanon don't have an extradition treaty — will likely halt or even reverse a trend of recent years toward granting bail in more cases, said Colin Jones, a law professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto. “I would expect it to be more difficult for foreign defendants to get bail,” Jones said. In Japan, suspects who deny the charges against them are often detained for long periods and subject to intense questioning without a lawyer present, a system critics call "hostage justice." Japanese civil rights groups and the main bar lawyers association have long criticized a system that convicts 99.9% of criminal defendants. They say it gives too much power to prosecutors, who can detain suspects for long periods before indictment, and relies too much on confessions, some later found to have been forced and false. Ghosn's escape is clearly a shock to Japan's legal establishment. "This case raises the extremely serious issue of whether it's all right to continue the trend toward bail leniency," said former prosecutor Yasuyuki Takai. "The legal profession and lawmakers need to quickly consider new legal measures or a system to prevent such escapes," Takai, who was formerly with the special investigation unit of the prosecutor's office, told public broadcaster NHK.