Mitsubishi may soon be a brand of the past in the UK, sadly, but the company has just announced its Outlander PHEV is the second best-selling plug-in hybrid in the UK. According to the company, 2662 Outlander PHEVs have left forecourts in the UK so far, second only to “a recently launched premium brand saloon”. Can you guess what it is?
It’s the BMW 330e, which was launched at the back end of 2019. It’ll do well to have the sustained sales success of the Outlander PHEV, though, which since launch has found its way to 52,000 driveways in the UK – that’s double the number of the second best-selling plug-in hybrid in the UK, according to Mitsubishi. It’ll be referring to the Toyota Prius Plug-In there.
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV was launched in the UK in 2013 and almost instantly became a favourite with company car drivers owing to its combination of space and alluring tax efficiency. And despite being a pretty poor car in many ways: unrefined, terribly uneconomical once the battery is flat, and hardly inspiring to look at. Still, it’s been propping up Mitsubishi in the UK for almost a decade now.
Unfortunately it’s a situation unlikely to last much longer, as Mitsubishi recently declared that it no longer intended to sell models in the Europe – much to the shock of its official UK importer, called Colt Car Company. The writing was arguably on the wall though, with Mitsubishi announcing a £1.2bn loss for the first quarter of 2020 alone – before the Coronavirus crisis really kicked in, that is.
And when the best you can offer in your UK showroom is an ageing and massive plug-in hybrid SUV whose sole USP is tax efficiency, well….
In addition, consumer tastes are rapidly shifting away from plug-in hybrid vehicles (generally seen as a ‘bridge’ technology to full electric), as battery electric technology advances with rapidity. Only three of the top ten best-selling electrified vehicles in the first quarter of 2020 were plug-in hybrid vehicles, the rest of them full electric cars, topped by the Tesla Model 3.
Keyword: Beleaguered Mitsubishi still has UK’s second best-selling hybrid on its hands