Japanese carmaker Mitsubishi has announced a freeze on the launch of new models on the European market. This means that the next generation of SUV Outlander and Eclipse Cross, which were to start selling here in the first half of next year, will not come, as confirmed by Marek Vodička, spokesman for the Czech representation of the brand.
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However, existing models will be sold unchanged, at least as long as they comply with the European Union’s emissions rules.
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According to the British website Autocar, the brand has taken such a step because it wants to focus on the Southeast Asian market. There, it has a market share of 6.4%, significantly higher than 1% in Europe. Also there, last year it achieved an operating profit of 63.6 billion yen (approximately 13.4 billion crowns), while in the rest of the world markets it was only 12.8 billion yen (approximately 2.7 billion crowns).
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Can such a step foreshadow the complete withdrawal of the brand from European markets? According to Vodička, there is no such thing in the game now. But what happens if the brand does not “thaw” its activities in Europe before the current models push the EU’s increasingly tightening emissions regulations out of the market is a question at the moment.
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